Catch-Up Sunday
Today is really wet—that grey old rain keeps coming down and lying in deep puddles throughout the garden which makes it a decidedly indoors sort of Sunday. There’s a lot of stuff to catch up on, too, besides reading those books mentioned yesterday; pretty much everything that I don’t want to put off until tomorrow otherwise it will cut into writing time. And given that the last fews weeks have been crazily busy with other stuff intruding on that precious time, that’s something I really don’t want to do.
So what’s on today’s list? I have already signed and parcelled up 4 x copies of Thornspell to send out to the blog posters who won giveaways earlier in the week, plus another 1 to a reviewer in Finland (you may recall I talked about Finland a few weeks back in my second “Influences on Story” post); also 1 for fellow writer, Tracey O’Hara, in Australia.
Tracey is another Supernatural Underground blogger and a while back she asked for Supe authors to donate books for a Pink Ribbon Breast Cancer giveaway and also for a Romance Writers of Australia Convention workshop she will be running 12-14 August. But Tracey was so taken with the two giveaways of Thornspell I sent over that I had to volunteer to send another for her very own—so as not to shortchange either of these very worthy giveaway causes—and of course I will be getting a couple of Tracey’s debut novel, Love’s Cold Kiss, to use as giveaways in return. (So watch this space, those of you who love paranormal urban fantasy!)
At any rate, there was a lot of bubble wrap, brown paper and string being expended in our household this morning. And then paper and printer ink as I also wrote and signed cover letters for Kate Nintzel, my Eos editor, to send out with AREs of The Heir of Night to North American bookblog reviewers (ones I have had contact with re Thornspell, hence the personalized covers from me) over the coming weeks. Yes, you’re right, that R-word does make me nervous. But it is also inevitable when a book gets published, i.e. that does mean the book being sent out into the world and folk out there are not only going to have opinions about it, they’re going to express ’em, too. Although I remind myself that the first responses have been positive, both getting the cover quote from the wonderful Robin Hobb, but also an enthusiastic report from Joanna Preston.
So that was my morning. After I’ve finished writing this post I will be turning my attention to voting for the Sir Julius Vogel Awards, which are given for achievement in Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror by SFFANZ. As I can’t attend Au Contraire, the national science fiction-fantasy convention being held at the end of the month, that means I have to get my postal or electronic vote in by August 20—and I still have a few short fiction finalists left to read.
Once that’s done and dusted I then have to write my final post on reading for the Hugo Awards—other, of course, than attending the actual awards ceremony in Melbourne next month—which should be posted on the Out of this Eos blog early next week. So I need to get that done today as well—and also start putting together the questions for a blog interview with the winner of last year’s Hugo Award for “Best Fan Writer”, Cheryl Morgan. Cheryl is the non-fiction editor for Clarkesworld and has recently commenced a new venture, Wizard’s Tower Press, a new small press publisher specializing in science fiction, fantasy and related literature. She will be attending both Au Contraire and Worldcon, so I look forward to talking with her about both her SF-F travels and the new venture.