For most of my adolescence, Terri Windling’s and Ellen Datlow’s Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror defined short fiction; and I waited every year to borrow the new volume from the library. I remember the sense of real magic from its pages, and the joy of getting lost among Terri’s selections of authors (Ellen’s side was more horror, and I don’t react as well to that as I o to fantasy). But you don’t need me to tell you that–you probably have your own reminisciences of how important Terri Windling is and has been to the field. Well, now she’s in deep legal and financial trouble, and there is an awesome fundraiser with cool places to help her out.

See here for a list of what’s on offer.

A little tired. Probably writing two stories in a week, and revising a third, didn’t help. (the revision not being done yet, but I’m working on it). Also had to update my PR file as part of a submission package (the PR file is where I put the nice things people have said about me. Haven’t touched it in a year).

Reading-wise, almost finished with the Drenai books (just got the last Skilgannon/Druss book left). Then onto the rest of Gemmell. Took a brief break from Gemmell to read Anthony Horowitz’s House of Silk, the new Sherlock Holmes novel. Enjoyable, if not ground-breaking. The voice of Watson is bang to rights, but of the two linked intrigues one is too easy to guess (the one with the street urchins–sorry, I have a nasty mind), and the other one ends up coming out of left field, and feeling a bit forced as a result (a side effect, I suspect, of too many reveals piled up). And I really wish people would stop thinking a Sherlock Holmes novel needs to have Moriarty, Mycroft, and Lestrade in it to be successful. I’m personally holding out for more Mrs. Hudson, because what the world needs is more women around Sherlock Holmes…

Tomorrow, big cooking experiment: my first recipe transcribed from Vietnamese (from here, more specifically)! Will report when I’m done

First off–hats off to Nathan McKnight, who has produced an Obsidian and Blood glossary for the Kindle, which you can use to call up characters’ names and special meanings. If you’ve always wanted to dip into the books but found the names too troublesome, the glossary is your friend! Download it here.

Oh, and, now that AR has officially announced it: there will be an Obsidian and Blood omnibus! Called Obsidian and Blood, it will gather all three books in one handy paperback (or ebook), and will be released in July 2012. More details here (not much for the moment other than ISBNs, but there should be some cover art at some point).

Costs £13 or $16, depending on whether you’re in the US or UK, and £8 as an ebook, about or less than the price of two volumes–so, if you’ve got fewer than 2 Obsidian and Blood books and want a complete set in a nice package, you know where to head…

Meanwhile, if anyone’s read Master of the House of Darts and wants to post a few reviews on amazon, I’d be very grateful, ’cause I can’t say the book’s getting a lot of attention at the moment…

Finished new draft of short story, “Scattered Along the River of Heaven”. In many, many ways, a horrible story, dealing with languages, the aftermath of revolutions, and colonialism; and a very painful one to write. It’s funny how my process has evolved: I used not to care so much about the contents of my stories, now I feel like I’m being much more ambitious in what I expect of them (complex background, deep characters, and a passable plot); and I end up writing stuff that feels like a failure–because I can never quite convey all that I wanted to in the allotted space…

Though I think that I’ve finally mastered the art of the short scene: before, I wanted scenes to be a complete unit–I would write a scene that held the entirety of a conversation between two characters, for instance, instead of excerpting the conversation. Now I’ve grown ruthless, and I can keep a story like this one under 6k words–not quite effortlessly, but close.

Anyway, a short editing pass is in order, and then I’ll post it up on OWW for feedback before shipping it off. I have a sinking feeling it’s a dismal failure…
(also, this is the last f%%%ing time I write a story that depends on four linked pseudo-Chinese poems, because those are a pain to write. Especially when they have to include planets, and spaceships, and space stations…)

Snippet:

I grieve to think of the stars
Our ancestors our gods
Scattered like hairpin wounds
Along the River of Heaven
So tell me
Is it fitting that I spend my days here
A guest in those dark, forlorn halls?

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This is the first poem Xu Anshi gave into our keeping; the first memory she shared with us for safekeeping. It is the first one that she composed in High Mheng–which had been and remains a debased language, a blend between that of the San-tay foreigners, and that of the Mheng, Anshi’s own people.

What about you? How has your process changed? Do you feel that as time passes, you can tell more and more complex stories? Do they increasingly feel like failures, or is that just me?

Was saving a proto-draft of a short story, and realised that all my temporary story titles were either the main character’s names (“Red Station” was initially called “Linh” after one of the two main characters), or the setting (“Breath of the Nine Dragons” remained “The Mekong story” for quite a bit). Hum, wonder what that says about me?

In other news… We had a friend over for dinner, and cooked a delicious duck magret. If anyone is interested, here is the recipe. It actually feeds four people rather than three.
-2 duck magrets (100g meat/person, or thereabouts)
-2 tablespoons liquid honey
-2 tablespoons sesame oil

Mix honey and sesame oil to form a thickish marinade (if too thick, add a little hot water to dissolve the honey). Marinate for about 30 minutes. Then fish the meat out, set it in a frying pan over medium heat for 3-4 minutes on each side, until the pan is full of grease. Pour out the grease, deglaze the pan with a little hot water, and put the meat back in, as well as the marinade. Wait a few minutes for the sauce to thicken.

Grill 2 tablespoons sesame seeds in a dry pan over high heat (careful, they burn fast).

Slice the meat in small, artistic amounts, and serve with the sesame seeds and a little of the sauce. Goes wonderfully with homemade mashed potatoes [1].

