Charlie's Diary

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Fri, 18 Mar 2005

Quietude

Part of the reason I've been quiet has been the "Accelerando" proofing job. Another part was the Writer's Bloc reading event on Wednesday, which requisitioned what was left of my energy after I finished proofing the novel. And the final part is: I'm currently making in-roads on my backlog of short fiction.

This month, in addition to checking the proofs of "Accelerando" I've written and sold two stories (or, to be pedantic, a short story and a novelette) -- "Snowball's Chance", which will be published in "Nova Scotia", an anthology of Scottish SF that's due to be launched at Interaction, and a longer piece, "Pimpf", set in the universe of "The Atrocity Archives", which will be published in The Golden Gryphon Anthology in late 2006.

This leaves me facing, variously: a novella for Gardner Dozois' forthcoming anthology of far-future SF, a story for Interzone, a really short story for Nature, and a longer story or novella for Asimov's SF Magazine. All but the last of these have been solicited. There are a couple more requests below the waterline, but they're not needed before autumn/winter: these are the ones on top of the pile. As I normally write two or three short stories a year, and I've got to get through this pile before May, I'm wibbling a little -- especially because, looming like a thundercloud over the short pieces, I have two novel deadlines: "The Jennifer Morgue" has to be written by the end of June, and "Glasshouse" has to be finalized and handed in by August. (And while "Glasshouse" is substantially complete and just needs some final fine tuning, "The Jennifer Morgue" is only about 20% written.)

This would be a fairly complete workload (only 150,000 words by the end of June) but there's other stuff, too. I'm going to the British Eastercon next weekend, which will take me away from home for close to a week (it's about 350 miles away and for reasons too tedious to go into I need to take a car there and back). In June, I'm guest of honour at a con in Gothenburg, Sweden, and in August I'm guest of honour at a con in Austin, Texas as well as going to the worldcon in Glasgow, the Edinburgh Book Festival, and other venues.

And when I'm not working I've still got to do the washing, stroke the cats, clean the litter tray, go swimming regularly, play computer games, and take time out to be human. For example, it's been about three years since I took a vacation more than three days long that didn't involve work (i.e. talking to editors, appearing at a convention, and so on).

What this means is, I'm pretty close to declaring myself booked up for the next eight months. I'm not saying I'll automatically turn down any requests for short stories or writing work, but if you want me to write something for you there'd better be a compelling reason for it, or a deadline some time in 2006. And if this weblog goes a little bit quiet between now and August, you have been warned.

[Discuss writing]



posted at: 15:26 | path: /writing | 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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