Monkeys on My Back

June 23, 2012 at 2:57 pm

This is for those who complain I never blog about my work. (I do, but not often. I prefer to announce when something is finally done, rather just endless reiterations of “I am working on X, I am working on Z,” and I am never going to be one of those “I wrote three pages today” writers. Sorry, that’s not how I roll).

One little monkey off my back:

THE LANDS OF ICE AND FIRE — also known as “the map book” — is now DONE AND DELIVERED, and scheduled for publication at year’s end.

Monkeys remaining on my back? Lots o’ them:

THE WINDS OF WINTER. Also known as “Son of Kong.” Working on it. Lots to do.

THE WORLD OF ICE AND FIRE. The concordance. Elio and Linda are my partners on this one, a compendium of the history and legends of the world of Westeros. A coffee table book, lots of gorgeous art from such talents as Ted Nasmith, Justin Sweet, and others. Making good progress on this one of late, lots of great historical stuff that I think my readers will enjoy. Never before revealed details of Aegon’s Conquest, the War With the Faith, The Dance of the Dragons, the Paramours of Aegon the Unworthy, etc.

Poul Anderson story. An original short story for the Poul Anderson tribute anthology. Way, way overdue, but I am getting to it.

Dunk & Egg #4, An original novella of Dunk & Egg. Working on it. Hope to have it done by worldcon. It’s scheduled to be published in

DANGEROUS WOMEN. A huge crossgenre anthology that Gardner Dozois and I are doing for Tor. Largely complete, except for Dunk & Egg. Well, we’re waiting for three rewrites, but my own story will likely be the last one in, then we can move this one to “done and delivered.”

LOWBALL. Volume twenty-two in the Wild Cards series. Working on that one with Melinda Snodgrass, my co-editor. Late, but almost done, a few last sections remain to be completed.

OLD MARS. Original anthology for Bantam, coedited with Gardner Dozois. Three-quarters done, a few stories still due in, three or four rewrites in progress. Not due quite yet.

OLD VENUS. The sequel to Old Mars. Well back in the pipeline, not due for a year.

ROGUES. Big crossgenre anthology I am doing with Gardner Dozois. One story already in, several in progress, but there’s lots of time on this one too.

So there we are…

No more monkeys, please. Don’t write to me with any tempting offers or cool new projects. I am practicing saying No.

No, no, no, no, no. Sorry, can’t, pass, no way, count me out, too busy, no, no, no, thanks but no thanks, no thanks, no thanks.

I love my monkeys, but I have enough.

Current Mood: null null

Tags: anthologies, the winds of winter, writing

March Madness

March 1, 2012 at 12:17 pm

Somehow it has become March already. Where did January and February go?

Two months of the year are gone, and already I feel as if I’m two months behind.

And things only get crazier from here.

CANADIANS, take note! I am heading up to Toronto in less than two weeks. I’ll be speaking and reading at the Toronto International Film Festival (sorry, they tell me the event is already sold out), and the signing at Indigo Books. Dates, times, and other details available on my website, so go check there for links.

Back home after that, and back at work, but then at month’s end I am off again, this time to the UK, where I will be Guest of Honor at Eastercon, this year at Heathrow. I will also be doing a couple of signings, one in Bath and one in London. From the UK, I head to Portugal, and events in Lisbon and Porto. Back home again just in time for the NFL Draft (didn’t think I’d miss THAT, didja?).

In between all this, I have, hmmmmm, lemme see, one two three four FIVE projects that I am currently working on, four of which were due months ago… but it’s the fifth that has all my attention now, that I absolutely must finish and deliver before the trip to the UK.

(Oh, and somewhere in there me and my assistants and my accountant must find time to prepare my taxes, so I can write the IRS the biggest check that I have written in my life. I am going to be much, much poorer by month’s end)

Busy, busy, busy.

I love the work, actually. I just hate the deadlines.

Current Mood: null null

Tags: conventions, travels, writing

Venting

February 25, 2012 at 5:09 pm

Sorry, but I need to vent.

I am being nibbled to death by mice.

And this morning a elephant landed on me.

*gurgle*

There are not enough hours in the day. There are not enough days in the week. There are not enough weeks in the year. Sometimes it feels as if I work all day every day, only to wind up further behind by the time the sun goes down, as more mice come swarming through the cracks and more elephants come lumbering through the doors.

I really really really need to learn to say No.

No, I will not come to your convention, thanks for asking.

No, I will not read your manuscript/ galley proof/ book, but good luck with that.

No, I will not write a story for your anthology, I am a year behind writing stories for my own anthologies.

No, I will not write a preface/ introduction/ foreword for your book.

No, I will not do an interview.

No, no, no, no, no, no.

