However… this is also offset by the fact that I’ve sold two short stories–one sale I think I can’t announce yet, and the other… Sheila Williams let me know she was taking “Starsong” for Asimov’s. Doing the Snoopy dance here. Many thanks to the November 2010 Villa Diodati crew for reading the first version of this (Ruth Nestvold, John Olsen, Jeff Spock, Steve Gaskell, Ben Rosenbaum, Nancy Fulda, and Christian Walker); and for my last-minute awesomely fast beta-readers (Mark Hünken, Tricia Sullivan, Chris Kastensmidt, and Kate Elliott [1]). You guys all rock.

This is the Xuya story with the Flower Wars in space (and, in a bit of an Easter egg, the origin story of the Minds, my ship-bound AIs borne in human wombs–though it will take many, many decades of work before the incident described in “Starsong” leads to the creation of Minds).

In other news, I just discovered I’m a little under halfway through the Vietnamese lesson book. I certainly don’t feel halfway proficient, but I have faith…

Back to brainstorming a story. See you guys later…

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.

Novel wordcount: +6000 words, and an odd Aztec ritual.
Movie count: watched last episode of Sherlock, The Great Game. Much better than episode 2. And Moriarty was awesome.
Misc: copies of Galaxies arrived, with the French translation of “Butterfly, Falling at Dawn”. Definitely odd to see myself translated in print, but kind of cool too.
Misc 2: apparently, the internet says I should expect a really negative review of SoU sometime soon, aka the kind that has claws and uses them freely. It will be… interesting (the wise thing, knowing myself, is also probably to ignore it until after I’ve finished book 3. I’m not sure I can count on myself to be that wise, but I’ll try).

We did the usual crit mornings, the afternoon sessions being devoted to writing questions for Saturday, and a buck-your-habits workshop for Sunday (the goal of the latter being to write an exercise completely at odds with the rest of your writing. If you really want to know what I had to do–I was supposed to write from the point of view of a white angry male. I failed.)

Also, there was gorgeous food: chicken enchiladas, spaghetti bolognese, curry, orange-and-chocolate scones, and Mexican brunch. Mmmm. I always eat too much at those things. I’ll post the recipe for the scones later on (gotta save stuff for another post )

Didn’t write much, though I did solve one important plot point for book 3, and discussed a variety of marketing tactics. Also watched way too much soccer (the Brazil-Ivory Coast match was priceless. Only game I’ve seen where it looked like there would be a riot on the pitch). Soccer isn’t really a sport I enjoy, for a variety of reasons–the first and foremost being that I don’t like the rules (the “no touching another player” combined with the lack of video replay means it encourages players to simulate wounds and damage, which is a disgrace).

Came home refreshed, though that feeling lasted about 1 hour–the time it took me to get my luggage back and exit the airport. Ah, France…

Pictures:

The house

Our crit circle, complete with baby

Group shot: from left to right and top to bottom, Stephen Gaskell, Ralan Conley, Ruth Nestvold, Nancy Fulda, Sara Genge and me.

More pictures here.

Research for book 3 continues apace; I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that I need to hit the American Library in Paris and their JSTOR subscription for the info I need. If all goes well, I shall be near Schleswig (in Germany, up near the Danish border) from Friday to Monday, in order to attend the Villa Diodati workshop (aka the retread of the one that lost against the Icelandic volcano). Cross your fingers for me.

*happy writer*

I will now go back to the trenches of impending-deadline novel-writing…

The house

This one was a Dutch co-production, courtesy of Floris Kleijne and Rochita Loenen-Ruiz. Floris sadly had to bow out for personal reasons, but he kindly stayed around to ferry us around, and we enjoyed his company for Friday evening and Sunday morning.

The crit room, filled with food

The weekend was, as usual, filled with good food, cooked by Jeff Spock, Benevolent Dictator Ruth Nestvold, and Stephen Gaskell.

Incidents included: a plugged sink (fixed by the heroic Jeff), a rallye outside the house which boxed us for Saturday afternoon (watching cars zoom past the house was somewhat disturbing), and a fall of several tiles following a rather strong storm. Otherwise, though, it was made of awesome. As Ruth remarked, it’s funny how you can throw several writers together and have them get along like a house on fire.

The Surrealist Oracle (random questions, random answers). Highlight: Stephen: “What was your worst pick-up line?” Ruth: “I am the master of the universe!”

