From Patrick’s blog:

So, I have decided to make it official and start my own freelance web design business. I’ve been designing websites professionally since 2004, mostly for my then employer, but more recently branching out from that to do the odd design job privately.

I’ve put up a portfolio of a selected few of the sites I’ve done at 50 Seconds North.

Some of my other sites aren’t up there, either because they’ve since been supplanted by newer versions or because they were designed confidentially.

Anyway, the point of this post is to highlight that I’m now offering web design services. You can find out more about it at the above website!

I’d particularly like to get into designing writers’ websites, because I think that writers are often poorly served by their websites, and I think I have a fairly good idea of what makes a good author website.

I’d be really grateful if anyone on my friends list felt able to spread the word.

Thanks!

(I have not worked with Patrick; however, he’s a truly awesome guy, and his website for Stephanie Burgis is truly a thing of beauty)

Via Jeff Spock, and because I’m a grouchy contrarian:

Some perspective on the Japan Earthquake, and an article on the nuclear situation by someone who has a much better idea than reporters about how nuclear plants actually work.

To be clear, I’m not denying this is a major disaster for Japan. Things are undoubtedly bad in large areas of the country; and sifting through the rubble and rebuiliding is going to be a massive effort. My heart definitely goes out to the Japanese caught in this, and I wish them the very best in those trying times.
It’s just that I’m starting to be slightly put off by the number of people (esp. media outlets) who give the impression that the entire country is on the verge of utter ruin and nuclear holocaust(s). It has overtones of condescension to the Japanese and their resourcefulness; and with regards to the nuclear thing, over-reaction to what’s going on (some articles I’ve read more than implied that Japan was going to become a wasteland after all its nuclear plants had blown up, which seemed kind of an overstatement…).

Check out the new Salon Futura, in which Cheryl Morgan, Mike Carey, Jon Courtenay Grimwood and I talk about crossovers between crime and speculative fiction. On my end, I found the discussion and breadth of knowledge fascinating–thanks to Cheryl for thinking of me, and to Mike and Jon for being such awesome people.
(there were some technical glitches which resulted in much swearing at BT, but nothing that should spoil your enjoyment of the show).

The rest of the issue is equally intriguing, with looks at new crime/spec fic merges, interviews with Ian McDonald and C.E Murphy, and lots of other appetising features.

Meanwhile, I shall go back to my stir-fried beef with onions (lots of onions leftover after a rather disastrous buy, had to do something with them…)

(yes, lest you wonder why I’m online so early: I’ve taken my Friday afternoon off, and am currently in a train, headed for a weekend break. Ah, holidays…)

So, what’s up. Not been doing much: writing Master of the House of Darts pretty much wiped me out; so I took a 2-3-week post-novel break, wherein I did nothing much but read Agatha Christie novels. Which, incidentally, are wonderful things. Very relaxing–purely intellectual puzzles with very little violence. I hadn’t appreciated till now the need for a quiet space, and if you’d told me a few years ago that I was going to read Christie for fun and relaxation I’d have laughed at you. But there’s something infinitely soothing about her books–partly, I guess, because they’re about an idealised bygone time that cannot possibly concern me except in the remotest of senses; and partly because they’re puzzles more than thrillers, which means there is little stress and little incentive to GET THE ENDING NOW. Now I know where my tendency for dialogue-and-interviews-as-plot comes from…

I also read Elizabeth Bear’s Dust, the first volume of her Jacob’s Ladder trilogy, and fell in love all over again. It’s a blend of Arthurian mythos, Zelazny’s Amber, and Bear’s awesomely lyrical and mythic language. Think backstabbing family politics, on a generation ship. With swords and knights and angels, except everything is slightly askew, and there’s a peculiar weight to having all that mythology–a generation ship is pretty much a self-contained universe, and it’s interesting to see how the inhabitants are shaped by their ancestors’ belief systems and foibles (in many ways, it also reminded me of Zelazny’s Lord of Light, which also has SF with mythic tropes, the tropes having been set by the original colonists/passengers in order to establish a system by which they could profit). Very good, with cool characters. I thought two of them were under-used; but then I got my copy of Chill aka book 2, and I saw they were going to be the protagonists in that book. What more could a girl ask for?

Next up is revising MHD, and starting up work on the next project, on which I have very vague ideas–thinking of a Chinese/Vietnamese generation tale on a space station, but it’s all very nebulous. Before I commit to any plot, I need to reread Dream of Red Mansions, which I intend to use as my model for this. Should be interesting.