Such a simple word. Such a short word. Why do I have such trouble uttering it?

Once I give my word to attend a con/ write a story/ do an interview, I feel honor bound to deliver, to follow through, to make good my promise. But I give my word too often and too easily, I need to realize that. I do, I do, I DO realize that… on an intellectual level, but maybe not in my gut. And so while my brain is saying, “you can’t do that, you do not have the time,” my lips are saying, “sure, love to, sounds great.”

I need to remember my mantra. One page at a time. One word at a time. One chore at a time. You cannot do everything today. Put out the biggest fire, the rest will still be burning tomorrow. No. No. No.

*sigh*

Thank you for listening. This too will pass. Tomorrow it won’t seem so overwhelming.

Excuse me, I need to go step on some mice.

End of venting.

Current Mood: null null

Tags: editing, everyday life, travel, writing

Learn to Rite Good

August 8, 2011 at 8:41 am

The Clarion West writer’s workshop in Seattle has announced its lineup of instructors for 2012.

I’m one of them.

Here’s the scoop:

http://www.clarionwest.org/

The Clarion workshops are a sort of writer’s boot camp. They’re not for everyone — the criticism can be intense — but for those who are willing to live, eat, drink, and breathe SF and fantasy for a summer, there’s no better training. Admission is pretty competitive as well. Many apply, few are chosen.

But over the decades Clarion and Clarion West have turned out more professional SF and fantasy writers than all the college creative writing programs in the country combined.

Scholarships are available for those who cannot afford the tuition.

Current Mood: null null

Tags: appearances, teaching, writing

Monkeys On My Back

June 1, 2011 at 12:42 pm

Now that Kong has fallen, all the smaller monkeys who were hiding in his fur have come out and began to howl and chatter and beat me about the head and shoulders.

I got one off my back yesterday (though not one that most of you will care much about): my bloody taxes. At least, I got them to my accountant, so he can file my returns by the June 15 deadline. I had to take an extension back in April, since I was deep in the throes of wrestling Kong and did not have the time to deal with all those little bits of paper. I try not to bitch about taxes too much, mind you. As a good liberal, I don’t actually mind paying taxes. (And I pay a LOT of taxes). I know taxes are the price of a civilized society. That being said, I hate DOING taxes. It has gotten easier in recent years, with Ty doing a lot of the prep work and my accountant doing the final prep and filing the return… but somehow it still always seems to come down to me at three in the morning, zonked on coffee and staring at a faded receipt for $8.17 and trying to figure out what it is, where it’s from, and whether it’s deductible.

Anyway, that’s done. For one more year, at least.

Which is not to say that my back is without monkeys.

Here’s the stuff I am dealing with right now:
— reviewing pitch proposals and putting together the overplot for the new Wild Cards mosaic novel, LOWBALL,
— writing the first draft of my script for episode nine of season two of the HBO series GAME OF THRONES, “Blackwater,” and damn, but this one is a bitch of an adaptation, the original author made the damn battle way too big and too expensive,
— working on a Nicholas van Rijn story for the Poul Anderson tribute anthology Gardner Dozois and Greg Bear are editing (an especially noisy monkey, since the deadline was today and the story is a long way from being done),
— getting back into THE WORLD OF ICE AND FIRE, the long-promised concordance I am doing with Elio and Linda, which is almost three years late at this point, and needs to be finished and delivered by year’s end,
— roughing out the next Dunk and Egg novella, the next story in the queue after I finished the “Blackwater” script and the Poul Anderson story,
— planning for a long summer of travel: the visit to Poland and Slovenia, the book tour, San Diego comicon, worldcon in Reno, Bubonicon, and maybe another trip overseas in the fall for the HBO show, depending,
— working on a complete redesign of my website, much needed and long potsponed,
— supervising and reviewing and approving materials for the games, the cards, the video games, the comic books, the replica swords, the miniatures, etc, etc.

I am exhausted just typing about it.

And behind all that, of course, lurks Son of Kong: the WINDS OF WINTER.

Why am I writing this damned post??? I need to get to WORK!

Current Mood: null null

Tags: anthologies, appearances, editing, everyday life, writing

Dancing

August 7, 2010 at 4:38 pm

Another chapter done.

And another character. This wraps up Yogi for the book. The Meereenese knot is hanging by a thread. One more good slash and it may finally part.

That’s eight characters completed. Not counting the prologue or epilogue.

Course, there’s still more to due. Got to get back to shoveling Snow soon, and there’s still Fred hanging on, but first I need to hack at that blasted knot some more.

(Some year all this will make sense to you. Assuming anyone still cares).

Current Mood: null null

Tags: a dance with dragons, writing

August

August 4, 2010 at 12:06 am

August? August? AUGUST??? How the hell did it get to be August? What happened to July? Who took June?

