Got in to World Fantasy around 9:30 last night, held at a waterfront hotel in Baltimore. I actually managed to make it to the tail end of the panel I’d been scheduled on (and then taken off, because I didn’t think I’d make it in time), so that’s 15 minutes of hopefully usefulness to the community? I don’t know.
Amusingly, someone in the audience actually brought up Earthsea, so I got to talk about the Tor.com piece I published yesterday, which I actually like more now than I did when I wrote it. I think you could even get something out of it if you’d never read Earthsea, or even Le Guin. It ended up as hopefully something of an antidote to these trying times. Or maybe a prescription.
I also had a very interesting conversation with a publisher — I think I know where I’m sending the revision of Flight now, which is exciting. It’s going to end up around 50K, I think, which is an awkward length, and I wasn’t sure where to place it, but now I think I have a possible home — they’d consider it a novel and bring it out as a book, which I think is right for it. I’d actually love to have it at this house; fingers crossed, and toes too.
I’m hoping I can talk a few friends into reading it first, because while it’s pretty solid at this point, I really want it to be the best it can be before it goes out. I also think I need to work through, emotionally, the fact that I’m probably never going to come out with a ‘debut novel’ that makes a big splash. It’s a writer’s dream, but I’m not sure it’s going to be my path.
Bodies in Motion was linked stories, and so was The Stars Change, and maybe I’m just not built for writing big, fat Great American novels. Or maybe Flight will actually be that great debut novel, despite being slim, and more of an intimate family story than anything world-changing. Well, we’ll see. It is what it is, and when I tried to force it to have a bigger scope, that didn’t work at all.
Other than that, last night was just chatting with old friends and meeting new people for a few hours in the bar / lounge. It’s on the 5th floor at this hotel, which is taking me a little while to get used to. I can see why they did it this way, because it means you get beautiful views of the harbor from the restaurant.
This is a very pleasant place to grab a morning cup of coffee with an old friend, C.c. Finlay, editor of The Magazine of Science Fiction and Fantasy — it’s a magazine I have yet to crack, but I’m coming for you, Charlie! I’m going to write you a story that you *have* to publish, because it’s just that good.
Now I’ve retired to my own table, to consume one of my crabby eggs benedict (so much food — will have to find someone to feed the other one to — maybe I can talk my roommate, Angeli, into it), and then settle down to two hours powering through e-mail.
Ah, the excitement of the writer’s life. It’s pretty exciting, actually. Or at least satisfying, pleasurable, interesting — I feel lucky.
Welcome to the east coast!