I’ve written here and elsewhere about how I have difficulty setting fiction in places I’ve never been. This is especially true for fantasy, which for me apparently needs to be solidly grounded in reality and concrete detail to give a firm foundation to the bullshit I must necessarily shovel.
Some of the sequences in the last act of Avalon Burning take place in the Yosemite Valley, which I’ve never been to. I caught myself trying to fake it through armchair research, and then said, Really, Steve? You’re going to fake Yosemite? Aren’t you the guy who said that the reason you go to these places is for the One True Thing you’ll find there that absolutely and unequivocally sells the rest — that thing you wouldn’t have experienced without going there? Plus, I’ve lived in California since 1984 and claim to love love love it, and I’ve never been to Yosemite? Yeesh.
So: Three days in Yosemite it is! Not purely research — I could definitely use a little getaway. I tend not to be very good at vacations. I always need to be doing something — making stuff, making stuff up, whatever. So making myself stop making stuff takes a bit of effort and some time to decompress. Sometimes I don’t realize I’ve actually enjoyed my vacations until I come back from them. Silly, innit?
The Mortality Bridge website will be ready for launch in a week or so. I’m definitely looking forward to that. John Scalzi, bless his heart, sent in the most wonderful blurb ever for the book:
Luminously tragic, darkly funny and deeply moving, all in turns and sometimes all at once. Steven Boyett is one of the very few writers who will make you eager to go into Hell, and not worry about whether you return.
Yowza! John is signing at Borderlands in SF on May 16, and I intend to be there scattering rose petals before him as he passes by bestowing his blessings upon the gathered throngs.