::whew:: That was exciting. For those who wonder where the heck Epiphany went for the latter half of last week and the weekend — the webhost company that houses the site got hit with a server attack. They’ve fixed the problem, but as you might notice, they also restored all the sites from older backups, so my last post and several recent comments are no longer here. Sorry! Fortunately, though, chapter 1 of The Broken Kingdoms is still up.
I’ve made another subtle change — got rid of the comment threading. I really, really prefer threaded comments, but because of the current WordPress template, that made for very long, attenuated comment fields that just… well… looked weird. I’m going to see if I can figure out a way to put comment numbering in place, so that people can respond to previous comments by just noting which number they’re addressing. Failing that, for now, folks are just going to have to call each other by name. (Waits for the gasps of horror to fade.)
Been quiet lately for another reason — yesterday was my birthday! So spent the whole weekend doing fun stuff with friends and family… but also working, because that’s how I roll. So my writing group and I did another Altered Fluid reading on Saturday morning for the Hour of the Wolf radio show — you can go listen to it in stream format here — and yesterday, I did a live interview with Chicago radio station WVON AM, as part of a kickass show on speculative fiction by black writers. Got to hear, but not interact with, Steven Barnes and Tananarive Due, and also got to chat with Nnedi Okorafor. ::squee:: That was fun.
Am a bit philosophical about being a year older, in good ways and bad. I’ve achieved some of what I wanted to do in life — published author! living in New York! fame and fortune some other stuff! — but not everything, so of course for me a birthday is a chance to regroup and re-focus. My first and foremost goal right now is to find a new job, since I never intended to be a full-time author permanently; was just doing it until I finished book 3. My second, overlapping goal, is to write another book — and shhhh, but I’m working on a new epic fantasy! It’s not solidified enough for me to share details here, but it’s a completely new world, unrelated to the Inheritance Trilogy, and it starts with the end of the world. Yay! (?)
Good stuff’s been happening on the short story publication front, too. I’ve sold a short piece called “The Singular Taffy-Puller” to the VanderMeers’ new The Thackery T. Lambshead Cabinet of Curiosities, which has me super-excited because I loved the previous Thackery Lambshead collection. I also sold a cyberpunk short story called “The Trojan Girl” to Weird Tales, which actually happened a couple of months ago but I think I forgot to mention here.
So had a fun, busy, thinky weekend. What about you?
Book 3 is finished?
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Yeay! Great news. Sorry, I’m new here, didn’t know that. I’m a Scalzi incomer!
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Actually I’m still struggling with book 1. Not that there’s anything wrong with it, far from that. It’s just that I have to keep re-reading paragraphs because they are so beautifully written. Had the same problem with the fight scenes in Kick Ass recently.
John,
Yep, book 3 — The Kingdom of Gods — is done and gone and on my editor’s desk for final review. Woo hoo!!
And I love that book 1 has elicited that response from you! That’s so cool. :)
Ooh, Happy Belated Birthday, Nora-sama! :D Glad you had a fun (yet productive!) weekend of festivities with your loved ones. ^^ So this means you’re a Virgo too~~ ^^ I had a weekend-long bday marathon back over Labor Day Weekend (and then, last weekend was a 4-day trip to Atlanta for this awesome European metal festival~~), so I enjoyed my first “quiet” weekend of September at home this week. Well, by “quiet,” I mean, I also had to work on my side job a bit (translation, in my case—-though I wish I were writing like you!). Saw “Despicable Me” too, which was very cute, though I wanted to catch “Scott Pilgrim Vs. the World” before it slipped out of theaters. A movie celebrating geek culture… definitely up my alley! ^^
And I’m so happy to hear you’re writing a new (epic!!!) fantasy series! :D Will this one be a more traditionally omniscient-third-party-narrator type of fantasy series? (more wizards and things like that?) Though since it starts at the *end* of the world (oooh, nice), will it be more like a dystopian type of fantasy series? Well, in any case, I know I’ll be waiting excitedly to read it (like I’m waiting on pins and needles for The Broken Kingdoms—hurry up and get here, November!!! >.<). Since you’re a manga/anime fan, have you ever thought about writing a manga like Naomi Novik’s doing? So much of 100K was just begging to be put into manga form, and I know you would bring something very different to the OEL manga scene than the sorts of school stories, etc, that we mostly see now.
Lastly, congrats on all the short story sales! :D How do you hear about these anthologies calling for short story submissions? Is there some kind of “call for submissions grapevine” out there?
Sistah Jemisin,
I just want to say thank you for giving my daughters -something lacking in Sci fi/fantasy- a character and a world they can relate to. I’m running out to Borders today to pick up your books.
again, thank you very much.
Nate