Martha Wells's Blog, page 227

Jayme's posted a bunch more ArmadilloCon Photos here.

Jayme's posted a bunch more ArmadilloCon Photos here.

I wanted to thank everybody for your comments on my last ...

I wanted to thank everybody for your comments on my last post, we both really appreciate the good wishes and support. I'll definitely post when I know anything more of what's going to happen. Right now we're just trying to reduce expenses drastically. Getting rid of the landline phone service, cutting down the cable package, dropping my gym membership, etc. This also means no out of town cons for the foreseeable future.

Okay, that's enough depressing stuff. Here's some:



Tasha


Tasha torturing h

We got some very bad news this morning. My husband may b...

We got some very bad news this morning. My husband may be laid off at the end of September. He's trying to work out a way to stay with his department, by taking a pay or hours cut, or combining with another position, but at the moment we don't know what's going to happen. So...yeah, really not good.

ArmadilloCon Day Three and Four

Saturday

I'm not sure what the con attendance was, but both panels I did on Saturday were full to bursting, with people standing in the back. If you walked into the main area, it didn't seem like there were many people there -- until the panels let out and 500 plus people poured out of all the various function rooms.

The art show as usual was excellent, with art by John Picacio and Stephan Martiniere, who had to cancel his appearance but still sent his art. Click the link for his web site, then

ArmadilloCon Day Two (Day One went by really fast)

I was in the ArmadilloCon writers workshop from 9:00 to 5:00 yesterday. It started at about 8:45 am, and there were two panels in the morning: "How does one finish a book anyway?" and "Race in Sci-Fi/Fantasy - Challenges and Pitfalls," then Scott Lynch led a writing game involving making storylines out of your most hated cliches, that was hilarious and a lot of fun. Then lunch, and an afternoon of story critiquing, and then a final wrap-up and question and answer session from 4:00 to 5:00. Ev

ArmadilloCon Day Zero

Troyce and I got to Austin late this afternoon for ArmadilloCon. We went to the pre-con dinner at Serrano's, which is a Tex-Mex restaurant with a really nice natural stone patio with shade trees, looking down on a creek without much water in it at the moment. The con had reserved a private building out on the patio (much better than the basement the restaurant originally thought we were supposed to be in). The hand-made tortillas were the best ever. Then we came back to the hotel, hung out i

I got a couple of questions about this, so just to clarif...

I got a couple of questions about this, so just to clarify, The Forest Boy hasn't been published before and is new to the website, The Potter's Daughter was published in Elemental a couple of years ago and is a prequel story to The Element of Fire, and won't spoil you for that book.

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I'm getting ready to go to ArmadilloCon tomorrow. There will be lots of intensive preparation which includes two loads of laundry. Okay, mostly I just have to do laundry. I'll be in the writers workshop all day

Another Short Story

Just posted another short story, Holy Places, to my web site. It appeared in Black Gate #11, in August 2007, and it's a prequel story to the Fall of Ile-Rien trilogy. In chronological order, it's the first Giliead and Ilias story, and is about how they met as children, and the first time Ilias sees the god of Cineth.

Again, I put up a Paypal tip jar, though I still feel weird about it. If you've already donated, I really appreciate it and please don't feel obligated to donate again!

The othe

I wanted to link to this book review on DearAuthor: Wher...

I wanted to link to this book review on DearAuthor: Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin. It's described as a girl-positive fairy tale, set in Ancient China. It sounds fabulous.

Plus Jeff VanderMeer did a post about Online Press Kits for Writers


I really need to buy a new hand brace. I'm starting to get a lot of hand nerve pain again, even though I'm wearing it about sixteen-plus hours per day. I think it's because my hand brace is not bracing so much anymore. The cats keep tearing

thanate asked: Do you have any favorite resources or piec...

thanate asked: Do you have any favorite resources or pieces of advice for people who write but haven't yet gotten up the courage to tackle the publishing industry?

My big piece of advice is don't tackle the publishing industry unless you really really want to, and feel compelled to. (It's not a career where you make a lot of money (unless you just hit it lucky) and there's no real job security.) There's nothing wrong with writing just for fun, for your own enjoyment and fulfillment.

(We were tal