Jim C. Hines's Blog, page 204

Why My Books are Not My Babies

From time to time, you come across authors talking about how their books are their babies.  I've been thinking about the release of The Mermaid's Madness [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy], and decided to see how well the analogy holds up.

Part 1: Creation.  It took me one year to finish the manuscript that would become The Mermaid's Madness, and that's without my editor's revision requests.  It took me mumble minutes to finish … er … well, to finish my part in the creation of what would become my c...

Blurb Ethics

• Thank you to everyone who's offered new and autographed books for the DV Book Drive.  I'll be continuing to collect books through about mid-December, at which point they will be delivered to the shelter.

• I'm still taking entries into the Mock Cover Contest, too.  I'll pick the top entries and put those up for a vote early next week.

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Way back when, after I sold Goldfish Dreams to a small publisher, I started hunting for blurbs. I was fortunate to get some great ones, but I remember the...

DV Book Drive

For several years now, I've run a book drive around the holidays to collect books for a local domestic violence shelter.

On Tuesday, I wrote briefly about the value of books and stories as an escape, however temporary.  Going to a domestic violence shelter is never an easy choice.  It can be even harder around the holidays, especially if you have children.  It's hard to think about presents when you're worried about your safety and trying to figure out how to start your life over from...

The Nebula Thing

• Still taking title suggestions for the mock urban fantasy cover contest. And for anyone who missed it, that entry inspired Paul Abbamondi to do his own urban fantasy mock-up with Jig in a traditional cover pose. Click to view the awesomeness.

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So Nebula recommendations are now open for all works published from July 1, 2008 through the end of this year. I was actually surprised to see how much I had that qualified. Being the trend-following guy I am, I figured what the heck.

Novels:

The...

Mock Cover Contest

Windycon was a great deal of fun, as always.  Got to meet some new folks and catch up with friends … I didn't have much programming, so in a lot of ways this one turned into a social con for me.  Many hugs, lots of hanging out chatting in the lobby and elsewhere.  Met some new fans, but managed to keep the ego from getting too swollen (despite certain people's best efforts). All in all, a good way to spend a weekend.

I learned that the steampunk theme brings out a lot of costumers, which was f...

Windycon Schedule Tweak and Friday LEGO

• Looking at my schedule for this weekend more closely, I'm doing the writing workshop at the same time as the DAW vs. Baen panel, so unless we have last-minute dropouts from the workshop, it looks like I'll be missing that panel.  I'm sad about this, because it had the potential to be … well, lively, if nothing else.

• Since I am doing the "What Kids are Reading" panel on Sunday, I thought I'd open things up to suggestions.  What do you think are the must-read kid titles of 2009?  I've got...

Updatery

• First off, a quote from author C. C. Finlay: "The third law of writing: For every fiction there is an equal and opposite re-fiction. For example, if there is The Hobbit, eventually someone will inevitably write Goblin Quest."  I am much amused.

• The SF/F Humor Roundup is up to 22 short stories and 12 novels.  So far, so good!  I'm working on guidelines to try to cut down on blatant self-promotion.  I don't mind authors recommending their own work, but I don't want a list of 30 stories from ...

Diabetes Details 5: Exercise

Last night I spent two hours at karate.  (Got my promotion form for 3rd brown belt — woo hoo!)  It was a good workout, but the class only meets once a week, so I've started trying to ride the exercise bike a few times a week too.

There are a few reasons for this.  My day job is very sedentary.  I spend all day sitting at a desk answering questions, and then I come home and sit at a different desk and try to catch up on writing-related work.  (If you're going to do the writing thing, it's a...

Top 10 Books of 2009 (Girls Need Not Apply)

By now, I imagine many of you have seen Publishers Weekly's roundup of the ten very best books of 2009, a list which just happens to only include male authors.  Sure, the girls made it into some of the secondary lists, but the ten best?  All boys.

I would also check out Lizzie Skurnick's response at Politics Daily, which included this bit from PW: "We wanted the list to reflect what we thought were the top 10 books of the year with no other consideration . . . We ignored gender and genre and w...

2009 SF/F Humor Roundup is Live!

Here we go!  This is the link for the 2009 roundup of humorous science fiction and fantasy.  Let this be the first step toward a new age, an age in which humorous books can walk proudly beside their literary brothers and sisters, an age in which puns and nose-picking jokes shall be treated with the respect and accolades they deserve!

http://www.jimchines.com/humor-2009/

If you've read some amusing science fiction or fantasy from this year, please let me know and I'll add it to the list!

If...