Charlie's Diary

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Sat, 11 Sep 2004 Quiet in here, isn't it? I'm back in Boston, recovering from the past week or so. First rule of worldcon-going, if you're a new writer, is to volunteer to be on lots of panels and do lots of signings and other Exciting Author Stuff. Work that turf, right? This is true up to a point (and if the con breaks even you might even get your membership fee back), but the Second rule is a bit less obvious: don't volunteer for too much. You will inevitably be booked up for lots of signings at obscure (and less obscure) dealer tables and bookstores, your editor will probably want to drag you out for lunch or dinner (this is a Business Meeting which means they get an excuse for living high on the hog at their employer's expense), and -- hell, just leave some time for sitting around relaxing and chatting to friends, or sightseeing, or going to parties, or something, right? The second rule really kicks in when you are writing for Asimov's SF Magazine, have three book publishers, an agent (who also wants to do lunch in order to talk strategy), a couple of other editors who are publishing anthologies you're in or trying to get you to sell them a short story collection, and a sometime collaborator who is no less busy than you are, i.e. jumping around all over the place like a performing flea on crack. Volunteering for four hours of panels a day is a heavy but sustainable load -- if you have nothing else on your plate. If you're in demand, though, that basically means you're working 8-12 hours each and every day of something that's meant to be an enjoyable convention as well as a working event. Anyway, Noreascon 4 zipped past me at about eighty miles per hour over the speed limit. I wouldn't say it wasn't fun, but the only things that got me through it were huge amounts of caffeine and somewhat more moderate amounts of beer. And right afterwards I zipped down to New York for three days of trudging around in the sweltering heat, having half a hurricane's worth of rain (excuse me, it's a tropical storm once the wind speed has dropped) dumped on me, and so on. The hotel booking was the first time Lastminute.com has let me down badly: it is not a good thing when you arrive at the street address of the budget hotel to find that if you go up an obscure flight of stairs you find a handwritten note on the glass door of a tailor's shop saying CHECKIN HERE and nobody home. Luckily we had the prior offer of a spare bedroom (many thanks, Moshe!) so all was not lost, but it got us off to a bad start. I'm not going to bore you with my New York travelogue (unless you want me to); suffice to say, if you've lived in London for a few years New York is basically the same application implemented on a different operating system (America 1.0). Manhattan has some truly wonderful architecture, but the effects at ground level -- everything scrunched up into the edges of canyon-like streets -- is rather less charming. Anyway, I did most of what I went there to do, and now I'm back in Boston (in the Marriott again) taking a couple of days to recover from the combination of worldcon and side-trip to New York. Hopefully I'll have something more interesting to talk about sooner rather than later ... [Discuss] posted at: 16:15 | path: /fandom | permanent link to this entry

specials: Is SF About to Go Blind? -- Popular Science article by Greg Mone Unwirer -- an experiment in weblog mediated collaborative fiction Inside the MIT Media Lab -- what it's like to spend a a day wandering around the Media Lab "Nothing like this will be built again" -- inside a nuclear reactor complex Quick links: RSS Feed (Moved!) Who am I? Contact me Buy my books: (FAQ) Missile Gap Via Subterranean Press (US HC -- due Jan, 2007) The Jennifer Morgue Via Golden Gryphon (US HC -- due Nov, 2006) Glasshouse Via Amazon.com (US HC -- due June 30, 2006) The Clan Corporate Via Amazon.com (US HC -- out now) Accelerando Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB -- due June 27, 2006) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK HC) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK PB) Free download The Hidden Family Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB) The Family Trade Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB) Iron Sunrise Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK HC) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK PB) The Atrocity Archives Via Amazon.com (Trade PB) Via Amazon.co.uk (Trade PB) Via Golden Gryphon (HC) Via Amazon.com (HC) Via Amazon.co.uk (HC) Singularity Sky Via Amazon.com (US HC) Via Amazon.com (US PB) Via Amazon.com (US ebook) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK HC) Via Amazon.co.uk (UK PB) Toast Via Amazon.com Via Amazon.co.uk Some webby stuff I'm reading: [ Engadget ] [ Gizmodo ] [ The Memory Hole ] [ Boing!Boing! ] [ Futurismic ] [ Walter Jon Williams ] [ Making Light (TNH) ] [ Crooked Timber ] [ Junius (Chris Bertram) ] [ Baghdad Burning (Riverbend) ] [ Bruce Sterling ] [ Ian McDonald ] [ Amygdala (Gary Farber) ] [ Cyborg Democracy ] [ Body and Soul (Jeanne d'Arc)  ] [ Atrios ] [ The Sideshow (Avedon Carol) ] [ This Modern World (Tom Tomorrow) ] [ Jesus's General ] [ Mick Farren ] [ Early days of a Better Nation (Ken MacLeod) ] [ Respectful of Otters (Rivka) ] [ Tangent Online ] [ Grouse Today ] [ Hacktivismo ] [ Terra Nova ] [ Whatever (John Scalzi) ] [ GNXP ] [ Justine Larbalestier ] [ Yankee Fog ] [ The Law west of Ealing Broadway ] [ Cough the Lot ] [ The Yorkshire Ranter ] [ Newshog ] [ Kung Fu Monkey ] [ S1ngularity ] [ Pagan Prattle ] [ Gwyneth Jones ] [ Calpundit ] [ Lenin's Tomb ] [ Progressive Gold ] [ Kathryn Cramer ] [ Halfway down the Danube ] [ Fistful of Euros ] [ Orcinus ] [ Shrillblog ] [ Steve Gilliard ] [ Frankenstein Journal (Chris Lawson) ] [ The Panda's Thumb ] [ Martin Wisse ] [ Kuro5hin ] [ Advogato ] [ Talking Points Memo ] [ The Register ] [ Cryptome ] [ Juan Cole: Informed comment ] [ Global Guerillas (John Robb) ] [ Shadow of the Hegemon (Demosthenes) ] [ Simon Bisson's Journal ] [ Max Sawicky's weblog ] [ Guy Kewney's mobile campaign ] [ Hitherby Dragons ] [ Counterspin Central ] [ MetaFilter ] [ NTKnow ] [ Encyclopaedia Astronautica ] [ Fafblog ] [ BBC News (Scotland) ] [ Pravda ] [ Meerkat open wire service ] [ Warren Ellis ] [ Brad DeLong ] [ Hullabaloo (Digby) ] [ Jeff Vail ] [ The Whiskey Bar (Billmon) ] [ Groupthink Central (Yuval Rubinstein) ] [ Unmedia (Aziz Poonawalla) ] [ Rebecca's Pocket (Rebecca Blood) ] Older stuff: June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 April 2003 March 2003 February 2003 January 2003 December 2002 November 2002 October 2002 September 2002 August 2002 July 2002 June 2002 May 2002 April 2002 March 2002 (I screwed the pooch in respect of the blosxom entry datestamps on March 28th, 2002, so everything before then shows up as being from the same time)

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