Cooking-wise, not much–it was a decidedly Vietnamese week, with phở, green mango salad (gotta work on the salad dressing though), and xá xíu (what can I say, I had 1.1 kg of pork, a big oven dish, and rather too much time on my hands. Good thing the thing freezes easily. Also, the H likes xá xíu). I really need to get down with the caramel recipe and work out how not to fail dismally at it, but the week was rather too busy for that…

So it would appear I’ve sold my short story “Exodus Tides” to Edmund Schubert at IGMS. Many thanks to everyone who took a look at it when it was still titled “Siren Song”: it went through VD6, and it was up on OWW for a while, where it was Editor’s choice [1]. People who helped include Pete Aldin, Larry Pinaire, Karen Meisner, Nancy Fulda, Sara Genge, Ruth Nestvold, Ralan Conley, and Stephen Gaskell. And many many thanks to Douglas Cohen, who took a look through my rewrite in record time; and to Edmund for the awesome suggestions.

Contrary to most of my fiction nowadays, it’s set in France, in a nameless Parisian suburb; and it’s got mermen, and the sea and the Abyss. Sort of urban post-apocalyptic fantasy, I guess, if you really want to pigeonhole it…

Mother never spoke about the sea.

She’d been very young at the time of the exodus, Aunt Albane said: a mere smolt, able to swim on her own but not yet ready to mate or bear offspring. Father had dragged her from the depths as the Dark King raged, and they fled together, ahead of twisted, shadowy shapes with harpoons and tridents–never stopping till they reached the safety of the seashore.

“But how did he swim?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine Father–small and portly with a shock of pale white skin, out of breath when he climbed the stairs–as someone who had ever been at ease in the sea-depths.

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[1]This is going to be one of those embarrassing posts, because while I distinctly remember putting it up on OWW about a year ago, it appears I forgot to save the crit into a file, with the net result that I have no list of who contributed to improving the story. A thousand apologies if your name isn’t in the list–it reflects on my bad memory and screwy processes more than on anything else…

… or in Lent, come to think of it: Doctor Who scriptwriter/SF writer extraordinaire Paul Cornell is growing out a beard for charity (in order to help the homeless of London): read details, and how to sponsor him, here. If you know Paul and want to see him looking like a caveman, here’s your chance–and if you don’t know him, it’s still fun to see a man grow a long wild beard

Since it’s up on the website, I can now announce that I’ll be a guest at the Imaginales convention, which will run 26-29th May 2011. Set in Epinal, a beautiful town in the East of France, Imaginales is the big French fantasy convention (the other spec-fic con is Utopiales in November, which is more geared towards SF). Among the overseas guests this year are Peter V. Brett, Trudi Cavanan, Brandon Sanderson, N.K. Jemisin, Robin Hobb, Stephen Baxter, and Ellen Kushner & Delia Sherman (there are also plenty of well-known French authors whose names will be less familiar to most readers of this blog–check the guest list if you’re so minded).

The French translation of Servant of the Underworld should be around as well, since it’s released on May 27th. It will be titled D’Obsidienne et de Sang, tome 1 des Chroniques Aztèques (“Of Obsidian and Blood, book 1 of the Aztec chronicles). And lookie, lookie, you can preorder it on amazon!

-“Casa Jaguarului in Umbra”, aka the Romanian version of “The Jaguar House, in Shadow”, is up at the SRSFF website. Many thanks, as always, to Cristian Tamas and to Antuza Genescu for the translation. There is a French version forthcoming in Galaxies as well.
-Both “The Jaguar House in Shadow” and “Age of Miracles, Age of Wonders” make the 2010 Tangent Online Recommended Reading list . Lots of familiar names on that list, and plenty good stories too.
-And because it’s International Women’s Day, a video with Dame Judi Dench and Daniel Craig:

(even though I’m sceptical about the efficacity of International Women’s Day, I have to say the video sums up a lot of my feelings on the subject)

Having never really been in the US for any long extent of time…

What’s the likelihood of shops in Washington DC being open on a Sunday? (specifically, May 22nd, in case there are any special holidays involved I wouldn’t know about)

Thanks in advance!

(why yes, I’m booking my journey for the Nebula Awards Weekend. Why do you ask? )

Little weekend shameless self-promotion:

• You can listen to the BSFA-shortlisted “The Shipmaker” here on StarShipSofa, in a very dramatic reading by the awesome Amy H. Sturgis
• Asimov’s has made its Nebula Awards nominees available, among which “The Jaguar House, in Shadow” in pdf format (html still available on my website here)

I have also received both my BSFA and my Nebula voting ballot (and a neat little booklet with all the BSFA nominated short stories). As I said to the H, seeing my name on there feels really weird.

Ah, well. Back to the grind–in this particular case, fighting with a rebellious short story (right now, it’s winning).