Last weekend, the wife and I went to Quebec City for three days to celebrate our anniversary (21 years!), recharge our batteries, and plan out some new stories together. We stayed at a nice hotel in the old city, went to the German Christmas Market and did some shopping, ate fantastic meals, and generally had a wonderful time in one of the most beautiful places on the continent.
We came back with detailed outlines for five books–a brand new science fiction trilogy and two more Frontlines: Evolution installments–so I’d say the mission was an unqualified success. It was great to be able to bounce new ideas off each other away from the distractions and interruptions of our regular everyday lives. I think we’ll make these planning sessions a regular event from now on.
Oh, and Quebec City is amazing. This was my third time there and I’ve enjoyed every minute of every trip. It’s the city that has the most European feel of any place I’ve visited in North America. The people are uniformly friendly and very forgiving of my lousy French, the food is stellar, and it’s great to be able to make an international trip by car instead of having to put up with holiday season airline travel. It’s just a five-hour drive from our place, and we had all the advantages of being able to haul our own stuff and take back food and souvenirs without having to worry about space or luggage allowances.
When I was in Glasgow for Worldcon, I shared a few pictures on my Instagram account. Among them were shots of the full Scottish breakfast I got to use as fuel for the day.
Someone commented on the post that I should “eat less and write more.” I’m sure the person who left that comment had no ill intent and meant it as a compliment of sorts, but it still rubbed me the wrong way just a little bit.
What I do—what all writers I know do as well—is informed and fueled by our lives. We synthesize our personal experiences and perspectives and turn them into fiction. In order to do that well, we have to, you know, live our lives. I do most of my work in a room by myself with just me and the screen or the notebook in front of me. Whenever I don’t work, I need to step out into life and refill those experience bars again, and I also like to meet old friends and eat good food because those are the sort of things that sustain me and keep me at my desk the rest of the time. In fact, whenever I go without them too long, I feel my writing dropping in quality because it’s not healthy to live almost exclusively in your own head and let those socialization and experience bars go down to nothing. The trip to Glasgow was, in fact, only my second trip of the entire year, and the only one that was work-related. I got to see writer friends I hadn’t seen since before the pandemic, and it was a much-overdue event for my mental health.
When you tell me to cut out enjoying that part of my life and go back to my office, you irritate me and spoil my enjoyment, and you make me pull back from sharing my life in public in order to avoid getting irritated and having my joy spoiled. It’ll also make my work less enjoyable in the long run because I’ll eventually suffer a creative slump or burnout if I am locked in the office by myself all year. Neither of those outcomes are in any way positive for either you or me.
I guess what I am trying to get across is this—writers are not vending machines, so please don’t treat your favorite authors as such, even if it implies that you love our writing so much that you’d rather we never did anything else so you can get your fictional treats more quickly. We need time to restock so you won’t be stuck with the stale novella in slot C5 that’s been put there without much care by a tired and overworked brain. Please think before you comment, and let us have a life outside of work as well without making us feel bad for it.
I made it for over a week after Scotland and all the attendant travel, but it looks like the Worldcon COVID wave has finally caught up with me. (My wife tested positive on the weekend and has been mildly sick ever since, so I knew it would only be a matter of time.)
The weird thing is that I tested negative all week including just yesterday. Alas, this isn’t the first time for me, so I’ll do what I did before–get Paxlovid, take it easy, and drink lots of water. I feel fine right now, and if this round is like the last one, I’ll feel a little crappy for two days and then be mostly fine for the rest of the week.
As you can tell from the progress bar in the sidebar to the right, I have finished the first draft of CORVUS, the second installment in the Frontlines: Evolution series. It’s with the editor now, and I’ll see it again in a few weeks to begin the developmental edits, but for now it’s off my desk.
I spent a long weekend in Glasgow, Scotland, where I attended the Alfie awards dinner thrown by George R.R. Martin, honoring the authors whose works had been inexplicably punted off the shortlist by the powers in charge at the Chengdu Worldcon last year. I also spent much of Saturday at the con, where I got to meet up with some old friends I hadn’t seen since before the pandemic, so that was lovely. The travel itself was another story altogether. I took the draft of CORVUS with me to finish it on the way (spoiler warning–I didn’t finish it on the way), and deadline stress plus travel anxiety combined into a new and special cocktail of stress that I wouldn’t wish on anyone. But I finished the draft in my hotel room on Friday, literally two hours before the awards dinner, and everything was much more fun and relaxing once I hit “Send” on that email to my editor and agent.
In the wake of the con, a lot of people reported testing positive for COVID, including a good friend with whom I spent time at a pub on Saturday night, and several people who went to the same awards dinner I attended. I’ve tested negative three times since Sunday and I feel fine, so I hope I made it through a busy con and two packed airports without catching it.
I got back on Monday and took the last few days to recover from the combination of travel and deadline stress, but now it’s back to work. I have a project to keep me busy until I get the editor notes for CORVUS back, but I can’t disclose that one yet, so you’ll have to take my word for it that it’ll be cool and awesome.
