Jim C. Hines's Blog, page 210

Hugo Awards: Shaped that way for a reason

"If in the written fiction categories, no selected nominee has a female author or co-author, the highest nominee with a female author or co-author shall also be listed."

This is a proposed amendment to the Hugo Awards introduced at a Worldcon business meeting earlier this month.  The amendment was immediately nuked from orbit.  (It was the only way to be sure.)

Today I came across a post by Yonmei, talking about why she proposed the amendment.  Two of the points she makes:

"Books by women are less

One Question Interviews

Yesterday was my day to blog at SF Novelists.  This time I talk about the ups and downs of starting a new novel: That New Manuscript Smell.

Some of you might have seen this already, but Nnedi Okorafor's My Response to District 419 — I mean District 9 is very much worth reading.  Go.  I'll wait.

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Five weeks until The Mermaid's Madness [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy] comes out.  Anxious?  Me?  Not at all.  I always spend this much time Googling for pre-release reviews.

I've also been trying to figure ou

Just a Geek, by Wil Wheaton

The time is early 2004.  I had just signed a deal with Five Star to publish Goblin Quest.  This would be my first published fantasy, hopefully bringing me one step closer to actually Making It As A Writer.  With Five Star being a small specialty press, I was on my own when it came to blurbs.  So I e-mailed a few people I knew.  On a whim, after reading one of Wheaton's blog columns about gaming, I wrote him a quick e-mail.

Six hours later, I bounded away from the computer, grabbed my wife by the

Overnetworked (Now with 100% more Twitter!)

I've said from time to time that I wasn't going to join Twitter.  It turns out I lied.  https://twitter.com/jimchines  This is entirely the fault of my publisher, who have their own Twitter account at @dawbooks.

I'm officially at the point where I'm overnetworked.  I think I'm going to try to balance this out by closing out my MySpace page.*  I don't use that one, and this way I can pretend I'm not adding yet more online timesuckery to my life.

I don't know how much I'll be doing with Twitter yet.

Snow Queen: Day 1

Cry havoc, and let slip the plotbunnies of war!  Today I wrote the first 660 words of Scourge of the Snow Queen!  (Title may change between now and 2011.)

I had hoped to post a celebratory snippet.  Unfortunately, anything from today's writing would completely spoil the ending of The Mermaid's Madness [Amazon | Mysterious Galaxy].  Stupid ongoing plot threads.

This is the first book in the series where I feel like I need a prologue, or at least some sort of "Previously on the Princess Action show…

Writing Popular

One of the earliest pieces of writing advice I remember was that writers — especially new writers — shouldn't try to write to trend.  In other words, don't look at today's hot books and set out to write whatever's currently leaping off the shelves.

There are problems with aiming for trends, not the least of which is the glacial pace of publishing.  Say Cyborg Unicorns are the hot new thing, so you set out to write your own cybercorn book.  You spend a year writing your book, another year submitti

Random Updatery

Memo to self: insulin is a wonderful drug, one which is much more effective when you remember to take it.  Sigh.  It's been ages since I've seen a number that high on my glucose meter.  (402 if you're curious, with normal being around 80-120.  I am not pleased with myself.)

Marriott update: The Stamford Marriott has responded to the outcry over their victim-blaming defense in a rape case.  They are stating that the legal case has been handled by their insurance company, and they are asking that t

How do you know the story is done?

On Saturday night, I e-mailed Red Hood's Revenge to my editor.  This is the time when we do the Snoopy dance.  (Or we would if I hadn't immediately turned around and messed up my back.  Sigh.)

Overall, the book took just over a year from the day I started writing.  The manuscript came in at 91,000 words, but I suspect it will grow once I have the revision chat with my editor, not to mention feedback from my agent and a few others (including one Seanan McGuire, author of the forthcoming Rosemary a

Why it's your fault if you're raped at the Stamford Marriott

Potentially triggering discussion of rape and victim-blaming.

Yesterday, tinylegacies pointed me toward an article about a woman who was raped at gunpoint by a stranger in the Stamford Marriott parking garage.  The woman filed a civil suit against the hotel, claiming her attacker "had been in the hotel and garage acting suspiciously days before the attack, as well as the afternoon of the attack, and the hotel failed to notice him, apprehend him or make him leave."

The full article is at http://www

Laughing at Myself

"So when are you going to quit the day job?"

I can't blame folks for asking the question … again and again and again.  We've all seen the movies, the writers living in luxurious homes, sharing a limo with their agents on the way to the big booksigning, and so on.  J. K. Rowling has her own castle.  And didn't Stephen King buy Maine a while back?  Dan Brown's GDP is expected to surpass Canada's by 2011.

No matter how many times I explain that most of us are getting four or low five digit advances,