Steve Brust would like you to know about 4th Street Fantasy Convention, an intimate little con in Minneapolis.

For those unfamiliar with it, the Fourth Street Fantasy Convention is a fairly small convention that ran during the 80s. It’s oriented toward, well, how to read and write better. Or, put another way, it’s a convention of people who like to read, write, and edit good books, and want there to be more good books to read, write, and edit.

We’re bringing it back.

I will be the Guest of Honor, and many other fun and wonderful people will be there.

Also, my short story "And the Deep Blue Sea" is available as of today as a podcast at StarShipSofa, read by Amy Sturgis. Which is pretty darn cool.


Progress notes for 2 April 2008

Chill:

New words: 669
Microsoft wordcount: 52622
Manuscript wordcount: 62000 
Deadline: May 1
Mammalian assistance: snuggy cat. her favorite thing is when my lap and the sunbeam are colocated. 
Reason for stopping: Intense frustration and brainlessness.

Man, this book is still not going well. I am stringing words together, but I'm not sure they make any sense, and the sentences certainly aren't. It feels like trying to write with brain damage. If it weren't for the fact that apparently everything else is working normally and I know I'm a hypochondriac, I swear I would suspect a micro-stroke, or possibly a tumor.

Gah. I am such a basket case about my writing right now anyway. I am toiling under a triple threat: one helping of post-Clarion syndrome, which has actualized my internal editor to the point where all I can see about what I'm writing is what the words aren't, one helping of trying to write a book that's so unripe, I think I would be better off trying to write it in 2009, and meanwhile, an extra-large helping of being deep in the throes of processing some sort of incipient skill jump that has made me incompetent to do things I used to do with ease, until the backbrain figures it out and frees up some processing power.

Now I know that the end result of this particular crisis will be me as a stronger writer (heck, maybe this is the final veil, and if I get through this, I will be a grown up writer and not a journeyman anymore) but trying to work through it is hard, hard, hard. And it hurts. And I wish I could just stop.

I think what I am going to do is take the rest of today off, give myself tomorrow off. This weekend is I-Con. And then I will start work on the page proofs for Ink & Steel. (Page proofs for the mass market paperback of A Companion to Wolves are also landing this week, and by the 18th I should have the ones for All the Windwracked Stars... at which point I will be at Penguicon.) After the page proofs, perhaps I will see if I have grown any story in my head.

(I even know what happens in these scenes. I just can't seem to write it at any level of competence above, oh, Fourth Grade. Gods, this is frustrating.)





Darling du jour: Hazel, he supposed the color was called--but tawny was the right word, for everything about her should be defined in terms of predators.
There's always one more quirk in the character:  Tristen really, really does not want to tell me how Aefre got killed. I mean, I already know--I knew last book. But boy howdy he does not want to talk about it.

Today's words Word don't know:  n/a
Words I'm Surprised Word Do Know: n/a 
Sustenance: Steamed buns. Again. And a mango.
Mean Things: Family deaths. War crimes.
Other writing-related work: none

Exercise: none
Miles to Lothlorien: 245.8
Guitar practice: Just gonna go do that now. Or maybe I will have a nap first.
Mail: nomail