Here’s your chance to ask me that question you’ve always wanted an answer to.

Starting tomorrow, I will be appearing for the next five days on the Center Stage forum of the Barnes & Noble Book Club. I’ll be logging on at least once each day to field whatever questions my readers and the B&N customers have left for me. Now, I’m not going to promise to answer all of the questions. I will give it my best college try, but a lot depends on how many questions are actually posted. Sometimes this blog generates hundreds of comments in just a few hours, and that’s obviously more than I can handle… but if the number is more manageable, well, I’ll see what I can do.

You’ll find Center Stage at http://bookclubs.barnesandnoble.com/bn/board?board.id=CenterStage if you would like to post a question, or just read the ongoing discussions.

I will actually have three topics for my very own. One for INSIDE STRAIGHT and the Wild Card series, one for A SONG OF ICE AND FIRE and all my other books, and one about my experiences writing for television and film, including BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, TWILIGHT ZONE, and my series-that-never-was, DOORWAYS. So be sure to post your question in the right topic.

Current Mood: null

I’m glad so many of you enjoyed my April’s Fool post. Thanks for the laughs.

I’m back home again from the conventions in Blacksburg, Virginia and Madison, Wisconsin, and settling in for the big push. The cons were both great fun, though travel was, as usual, stressful and unpleasant. More and more, I am finding that while I love visiting distant cities and exotic climes, I hate the process of getting there. Would that I could teleport.

Or drive. I still love driving. Give me my RX-7, an open road, some good tunes on my tape deck, and the Babe in the Box to tell me where to go, and I’m a happy traveller. Put me at an airport and my blood pressure starts to build at once.

Ah, well.

Anyway, I’m back now, and not going anywhere until late June, when I will be taking off on my long-anticipated trip to Ireland, Portugal, and Spain. It’s part vacation, part speaking engagement, and part promotional tour. If you live in or near any of those three places, watch the Appearances page on my website for details of when and when I’ll be. We’ll be adding dates as the events are confirmed.

Of course, I need to finish A DANCE WITH DRAGONS before I leave, or else my publishers will hunt me down and kill me. So that’s pretty much all I’ll be doing between now and then. And if I don’t finish, maybe I’ll just stay in Ireland, Portugal, or Spain, where no one will ever be able to find me.

Actually it’s not true that DANCE is all that I’ll be doing. I’ll also be editing the next Wild Cards books, SUICIDE KINGS, co-editing WARRIORS and SONGS OF THE DYING EARTH with Gardner Dozois, finishing the third Dunk & Egg novella, which is oh-so-close, and of course watching the NFL draft. Without me glued to the television, how will the Giants and the Jets know who to pick? But never mind…

I don’t know how much I will be posting here, or updating my website in general, however. The News page is woefully out of date, I know, and the pictures of babies, puppies, and cute kittens for the fan page are piling up… but for what it’s worth, when my webpage isn’t getting update, that’s usually a sign that I’m lost in my writing, with no energy left at the end of the day for much else. So that’s good.

Oh, and then there’s Center Stage. More on that in a moment.

Current Mood: null