I am a bad blogger lately, I know. I will be better. Soon. Yes, soon.
So John Scalzi, bless him and his legacy unto the end of the universe, recommended Mortality Bridge for the Hugo and Nebula award. I am deeply touched, and especially stoked because the novel has had a relatively low profile, and John’s recommendation is enormously helpful in making it more visible, and hugely appreciated.
Last night I went to SF in SF, a monthly series of science fiction readings in San Francisco organized by Rina Weisman that is held in a wonderful venue, the screening room of the Variety Children’s Hospital. Readers were Rudy Rucker, Jay Lake, and K.W. Jeter. Rudy read from his new memoir, Nested Scrolls. Jay read from his Sunspin series, and Jeter read a steampunk fairy tale based on “The Red Shoes.” Quite a lot of variety, and the Q & A afterward was lively.
Dinner with the participants before the event was a terrific back & forth of good conversation. I had not met Jeter before, and I was impressed by how helpful and bolstering he was to writers just beginning to establish themselves. It was also wonderful to see Jay Lake’s amazing upbeat determination in the face of chemotherapy. I wish him all the best.
The event was nearly at capacity, which is even more impressive considering that the Chinese New Year parade was going on at Market Street just outside. What I saw of the parade was pretty damn cool, and there was a wonderfully charged feeling in the air.
I’ve just finished the next round of revisions on Avalon Burning, wherein I sprinkled magic adrenalin dust on the manuscript to amp things up a bit and set up the final act. I’ll start making the changes on the computer tomorrow. I left myself a couple of [INSERT AMAZING SHIT HERE] spots, so there’ll be more work on the computer than simply transcribing my handwritten changes. I tend to separate my current self from my editing self, so that when I’m entering changes I sometimes regard them as having been made by someone else, and it’s not uncommon for me to stare at some note on the manuscript and say, “Why, you son of a bitch.” Perhaps my process is unconventional. Or maybe a lot of writers do this. I dunno.
In any case, I was glad to see that the book doesn’t seem the worse for the drastic cutting, which is the best evidence that it needed to be cut. A couple of scenes were too skimpy because I went overboard, but I left notes for the poor sap who follows me to restore some of the deleted material.