Argh.

Well, I had to turn over the page on my World Wildlife Fund calendar. The big gorilla has been replaced by elephants. But Kong is not yet subdued. So much for omens.

Perhaps for the next month it is my fate to wrestle Dumbo. How am I gonna beat Dumbo? He FLIES.

I actually had a very good day today, writing about a character who wasn’t originally supposed to be a POV, but has turned out to be sharpest sword I’ve got for slicing through the Meereenese knot. I’d feel very good about that, except somehow it has become AUGUST. With worldcon bearing down on me like a freight train.

Sorry. Sorry. Don’t mean to rave. Got to remember my mantra. One page at a time. One sentence at a time. One word at a time.

Here’s a nicer memory of August, from the old 2009 calendar:

Would that it were actually August 2009 instead of August 2010.

Bye for now. I have to feed the elephant.

Current Mood: null null

Tags: a dance with dragons, writing

Dancing

August 1, 2010 at 6:58 pm

Still have that final Fred chapter to finish. Sometimes it’s good to change gears, though, so I did that today, and completed the last Barney chapter.

So that’s one more viewpoint done with, at least.

If only I didn’t have so many of them…

Current Mood: null null

Tags: a dance with dragons, writing

Dancing

July 31, 2010 at 1:22 pm

No, this is not the promised post about Charles Dance. Later.

Just kicked Aeron Damphair’s scraggly arse out of DANCE WITH DRAGONS. He only had the only chapter, and it will work better early in the next book than late in this one. (That’s how it looks to me today, anyway. I reserve the right to change my mind).

So DANCE has gotten a smidge shorter. But is still not done.

The good news is that I seem to have written more than a hundred pages of THE WINDS OF WINTER already.

Current Mood: null null

Tags: a dance with dragons, the winds of winter, writing

A Few Odds, Some Ends

July 30, 2010 at 8:02 pm

Nightmarish day yesterday. The computer virus that we’ve been battling for weeks… often hammering it down, but never entirely eradicating it… upsurged again, and totally messed my Windows machine, so Ty had to spend the whole day dealing with it, and I could never get on line to read my emails.

He was finally successful, so I’m back in business. In fact, the computer is running better than it has for weeks. Maybe Ty has finally slain the beast. But I won’t celebrate too soon.

Of course, just one single day away from my email meant that I had more than a hundred letters in my inbox when I did get back on this morning. ONE DAY! Aieeee….

On other fronts, I see that Mo Ryan broke the Charles Dance casting while I was in computer hell. Yay, Mo. I’m very pleased by this one, and will post more about it later. Got a couple other castings I should talk about as well… but it has dawned on me that there’s no way I can talk about them ALL. Not if I want to do anything else. There are just so many.

The first week of shooting in Belfast went well, I hear, although the weather screwed with them a bit and pretty much confined them to the Paint Hall. Wish I could have been there.

I missed the San Diego Comicon as well, as previously posted. But I did have a presence. IDW announced the DOORWAYS comic, as below… and Bantam Specta debuted the gorgeous new 2011 Ice & Fire calendar, with its stunning Ted Nasmith art.

The calendar is now officially on sale and available, at all good bookstores that sell calendars. Also on Amazon. And they are shipping now. People are already receiving their calendars. Yes, we thought we would try something new this time, like actually sending people the calendars that they order. I hope you like this innovation. (This is not an invitation to rehash the mess we had with the 2009 calendar. That horse is dead. We know, we know. Believe me, we know).

Oh, and I also wanted to mention LIGHTSPEED, a new on-line SF magazine edited by the talented John Joseph Adams. Their current issue reprints a story by some Martin guy from the dawn of time, called “… for a single yesterday.” You can read it here:

http://www.lightspeedmagazine.com/fiction/for-a-single-yesterday/

The way LIGHTSPEED works, JJA informs me, “you can read all of our content for free, but it’s serialized on the website throughout the month, one story and one article per week. If you want to read the week 4 story now–or if you just want it in convenient downloadable formats–you can just buy the ebook version.”

So: electronic magazines. Wave of the future.

Finally, might mention that I finished a chapter of the DANCE today. I had one last chapter about this particular character — I will call him Fred — to finish, and then I am done with him for the book. Of course, in the writing, it turned into three chapters. So I finished a Fred chapter a week ago, and a Fred chapter an hour ago, and yet I STILL have one Fred chapter to finish. Sigh. The horizon recedes continuously before me.

Time to go eat supper. Bye.

Current Mood: null

Tags: a dance with dragons, calendar, writing

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Monkeys on My Back

March Madness

Venting

Learn to Rite Good

Monkeys On My Back

Dancing

August

Dancing

Dancing

A Few Odds, Some Ends

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