Once I turn in this secret project, my schedule for the rest of the year consists of writing Palladium Wars #5, which doesn’t have a name yet. I aim to have that one done by the end of December, for a release in the first quarter of next year. I have news on the future of the Palladium Wars series, but that’s a matter for another post.
Anyway–the year is already almost two thirds of the way done, and there’s plenty of work to be done in that last third, so I’d best get to it. More news to follow soon!
Back when we had our driveway redone, we had the construction crew extend it all the way around the house. The surface is hard pack gravel, so if I don’t consciously use the entire driveway during the spring and summer instead of just driving on the convenient front half, the weeds will come up between the gravel and slowly reclaim that strip of ground.
Much like that driveway, the blog gets a little overgrown from time to time when I forget to tend to it, but I don’t think the weeds have ever been this high. I haven’t posted any updates since early February. I’ve been busy with the editorial back-and-forth for CENTERS OF GRAVITY, the eighth Frontlines novel, but that one’s all in the bag now and ready to meet its readers in two months. Every time I am finished with a novel, my brain needs to go into refill mode for a while instead of diving into the next project full throttle. And with the ongoing dumpster fire that is the 2020s, those refill breaks seem to get a bit longer every year. Alas, the break has been over for a little while now, and I am at work writing another novel in the Frontlines universe, for publication in 2023. (Next up on the schedule is DESCENT, the fourth book in the Palladium Wars, which will hopefully get a 2023 release as well if I manage to finish the draft as planned.)
With those two drafts on my dance card before December 31, I don’t have any firm plans for conventions or other big events this year. I simply don’t have the time right now to bounce around a con for a few days—it breaks up my work schedule, and I never manage to get any meaningful work done on the road. That probably means you won’t be seeing me out at an event in person in 2022, but it also means there’ll be two novels out next year instead of only one. (That was the pace I had set myself in 2019, before the Horrendous Times, and I’d love to be able to get back to it this year.)
That said, I did get to go out for a day recently and meet up with some colleagues for some shenanigans and shared meals. My friends Kevin (Hearne), Delilah (S. Dawson), and Chuck (Wendig) were in Boston for their joint book tour, and we used the opportunity for socializing a little. It was great to be among friends again and back to some normality.
(Also, I’ve lived in New England for 16 out of the last 25 years, and I just now found out that a.) the coffee milk is the state beverage of Rhode Island, and that b.) it’s actually pretty good.)
With the release of CENTERS OF GRAVITY just around the corner, I will have author copies before too long, so stand by for the traditional paperback give-away. Until then, I’ll try to use this here internet driveway more often so the weeds don’t take over and entropy doesn’t win…
Not everyone got to travel internationally since the start of the pandemic, so I figured I’d share a few pictures from my quick visit back home last month. (All photos taken with the camera on my iPhone 11.)
Descending into Schiphol. I fly into Amsterdam because it’s the closest major airport to where my family lives. Big fan of both the city and the country.
Schiphol airport is best airport. Whenever I see this place, I am happy because I’m either about to see family or I’m about to head home.
A local bakery/cafe in my old home city. All the shops were open and at what looked like pre-pandemic business. Indoor mask-wearing was mandatory and universal.
Prinzipalmarkt, the heart of the main shopping mile of Münster. Bombed to rubble in WWII and (luckily) rebuilt to match the old historic buildings.
The pub/restaurant next to the old City Hall. I want to think that my great-grandpa had a beer there every once in a while back in the 19th century already.
Looking down Prinzipalmarkt the other way, north to south.
St. Ludger’s parish church. My old Kindergarten is still there, just beyond the left edge of the photo.
The old Stuhlmacher pub next to the historic City Hall, where the Peace of Westphalia was signed in 1648, ending the Thirty Years’ War.
I remember playing in that fountain when I was a little kid. The church on the left is St. Lambert’s, where my great-grandfather was baptized in 1869.
Auf Schalke. 57,000 fans in attendance. Proof of vaccination was mandatory for entry, but it still felt weird to be in a big crowd like this again.
One of the things I miss from there: German bread. This isn’t even a fancy bakery, just the bakery counter at a large discount store.
Heading back to Amsterdam by train after six days of packed visitation schedule with the family.
Had the entire 1st class compartment to myself, which is a very acceptable way to travel. This is an Intercity, so not even one of the really nice trains, which go 200MPH and look like a Star Trek shuttle had a baby with an Apple Store.
Descending into Keflavik. Iceland is a pretty place.
Stopping over at Keflavik Airport on the way back to Boston.
They renovated since the last time I came through here.
This was the whole passenger load on the flight back to the US. It was a week before the end of the travel ban for Europeans, so it was all Americans or Permanent Residents going home. I’ve never been on a transatlantic flight that was this empty, and it was amazing.
Iceland, bringing the natural beauty again.