(generic pic off Flickr which looks like our magret–I was hardly going to stop while serving the food and take pictures–friend would have looked at us very oddly)

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[1]Not Thankgiving fare, I know, but then I don’t exactly celebrate. I hope everyone who is celebrating is having a fabulous time, though.

Woke up to find out that Anne McCaffrey had died–I had never met her, but her work meant a lot to me when I was a teenager. At a time when most of the SF I read was male-dominated, it was good to know that girls could be dragon-riders and Harpers and have adventures just like the male protags.
The world is going to be a little less without her in it.

Still moving through the Vietnamese. The area around my screen is now handily covered with vocabulary post-its (down to pronouns now, after doing numbers last week). Currently brainstorming a story about obsolete languages (no relation, I swear), and dearly hoping to keep it short, which isn’t going to be much fun. I seem to be stuck in novella mode lately. Reading-wise, going to tackle House of Silk, the authorised Sherlock Holmes novel, next. Quite curious to see what it’s worth.

Latest cooking experiments: a re-tread of my ginger and chả lụa noodles , with lots of onion, and a bunch of fresh ginger. Bánh cuốn with fried shallots (let’s just say I need to get better at that whole steam-cooking thing, because they came out tasting good, but looking horrible).

More late. Off to write.

And in the midst of various upheavals, I’ve been really remiss in not posting those, but there are a couple of anthologies which include my fiction in them:

-Transtories, edited by Colin Harvey, contains my short pseudo-Chinese story “The Axle of Heaven”. It was the last project Colin worked on before his death, and it’s got a stellar lineup, including Lawrence M. Schoen and Joanna Hall. Well worth a look, whether you knew Colin or not.

-Deb Hoag’s Women Writing the Weird, published by Dog Horn Publishing, contains my French fantasy “Ys”, as well as stories by Eugie Foster and Sara Genge. Lots of neat fiction, but it’s always nice to be showcased.

-And StarShipSofa Stories Vol.3 contains my “Age of Miracles, Age of Wonders”, amidst a lineup that includes Tad Williams, Joe Haldeman and Peter Watts (*gulp*). You can see the art by Mark Zug here on Google+.

So, the weekend… part of it was spent looking for a crockery dresser, not entirely successfully (the H loved the place we dropped by first, but the prices are about 75% above what we’d be ready to pay for such a piece of furniture). Part of it was spent sorting out papers, using ye old method of “trash most of them, they’re not useful anymore”. I hadn’t realised until I got rid of stuff from my old workplace how liberating the entire process was (I loved my old workplace–it had a great atmosphere–; but moving on did me a world of good).

And part of it was spent revising a short story that I wrote over a year ago, “Starsong”. I think I’m done now, though I managed to crash Scrivener rather badly and had to reinstall from scratch. Currently brainstorming for a new project I pitched to my agent–urban fantasy set in Paris, but which has a gaping hole where the words “magic system” should be.

Oh, and we also got a headstart on Xmas shopping–ordered present for 3 people (out of the 7 we have to deal with), checked out stuff for a fourth, and I made my mind about a fifth (the H).

Recent reads: working my way through David Gemmell. I read those when I was a teenager in London, and I was rather afraid that they would not hold up to another reading. But actually, they’re pretty good. I’m really glad that although they feature strong stereotyping (Chiatze=China, Gothir=Persia, Drenai=Greece or somewhere thereabouts, Nadir=Mongols), the author never takes swipes at the various nations: people come in all colours and alignments, and we have as many Nadir madmen as Drenai ones. Also, they’re fairly gender-typed (though there are a few women fighters), but Gemmell never denigrates what women do, and indeed his fighters often find themselves envying women, knowing that the greater courage is on their side. And his heroes are just impressive and memorable, and he never hides that they have terrible flaws, but can rise above them (it’s been rather a lot of years, but I can remember Tenaka and Druss and Ananais quite clearly). All in all, very entertaining and satisfying, and I’m glad I had those around when I was ~16. I’m really sorry I never got to meet Gemmell in person, and tell him how much his books meant to me when I was growing up.

-The World SF blog has relaunched as a brand-new website, and merged operations with The Portal to provide short fiction reviews. I signed up as article writer, and I hope to do a series on Franco-Belgian comics, much like I did for Yoko Tsuno. Will keep you posted as I write They’re running fiction on Tuesdays, the most recent being “Dancing Together Under Polarised Skies” by Milena Benini (do note that the fiction has been professionally translated–the poor vocabulary and grammar are deliberate). Also, couple of interviews, one with Sayuri Ueda (author of The Cage of Zeus published by Haikasoru), and one with Hannu Rajaniemi (who needs no presentation–if you feel you need one, read the awesome Quantum Thief).
-Over at Kaaron Warren’s blog, I speak of Master of the House of Darts–using history as inspiration, and how to let your characters have at each other (which should always be your top priority )
-Stomping On Yeti selects his pick of books for October–and I’m more than a little flabberghasted to find out that Master of the House of Darts ties with David Anthony Durham’s The Sacred Band for release of the month. Er, wow?

In other news, finished a short story (which ended up being called “Breath of the Nine Dragons”), about a Japanese-funded project in the Me Kong delta–which probably has the dubious honour of mangling both the Vietnamese and the Japanese culture in the same 7000 words…
And got my UPS package (a self-printed cookbook from Lulu, which has already started falling apart. As you might guess, I wouldn’t advise using Lulu for hardcovers, or maybe I’ve been very unlucky in my particular copy…)
Next up: novella revisions, and some desultory research into the history of Paris for a novel project.