Month: November 2003

Loscon30

Loscon30

I’m back from Loscon30, the 30th of the yearly Los Angeles science fiction conventions.

I had a lot of fun. People had copies of Dragon’s Kin there for me to sign!

I met Wil Wheaton and Armin Shimerman when we were on a panel together, “Breaking into Print.” As it turns out that both Armin and I were first published through the efforts of Bill Fawcett, Wil, who has been self-publishing, made a note to himself, “Know Bill Fawcett.”

Both Wil and Armin were wonderful to talk to. I naturally had a great deal of instant respect for Wil because he’s a Linux geek and self-publishes his own website (http://www.wilwheaton.net/) — not to mention self-publishing his own book!

Wil also recommended about.com as a good place to start to learn about anything (I believe that’s where he started when he wanted to learn about self-publishing).

I recommended critters.org for those who wanted to get critiques on short stories.

Christopher Moore!

Christopher Moore!

Christopher Moore is a comedy writer, whose stories usually have a supernatural or angelic or demonic (sometimes, all of the above) slant. I particularly enjoyed “Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Jesus’ Best Friend.” I have had a priest declare that it was “probably not sacriligeous.”

You may want to approach his books carefully. Usually even funny books are only worht a snort or a snigger while reading them but I laughed out loud while reading “Lamb” five times — a record for me!

Dragonsblood.

Dragonsblood.

There, I said it. For those of you who don’t know, Dragonsblood is my first Pern book. It’s overdue.

Those that know, are wondering when it will be finished. So am I.

Honestly, the book is over 138,000 words and over 770 (manuscript) pages long. I have a good outline (some of you may have heard it at Dragon*con) and have only four more chapters to go before it’s done (three if you dont’ count the one I’m in the middle of writing).

So, to keep you up to date, I’ll post the latest news on how Dragonsblood is coming along, chapter by chapter. For those of you keeping track, I’m currently writing Chapter 22 (Chapter 25 is the last chapter — right now).