Whew.

Well, I’m back home again in Santa Fe, after… how long have I been on the road, exactly? It feels like six months at least. England, Scotland, Italy, and then my US book tour… one city blurs into another… it was great, all of it, but damn, it was exhausting too. I can see I need to get in much better shape before I attempt anything like that again. I don’t know that I’ve ever been so tired.

There are a hundred stories I could tell about the tours, and maybe I will tell a few in posts to come, but right now I’m too weary. I do, however, want to thank all of you who came out to see me. The crowds were astonishing. On the US tour, the smallest turnouts were still in excess of 250 people, and some of the events were much bigger than that. Tattered Cover in Denver and Joseth Beth in Lexington both topped 400, the University Book Store in Seattle hit 500 or thereabouts, and the New York and Ann Arbor signings each drew more than 600 people. Hot damn.

It was great to see so many people, and to hear so much enthusiasm… and if at times I seemed somewhat overwhelmed by it all, please chalk that up to travel fatigue and sleep deprivation. I love meeting my readers, and I only wish I could have had more than half a minute to spend with each of you (FWIW, cons are really much better than signings for talking and hanging out). There were moments, especially in Ann Arbor and New York City, where it felt as though the signing lines would never end, and I would still be scrawling in books as the sun came up… but at least I had a comfortable seat. All of you who stood in those lines for hours at a time deserve an award for valor. Thanks for your patience… and for your kind words when at last you finally made it to the front.

I was in the Bay Area when I received the news that A FEAST FOR CROWS was going to debut at #1 on the NEW YORK TIMES bestseller list (CROWS also hit #1 on the WALL STREET JOURNAL and PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY lists, and #2 on the USA TODAY list, which combines fiction and nonfiction). A few days before, TIME magazine had hit the stands, with as good a review as any writer could ever hope for. Being able to share those tiding with my readers at some of the signings made them even more memorable. This will be a month that I will remember for a long, long time to come…

Just now, though, all I want to do is sleep, read my mail, and get caught up on my football games and the last six episodes of ROME.

Later.

Current Mood: null

Has it really been three months since my first post?

Since opening “Not A Blog” back in July, I have been spending half my time on the road. We took off in late July for Ireland, followed by the worldcon in Glasgow, then several additional weeks of travel through the UK. I saw my British editors in Glasgow and again in London, had meetings with several artists that I’m working with or hope to work with, and stood in front of castles to get a more up-to-date jacket photograph. And somewhere in there I had a wonderful lunch with some of my fellow toy soldier collectors, enjoyed the marvelous hospitality of Peter and Gilly Greenhill and saw the Courtenay Molds (sacred to every knights guy), and partied with the wild men and hot babes of the Brotherhood Without Banners, Europe. So it wasn’t all business.

By the time I got home, the usual mountain of mail and email awaited me, and no sooner had I dug my way out than it was time to take off again, this time for the National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. I got a great crowd at my speech, and it was a real kick (albeit somewhat intimidating)to follow John Irving, Neil Gaiman, and Tom Wolfe (all writers whose work I’ve admired)on the stage. Thanks to all those who turned up. Those who couldn’t make it can find a webcast of my speech at the festival by following the link on my News page.

Anyway, that’s what I’ve been doing since my last entry… some of the time, at least. (I have also been doing lots of tedious post production work on FEAST and several other projects, checking cover copy and correcting the maps and signing signature pages and going over the galleys and all sorts of other boring stuff). And on Friday I’m off again, headed back to England for my British book tour, and then the Lucca Game and Comics Show in Italy. After that my US book tour will be looming. So I probably won’t be posting here again until after Thanksgiving. (If then).

I warned you that I was no good at this blogging stuff.

Anyway, I do hope I’ll be seeing many of you in England or Italy or wherever. If I have a slightly glazed look on my face and don’t seem to know what country I’m in, forgive me. It has been a long year, and I’m tired.

Oh, one thing before I run… I have gotten a lot of emails asking about my “policies” at signings. Truth is, I have only one policy. I will sign old books as well as the new one, and I will sign as many books as you bring… but only three at a time. If you bring more, I will still sign them all, but after the first three you need to go back to the end of the line to give others a chance.

That’s not to say there won’t be other limitations. The bookshops where I am appearing may have policies of their own. Some require tickets, some will only allow me to sign books purchased at the store, some permit photographs and some do not. Their call, not mine. So if you are thinking of going to one of the events and would like to know what rules and restrictions will be in effect, you want to call the bookstore and ask.

See you there.

Current Mood: null

I’m calling this “Not A Blog.”

I mean, I don’t have time to do a weblog. I don’t have the energy to do a weblog. There’s just no way I could do a weblog.

I did have my own personal topic on GEnie once (ah, GEnie… a colossal time sink, that, but I do miss it sometimes). A lot of people did. Some of them posted every day. Some posted every week. I posted… well, I posted sometimes… when I had something to say, or something to announce, or…

It is likely to be the same here. Be warned. Days, weeks, and even months may go by with no new entries to this journal. If so, that doesn’t mean I’ve died. Just the opposite, actually. It probably means I’m busy doing stuff. It may even mean that I’m writing. After a long day at the computer writing fiction, the last thing I want to do is sit at the computer some more updating my weblog.

Even so, I thought this might be a good idea. My website has a number of different pages, but sometimes I want to add stuff that does not fit conveniently into any of the established categories.

Political commentary, for instance. Last election I had a couple of political messages on my site that really irritated some of my visitors (and pleased even more, but never mind). There were various reasons for that, but one was that I stuck the commentary onto the page called ‘About A FEAST FOR CROWS.’ It was suggested that if I wanted to talk about politics, I should have a separate page for that. Well, no. If I had a political page, I’d need to update it, which would mean I would have to write a lot more about politics. No, thanks.

This is better. I will talk politics here, in future. I will talk about pizza here, in future. I will report on trips here, upload con reports, complain about stuff (there’s a lot to complain about in modern life, it seems to me, and we all need a place to vent). I will, in short, post whatever the hell I want to here.

Just don’t expect me to do it very often.

Because this is Not A Blog.

I don’t have time to keep a weblog.