The Icelandair route between BOS and KEF goes over southern Greenland, so when the weather is good, you can get shots like this one from 36,000 feet up. (It’s not even slightly green. Erik the Red was a very skilled real estate agent.)
With the way the new case numbers are looking on both sides of the Atlantic right now, it may be a while before I get to go again, so I am glad I went when I did.
Due to health concerns related to the current coronavirus/COVID-19 outbreak, my publisher has decided to cancel their participation at Emerald City Comic Con, so I won’t be in Seattle or at ECCC next week. (Sorry if you were looking to come to panels or get a book or two signed.)
In related news, we just had our first confirmed COVID-19 case in my state, and it’s someone from my county. That person is an employee of the local university hospital, so there’s a good chance people in the Upper Valley are going to buy the local grocery stores empty now. Alas, we here at Castle Frostbite are homebodies even in the most favorable conditions, and we are out in the country, so we are in a good position to ride this out.
The official Wild Cards page has an interview with me that’s probably the most detailed and in-depth one I’ve given so far.
In other news, work on Frontlines #7 (“Orders of Battle”) is progressing very well, and things are still on track for a completed draft by the end of December. I don’t want to promise too much, but my publisher thinks they’ll be able to slot it into the 2020 release schedule if I manage to turn it in on time. So far, so good.
I am filling out my convention dance card for 2020, and it looks like I may be able to do a few more cons than I managed this year. Right now I am tentatively confirmed for ConFusion in Detroit (which is in January), and Emerald City Comic Con in March. I’ll also be at Readercon in Boston just like every year.
The 2020 Worldcon is in New Zealand, and we’re still in the planning stage on that one. Right now I’d say the chance is about 50/50 that we’ll be able to go, but there are a few other things that need to align to make all the lights go to green. Worldcons tend to be expensive, but the flight halfway around the globe adds another layer of cash to that bill because there’s no way I’m doing a 16-hour flight in coach.
It looks like I’ll be attending Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle from March 12-15. I don’t have a schedule yet because the panels have yet to be approved, but if it’s anything like last time, I’ll be participating in a few panels and most likely do a signing as well. So if you are planning to attend ECCC or thinking about it, mark your calendar if you want to see me and/or get a book signed.
I’ll post a more precise schedule for the con once I get word back on the approved panels.
Two weeks ago, I did Worldcon, which was super fun. Then I ended up being nominated for a Dragon Award for Best Military SF/Fantasy novel, so I let my friend Melissa F. Olson guilt me into going to Atlanta for DragonCon on short notice. I thought that almost two weeks since Worldcon would be enough rest to be able to tacke a DragonCon weekend, especially since I didn’t have any panels.
Reader, I was SO VERY WRONG.
I was fine on Friday, so-so on Saturday, and on Sunday my social battery and energy level were both in the red and blinking. DragoCon is a crazy, big, loud affair (word has it there were over 90,000 attendees), and those kind of cons, while fun, tend to wear me down much faster than the smaller literary-minded ones. I will say that downtown Atlanta is a big party during DragonCon, and that the cosplay in particular was off-the-charts excellent.
I did not win, by the way…just like my first Dragon nomination in 2016, I lost to David Weber, so I guess it’s a tradition now.
Now I’m back home and finishing some projects I’ve had cooking for a while (a Wild Cards and a Frontlines novella), and then I’m off to work on the next novel, which I hope to finish by the end of the year…or at least by the end of the winter, which will probably start to descent on us here in NH by the end of next month. We’ve had snow as early as my birthday in late October, although it usually doesn’t really start in earnest until December.
That was my last con appearance this year. Apologies to everyone who messaged me to maybe get together at DragonCon…my social dance card was too full, and the place was too big and complicated to navigate in a hurry to squeeze in a lot of coffee or lunch meetings, especially with the lines everywhere. My next con will probably be ConFusion in Detroit in late January…if I end up finishing the new book by then, that is.
In closing, have some snapshots from WorldCon and DragonCon:
The lobby of one of the four DragonCon hotels, the Marriott, on Saturday night.
The view from the executive floor of the Marriott Marquis, 47 floors up.
Downtown Atlanta from my hotel room window.
DragonCon street traffic. Lots of cosplay.
ATL in the late PM.
Downtown ATL from above.
The view up from the Marriott lobby.
George R.R. Martin’s Hugo Losers’ Party.
The Hugo Awards ceremony.
That’s me, sitting on a panel next to Larry “Ringworld” Niven.
The view from the podium. Standing room only.
Our Wild Cards panel, with Mary Anne Mohanraj, GRRM, Melinda Snodgrass, and David Levine in the picture.
Wild Cards panel, sitting with Mary Anne and George.
A tiny slice of the Wild Cards signing line.
Con hotel in San Jose.
Obligatory view from the hotel window.
Another view from the hotel window, overlooking the San Jose Museum of Art and the Cathedral Basilica of St. Joseph.
