Mercury Magazine has published the Hebrew translation of "Tabloid Reporter to the Stars." This is the first translation of one of my stories that I’ve seen. I can’t read a word of it. I think I’ve made a pretty good guess as to which characters spell out my name, but I could be wrong.
Last weekend, I went to scenic Eden, Utah, for a family reunion for descendants of Arthur and Lenora Erekson, my deceased maternal grandparents. All their living descendants (plus spouses, where applicable) managed to make it to the reunion. And all fifty-three of us are in this picture:
(No, Waldo is not in there.)
I mentioned earlier that I did another interview at CONduit. Actually, it was more of a guest appearance. And now it can be told: I was the guest author on this week’s Writing Excuses podcast. It was a lot of fun to record, because Brandon, Howard, and Dan are very knowledgeable and funny people. Download it and listen. If you have an iPod, I recommend subscribing to the podcast, because it’s always entertaining, even if you’re a reader, not a writer. And hey, it’s only fifteen minutes long (give or take a few.)
I’ve been tagged by neutronjockey to fulfil the following assignment:
To participate, you grab the closest book, go to page 123, find the fifth sentence, and blog it. Then tag five people.
The closest book was in a pile of stuff on the couch in my computer room: The Portable Obituary: How the Famous, Rich and Powerful Really Died, by Michael Largo. I own this book because it was mailed to me. It was mailed to me because I am an active member of the Horror Writers Association, and am therefore eligible to vote for the Bram Stoker Awards. (Did I vote for the book? I’m not telling.)
I went to page 123. Here I ran into a problem in following the instructions, because there is no fifth sentence. Or fourth. Or third, for that matter. There are, in fact, no sentences at all on the page. There is only the letter K, surrounded by a border.
Since it is impossible for me to blog what does not exist, I am unable to complete the assignment. And it just would not be right for me to tag other people to do what I could not do myself.
According to the Nebula Award rules, a work of 40,000 words or more is considered a novel.
As of today, Unforgettable is over 40,000 words.
I never got around to blogging about attending CONduit back in May. It was fun to see the usual suspects there.
My reading went very well (especially in comparison to last year’s CONduit reading, at which I didn’t bother to read. My friend Scott Danielson was the only person who showed up, so we just sat around and talked.) This year, the room was full. (OK, so it was a small room. Still.)
I also got interviewed by iSCIFI TV (about 17 minutes long):
I also did another interview while I was at CONduit, which I’ll probably talk about more next week.
Apparently I never got around to blogging about the Codex Halloween Contest last year. The Halloween Contest is the longest-running contest run by the Codex Writers, with last year’s being the fourth annual contest. While I have been rather successful in the annual Codexian Idol contest, and even won the Fairy Tale contest and the Chinese Menu contest, I had never even placed in the Halloween contest.
But last year I managed to take second place, with "Diamond Tears From Emerald Eyes," a sword-and-sorcery tale about two brothers helping a woman in a wedding dress steal a box from a dead wizard’s castle.
Well, today I got the news that the perspicacious Edmund Schubert, editor of Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show, wants to buy the story. (The title is now "Like Diamond Tears From Emerald Eyes" because, like, I like the word like in the title.) I think this title is probably my most Ken-Scholesish in nature. The story will probably end up in the December issue.
Here’s the first page, just to give you a taste:
Larindo and I were standing guard at the entrance to Krankel’s Fine Jewelry and Loan Emporium when the bride arrived in town. She stepped down from her horseless carriage and into the volcanic ash that covered the road. Her dress must have been enchanted somehow–it managed to stay spotless white as she swept across the street and into Blat’s Tavern next door.
"Pretty lady," said Larindo.
I wrinkled my nose. "Couldn’t tell, what with the veil." But I knew what he meant. Larindo wasn’t overly smart, but he knew pretty things when he saw them. As long as he didn’t try to touch them, I could usually keep him out of trouble.
James Maxey, author of Bitterwood and the just-released Dragonforge (which has an awesome cover), has published seven dragon-related haiku on his dragon-related blog. One of them is by yours truly.
*Bonus points for those who can identify the source of the quote without looking it up.
I’ve often said I’ll listen to just about anything if it has a good dance beat.
A couple of weeks ago, I downloaded some Russian dance club music to help put me in the mood for writing the Russian scenes in my novel. One of the songs is a catchy number with a great beat. And here’s a translation of the lyrics:
My boyfriend is in trouble once again:
Got in a fight, got drunk on something nasty
I’ve had enough and I chased him away
And now I want a man like PutinOne like Putin, full of strength
One like Putin, who won’t be a drunk
One like Putin, who wouldn’t hurt me
One like Putin, who won’t run away!I’ve seen him on the news last night
He was telling us that the world has come to crossroads
With one like him, it’s easy to be home and out
And now I want a man like PutinOne like Putin, full of strength
One like Putin, who won’t be a drunk
One like Putin, who wouldn’t hurt me
One like Putin, who won’t run away!
The song was released during 2004, when both Putin and Bush were running for a second term. Bush barely won, while Putin got 71% of the vote.
Obviously, Bush lacked a catchy dance club tune, or else he would have won in a landslide, too.
My friend Sandra Tayler has published a children’s picture book called Hold on to Your Horses. It’s a fun story and the illustrations are a delight. You can check it out by going to the website, which includes a PDF version of the entire book, so you can sample it before buying.
My tiny contribution to this project was I did the HTML and PHP programming for the website, based on Sandra’s design and instructions.