The writers present were Floris Kleijne (partially), Ruth Nestvold, Jeff Spock, Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, Sara Genge (who is steadily taking over the world), Deanna Carlyle, and Stephen Gaskell. We workshopped stories, ate good food, and discussed novel processes. Also, we made a second attempt at producing collaborative fiction, this time with more success (the key, I think, is that the more people there are, the shorter the piece you should try to produce. In this case, a 350-word piece looked about right for 7 of us).

See, the crits aren’t so painful after all…

Overall, tremendous fun, and as usual, looking forward to the next one.

However, the house does not come with an internet connection, so expect to see very little of me on the web until Monday (there might be a brief interval of connectivity while I’m in the Thalys, as they have wifi). Blog’s going dark again.

Meanwhile, if you happen to be anywhere near London on Saturday, my publisher Angry Robot is having their UK launch party at Forbidden Planet from 12:30 onwards. Authors like Colin Harvey, Dan Abnett and Andy Remic will be there to sign books and answer questions (the AR crew will be there too, as well).

(I only found out about this after VD was already booked, otherwise I would have had to think long and hard which of the two events I was going to…)

Entrepreneurial Motivation and Creating a Business from Scratch: An Interview with Nancy Fulda.

And the people:

(from left to right, top to bottom: Rochita Loenen-Ruiz, Sara Genge, Chance Morrisson, me, and Stephen Gaskell aka Man-Machine)

The house was in Markbeech, a lovely, green place in Kent, England; and the people had come from the Netherlands, Spain, France, and those faraway places known as London and Brighton.

They settled in Friday and proceeded to fill the kitchen with spring rolls (following a slight but tragic miscaculation in the quantity of ingredients), and various food items that choked the two fridges (following the time-honoured philosophy that it was better to calculate large).

A strange cooking device occupied the kitchen: a hearth, which made the room be the warmest in the house (at least, while the heating system was still waking up).

In the morning, the people woke up to discover that some rooms had the heating system turned off, and that English nights got very cold indeed (sorry, Sara). Not discouraged by the inimical elements, they settled down to critique stories which included an SF reworking of Peter Pan, emotional vampires in a shipyard, and giant ants on an asteroid. Much wailing and gnashing of tears was heard, but in the end good story telling prevailed, as it always should.

In the afternoon, the weather being still suspiciously fair, some of the people went for a walk in the countryside, fraternising with black-and-white cows and nettles (the nettles were so big and so prevalent they were obviously developing their own ecosystem).

This was followed by a brainstorming session to write a five-way collaboration story, involving five explorers lost in a jungle (without nettles or cows). The net productivity gains were a 2000-word opening for Chance, and a permanent surname of Man-Machine for Steve (who had picked a cyborg as his main character).

The Man-Machine then proceeded to show his skills to the rest of the people, first cooking a tasty four-cheese and pinenut lasagna, and then, on the following morning, a full English breakfast for six people.

Whereupon the following crits were done on a full stomach. They involved people becoming one with nature and giant mechanical quetzal birds, and the crits were good and thoughtful.

By common agreement, the collaboration was abandonned, having diverged too far on all sides to still make sense and remain a short story. It was replaced by a roundtable of craft questions, followed by a discussion of best markets, involving much scribbling and ordering.

Then Rochita did the cooking of countless spinach and shrimps, and the quest for spiciness began (chillies had been forgotten in the original supply list, but it turned out that red curry paste could do, in a pinch). Tasty fruit salad made up dessert (though at a later stage of the evening, the people also helped themselves to chocolate fudge cake, just to get their fix of cacao).

In the evening, the hunt for occupations began, ending in a game of balderdash, which involved making up  definitions for words. The number of the people who knew what scrapie was (a nasty prion disease of sheep) was worryingly high.

Monday morning was sad and subdued, the adventure almost to an end. After some tidying-up, the people began to part their separate way, though a core of three foreigners remained, intent on exploring the strange city of London, and the no-less-strange bookshop that was Forbidden Planet. The main morals of this day were:

-always make sure you have amap and a packed lunch

-it’s a long walk from Victoria to Shaftesbury Avenue

-do not let three writers in a spec-fic bookshop and expect them to come out empty-handed (especially when there’s a 3-for-2 on SF masterworks)

Then it was time to part ways, and to begin the sad journey home. But never fear–Villa Diodati will strike again!

(many thanks to Rochita, for putting her pictures where I could steal them, and extra doses of gratitude to the Machine-Man, who organises great workshops in scenic places, cooks like a chef,  plays a mean game of balderdash, and bore himself surprisingly well for one lone man trapped with four wild females)