Eagles Over the Kennebec

Today's mail -- or, possibly, yesterday's, or indeed, both. . .A lot of people seemed to want to be certain that I knew about this, in any case.

So!  The mail brings news of a new SF/F award in town.  Twenty-nine years in the making!  The Dragon Awards.  You can read all about them, here , and also here .  Eligible works will have been published/screened/made generally available between April 1, 2015 and July 25, 2016.

In a startling turn of events, this means that both Dragon in Exile and Alliance of Equals are eligible for nomination, in case anyone is thinking in that direction.

The nominating categories are available here.

The Dragon Awards are open to all fans, everywhere.  There is no cost to nominate, and you may start your engines now.

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Here at the Confusion Factory, we are completing the proofing of Alliance of Equals.  I want to thank everyone who has pitched in with this rather difficult project.  I did try to acknowledge each email, but probably managed to miss one or two people.  I love you all; I'm just a. . .little harried, and forgetful at the moment.

We are also still hammering away at The Gathering Edge, which is due at Baen before we leave for RavenCon, on April 27.  And we've got that short story to write and hand in on May 15.

Speaking of cons, Steve and I have tacked another onto the 2016 schedule.  We will be at the Rhode Island ComicCon, in November.  Including that convention, we will be traveling in books for 44 days this summer and fall, starting with RavenCon.

I'd say that I feel like a rock star, but I remember Janis Ian laughing at me, back a few years, when I was complaining that Steve and I had been on the road for 60 days that year.  So, I'll just say that, for a pair of SF writers, we'll be traveling a lot this year.

Upcoming Travel

Hey, we’re going places!

Realsoonnow, for instance, we’ll be in Kansas City for ConQuesT, along with fellow GoHs Ursula Vernon, Gardner Dozois, Tim Miller, and Toastmistress Susan Satterfield. Read all about it here, and hope to see you there Memorial Day Weekend.

On June 14, we’ll be in Blue Hill for an interview on the WERU Writers Forum, with Ellie O’Leary, but you’ll be able to listen in on that from the comfort of your very own computer

Then. . .we’ll be home, writing, like good writers, and possibly watching with interest and, on my part, at least, chortling glee as our bathroom is destroyed and resurrected.

Due to the grid-lock of a number of factors — see “bathroom,” above — we won’t be attending the Chicago WorldCon — y’all have a really good time; we’ll miss you!

The next convention we’ll likely attend is Boskone, in February 2013, though Steve might be off somewhere in September — watch this space for details.

Reminders

If you’d like a signed copy of the hardcover of Dragon Ship, which will be published in September, Uncle Hugo’s has been promised another 100 copies — so you don’t need to be shy about ordering here.

In case you missed it, there’s a very nice interview with us here

The Eternal To-Do List
(numbered for ease of viewing, not necessarily in order of urgency)

1. Sort through email and Deal with various bidness and webmistressly issues addressed therein
2. Finish transferring music onto various devices
3. Read, read, read
4. Schedule follow-up vet visit and rabies shot for Socks
5. Buy tire(s) for Binjali; re-inspect
6. Carousel Tides t-shirt
7. Turn in novel proposals (3) to Madame the Editor
8. ConQuesT — May 25-27
9. Record word lists first two books (at this point, we’re guessing the “first two books” are Agent of Change and Fledgling) — June 10 (approx)
10. Interview at WERU Writers Forum with Joan Clemens & Ellie O’Leary, June 14, 10 a.m.
11. June 15 — quarterly taxes due
12. July — Excise tax due — both vehicles
13. Turn in short story to Baen — July 1
14. Turn in Trade Secret — July 15
15. Prep and write Carousel Sun, and Carousel Seas, due early and mid 2013
16. Get Liaden Weird Word lists onto web
17. Stage Two feasibility study: bathroom remodel
18. September 4 – October 4 Lee on-site at Archers Beach
19. Ongoing — locate new site for Cat Farm and Confusion Factory.
20. Finalize 2013 travel, if any

Things to be done in-between the things to be done:
1. Autograph 1,000 pages
2. Proofread galleys: Ghost Ship mmp, Dragon Ship hardcover
3. Write new stories for Splinter Universe

Today being Friday, there was no school. Steve and I rose in our own good time, had breakfast, made phone calls and eventually meandered out in the direction of the Big City of Augusta, with the intention of petitioning the Ghods of Tripilay to provide auspicious signs, portents, and of course numbers, for our upcoming trip to Reno and Minneapolis.

Off we went, cross-country, arriving to find that the Ghods had relocated to another place. This stratagem proved vain, and we found them despite it.

We had discovered for ourselves that scheduling the train trip to and from Reno was relatively simple; it was the addition of Minneapolis to the itinerary that provoked the devilish details. One is told that it is often thus, with Minneapolis.

In any case, and some while later, we came away from Tripleay, having had our courses truly plotted and our credit card read. Poor credit card.

May I just say? I believe that I’ll be well and truly sick to death of Chicago Union Station by the time this trip is done.

Also? I think I need more ebooks.

We came home through a patchwork of sunlight and downpour, had lunch and got down to work, which in my case was linking up all the free chapters of Lee and Miller material available from Baen to the Pinbeam Books site, and balancing the checkbook.

Tomorrow, I need to do something about all this unfinished fiction lying about the place, and to register the domain for the upcoming short story site. Finding an acceptable domain name was harder than you might imagine. It was, at least, harder that I imagined. In any case, that step is at last done, and now all I need to do is build the website. And write some stories.

Piece o’cake.

I hope everyone who celebrates July Fourth as a holiday has a lovely one. Me, I hope that the town has failed of hiring stunt jets to overfly the parade this year. I could do without the adrenaline surge.

. . .only eight more days of school.

Next Tuesday, we begin our journey to Orlando for Oasis 23.  We expect to have a good time, and we’re really looking forward to seeing everybody.  The packing — eh.  But packing will happen on Monday, after work.

The first order of this weekend’s business is Ghost Ship, which, with one thing and another, has languished long enough.  In and around will be house-cleaning, so that Mary can find her way from the kitchen to the living room, and laundry, so we’ll have clothes to wear in Orlando, and a Serious Consultation with Steve regarding which plushy should accompany us on the trip.

That last is a tough choice.  For a good, long time, Hassan the Assassin was our default traveling companion.  Then Harwil the platypus entered our service at the KC Nebulas, and he became the companion of choice, mostly due to being much flatter than Hassan.  Steve’s Lord Black Cat has accompanied us on a couple of trips.  [Here's a picture of Steve and Lord Black Cat and me and Hassan (and a host of others) at the Stuffed Animal Tea Party hosted by Alison Looney at Penguicon 4.0]

I feel a little for the other plushies, of which we own a ridiculous number.  There’s Sly the Fox, the day-job office plushy, who may be even flatter than Harwil and is certainly deserving of a vacation, and at least one of the hedgehogs is small enough to tuck into a traveling bag, not to mention the stuffed lizard (though that one’s stuffed with sand, and quite heavy, so maybe not).  The Looney Bloom Kristin Looney gave us (also at Penguicon 4.0; I think the idea was that Hassan needed someone at his back) can certainly fit in a bag.

It’s a puzzle, it is.

Which stuffed animal do you take with you when you travel?