A Few Good Things

First, I finished Lord Quillifer in the early hours of the morning, and sent it on to my editor and my agent.  I was so afraid that the project would be Dance with Dragons-sized that I’d stopped doing word counts for the last ten chapters or so, but when I finally added them up, the book turned out to be shorter than Quillifer the Knight.  So hurrah!

My MacBook’s keyboard managed to avoid complete disintegration before I wrote THE END to the project, and I’ll be taking it to the local Genius Bar tomorrow, where I’m sure they’ll deny the problem exists, then not have the parts to fix it, and then hang onto my computer for weeks, while I try to work in my iPad and a portable Bluetooth keyboard.

After finishing the book I over-celebrated a bit, which resulted in my sleeping badly, which meant that I had to take a lovely, lovely nap in the late afternoon, and am now as fit as the fiddle section of the Philadelphia Philharmonic.

When I rose from my nap a box awaited me on the front porch, with copies of the bound, uncorrected proofs of The Best of Walter Jon Williams.  This is the copy being sent to reviewers, so if you happen to be a reviewer and want to review it, you might try contacting Subterranean Press.

Unless you’re a reviewer, you’ll have to wait till December for your proper bound hardback copy.  But it’ll be worth the wait.

Here’s the TOC:

• Introduction by Daniel Abraham

• Daddy’s World

• The Golden Age

• Dinosaurs

• Surfacing

• Video Star

• The Millennium Party

• The Bad Twin

• The Green Leopard Plague

• Diamonds from Tequila

• Margaux

• Prayers on the Wind

• Wall, Stone, Craft

• Story Notes by Me

I’d like to quote from Daniel’s introduction: ” . . . the job of being a writer is a fine balance between, on the one hand, cultivating a deep and empathetic understanding of the human heart and, on the other, not giving a shit what anyone else thinks.”

It’s something to aspire to, right?