Archive for August, 2008

Our long vacation has come to an end. Around 7:30pm local time, we pulled into the campus of the Citadel, where cadets were already in presence. Back to reality, it seems.

On the plus side, the three days of driving it took to get from Denver to here went as well as could be hoped. The Rondo purred like the great machine that it is, and Sherry — bless her heart — drove for at least half of the distance, allowing me to write on the road. As a result of this last face, I’m pleased to note that the first draft of Four Shards is complete, clocking in at just over 105,000 words. I am pleased.

I attended my first real speculative fiction convention today: WorldCon, which is being held in Denver this year. I had a terrific time, though circumstances dictated that I could only stay for a few hours. Still, in that brief time I talked to (in order of appearance) Brandon Sanderson, Eric James Stone, Ken Scholes, Tina Connolly, Alethea Kontis, Nick Mamatas, Mary Robinette Kowal, John Scalzi, Lawrence M. Schoen, Dean Wesley Smith, and a number of other folks I’m just not recalling at the moment. I found everyone warm and friendly, and I suspect I might go to more cons.

As an added bonus, the aforementioned Mary won the Campbell Award for best new writer — a well-deserved honor that could not have gone to a better person. Or writer, I think. I’ve been using her work to teach students how to craft short fiction for a couple of years now. If you’ve not read one of her stories, do so at once. Then, when her first novel comes out (soon, if them publishin’ folks now anything at all), you can say you read her back when.

Congratulations, Mary!

Spent yesterday up among the highest mountains in the state of Colorado, looking at real estate. Our primary target was Twin Lakes, though we did stop to see what Leadville and Buena Vista had to offer. There’s some beautiful property up there — a few examples of which we can actually afford — but I don’t think we’ll buy at this time. Life remains too unstable, both career-wise and economy-wise. The current mountain pine beetle infestation that’s devestating Colorado’s forests is also disturbing. I wonder if there’ll be any trees left in ten years.

In other news, I might pop down to WorldCon tomorrow to catch a panel on the completion of Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time. Brandon Sanderson will be there, as will Tom Doherty of Tor Books. So it seems like the sort of thing I ought to attend. If I’m lucky, I might even see a few of my writer colleagues down there, too.

Beyond all this, work continues on Four Shards. Just a few chapters to go!