Updated and probably Final Boskone Schedule

In case anyone reading here will be at Boskone this weekend in Boston, MA...



Friday 8:00pm Pictionary
Myself, Keith DeCandido and Craig Shaw Gardner, none of whom can draw worth a damn. SFnal themes, of course. Alcohol WILL be involved, on my part at least.


Saturday 2:00pm Shadows Over Baker Street: SF&F Tie-ins to Mysteries
Pretty obvious, there. Huge crossover -- why? And why do so many SF writers also write mysteries, and vice versa? (Walter Mosely, Dana Stabenow, Peter Heck, Kristine Rusch, etc)

Saturday 4:00pm Kaffeklatsch
Your chance to ask me all those questions you never had the nerve to in a larger setting. Also to see my pretty!shiny!bright! cover for Staying Dead up close and personal.

Saturday 5:00pm Tall Dark and Handsomoid: the Rise of Romance SF
I can't promise anything, but I suspect the term "interstellar smut" will be used at least once.


Sunday 1:00pm Writing Your SECOND Novel
Not that I know anything at all about this topic, oh dear me no...

coverage!

And lo, the solicitation cover for STAYING DEAD arrived in the mail today.
And one is now in place of honor above my monitor, so when I look up I
see Wren staring back at me, saying "why aren't you writing faster?"

Pushy wench, that Wren.

I might have changed a few nibbly things about it, here and there, and I
wish they'd gone with 6x9 instead of an off-sized trade format, but I know
why they did all that they did, including that, and overall I just gotta
say...


DUDE! MY COVER! ROCKS!


*heh*


And if they decide to do a mass edition it will reduce quite well, which
is always a concern.

So all in all, I'm feeling pretty good about it all. Will let you all know when it's available for pre-order, natch.

Words of Practical Wisdom

Over in matociquala's journal there's a discussion of inspiration, and the unreliability thereof. And I posted something the discussion triggered in my memory, and I'm carrying it over here because it's germane to my day.

The story I posted had to do with being at a convention back in my youthful days as an editor, and hearing a Wannabe ask an Old Pro once "what do you do when the story just isn't coming?" And the Old Pro said "you go out and get it."

I always remembered that as a touchstone of the professional writer. Go out and get it. Club it over the head if need be -- you can make nice to it later, once you have it strapped down.

That's what I'm doing today. I have a deadline. And to go with that deadline all I had was a visual -- a boy, standing on red sand. And the deadline was coming up hard on my heels.

So I sat down and did some research. Where might that boy be? What does the color of the sand indicate about his location? What mythologies center around that location? What would have sent him there, into peril and hardship?

And out of the research (the going and getting) the story came to me. Not all of it -- this is not a familiar character who will not stop talking (Yes you Valere, now sit down and shut up). In fact, he doesn't talk much at all. He's a doer, not a talker. And not much of a thinker, either. But he has a great heart. And someday he may forgive me for clobbering him over the head and dragging him back to my burrow...