My mom passed away today at 11:45 a.m. PST. I was with her for her last breath. I cannot speak, or think. I can only respond numbly to people talking at me, to me and with me. I'll be checking out 'till I come to my senses so don't be upset if I don't get back to you. Thank you all for being here.

Dani

I had the pleasure of paneling with Dennis McKiernan at last year's Westercon conference in Tempe, Arizona. The great thing was that I, at 45 years of age, was the whipper snapper on the panel. Next came Michael Stackpole (50's), Eric Flint (60's) and finally Dennis (70's).  However I'd have to say the Dennis may have been the youngest of us all. He had such a nice, easy going outlook on life it gave me hope that all the stress I'm going through now in trying to knock this stuff out will one day be a thing I can look back on with the same insouciant grace. Dennis has a ton of books out, the best known of which are those set in his world of Mithgar. But here's a delightful tale he shared with me about his first ever submission of a manuscript.

Thanks for listening,

Dani

From Dennis McKiernan:

Well, I'm not gonna lie. It's been a rough month indeed as Eytan and I sit daily at the foot of my mom's bed and try to bang out pages (from our third book) as fast as she can read 'em. When the smoke clears I'll be writing about some the more interesting aspects of this oddly perfect storm of dying, deliverables, and bucket lists versus f@#! it lists. In the meantime I've managed to corral a few authors to drop in and leave some of their insights and experiences about finally getting published. This week it's a dear friend of mine from Northern California, named Gail Carriger who recently had her first book, Soulless, published. I'm also proud to report that less than one month out it's already on its second reprint! Go Gail. And lastly, I'd just like to say that I'm finding the book an absolute joy to read. Paranormal romantic steampunk novels are not my cup of tea (case in point: this would be my first) but such is the way of things in new authordom (as in any industry) - you link me, I link you. The danger of course, is what happens if you hate theirs? Fortunately, in this case, that wasn't the case. 

So without further ado, welcome to Gail's fantastic voyage.

And as usual thanks for listening,

Dani


First Shelf Sighting ~ Gail Carriger
 
The first time I saw my book on a shelf in a bookstore it wasn't in person. Instead, there it was, blurred by cell phone camera inefficiency, taken by one of my twitter followers in Minnesota. It was a week before Soulless was supposed to be released, so both she and I were taken entirely unawares and understandably confused.
 
Well, it turns out, bookstores can do that with certain books: shelve 'em when they get 'em. No gag order. Mine was one of those books.
 
A small but enthusiastic following had been anticipating Soulless, and they we quite a buzz to find it arriving early. Suddenly, the spies-I-didn't-know-I-had went to work and began reporting in from around the country. Soulless spotted in Indiana! In Texas! In New York! Thousands panic! (Oh, wait, different headline.) And then, finally, a dear friend snapped a shot if it in my home state of California.
 
A day or so later I was out shopping with a couple of girlfriends, as you do. We were consuming those Vietnamese beverages with the black tapioca in them, affectionately referred to by me as "Drinks with Stuff!" This process, three shopping females plus drinkies, involves much chittering and slurping and sideways perambulations. And thus engaged, we wandered by a Borders.
 
"Ooo," says I, "can we go in and see if they have my book?"
 
And so we do. And there it was! The chittering and the slurping became more enthusiastic as a result, which attracted the attention of one of the green t-shirted staff.
 
"Can I help you?" says she.
 
"That's my book!" I crow.
 
"Would you like to sign it?" says she. Crazy authors, she's thinking.
 
"Really? Of course! I'd love to."
 
And so she disappears and returns with a whole stack for me to sign, right there: Drink with Stuff! in one hand, cheap pen in the other.
 
As we leave the store one of my friends keeps saying. "I can't believe they didn't' ask you for ID or anything."
 
"Oh, of course," says I, "because there's a mad plague of crooks masquerading as small time authors dashing into unsuspecting stores and demanding to sign books they haven't written."
 
"Well, fine. But it'd be pretty funny if there were."
 
And with that I leave you to ponder what is obviously an untapped criminal market.
 
~ GC

I guess when it rains it pours.

I'm happy to announce that our book, The Unincorporated Man has been nominated for the 2010 Prometheus Award, created to honor science fiction writers whose books best examine the meaning of freedom.  There are certainly more renowned awards in SF (Hugo, Nebula, Campbell) but the Prometheus is the only one that both honors our chosen genre as well as the subject matter that Eytan and I feel most passionate about. All of our books (The Unincorporated War releases in May, 2010 and the third a year after that) examine the question of why  when we so often profess freedom to be one of our most cherished rights do we so easily give it away? And further, what are the consequences of that loss?

Anyways, Eytan and I were floored when we got the news. We never expected our first effort to produce much more than some (hopefully) nice reviews and decent sales. That we're now on the shortlist for an award won by many of our literary heroes, including Larry Niven, Vernor Vinge, Terry Pratchett, Harry Turtledove, Charlie Stross and Cory Doctorow, is nothing short of amazing. We have assumed the Wayne's World position but will dig the honor nonetheless.

 Tonight a man lies next to his wife of 48 years unable to sleep. The news he dreaded to hear arrived this afternoon in the cold, shapeless voice at the other end of the line. The treatment failed to stop the killer. His wife, the marvel of modern medicine, the patient who beat pancreatic cancer five years ago was now being beaten. 

Tonight the man's son lies awake writing in this journal. It's 1:30am. I will be getting up in less than two hours to ride my bike up a series of diabolically steep hills. Taking on physical pain relieves mental pain. But I already know I will lose to the hills this morning just as I have lost to terror tonight. 

My daughter was Bat Mitvah'ad yesterday. She went to bed tonight  as an 11 year old and will wake up as a 12 year old. At this very moment she lies asleep resplendent in her 'her-ness', in her 12-ness. 

I am so proud of her.
I am so terrified of what's coming.
I am given up to the terrible notion that walls will soon come crashing down.

Life informs my writing but now, I fear, it may drown it out for a bit.

Thank you all for your patience. Thank you all for listening.

Dani

Of everything Eytan and I dreamed about when first signing our book deal, I can assure you the Sunday funnies were not one of them. Too funny.

Dani

Shot from the road: Denver to Vegas on the way back from Worldcon 67.

      

Thanks for listening,

Dani

This is from my smartphone 'cause the place we stayed over last night was having net hookup problems I'll cut to the chase - NBG still reigns supreme however the woman we spoke with said that her 'club' (apparently they're in a bunch of cities) is having an event soon and that she'd send lj appropriate pics. Maybe there's something to this whole naked lit thing.

Movin' on. Denver to Vegas was uneventful but for the truly spectacular un-sunset images I took that I can't bloody send you from this phone! (I will post 'em in the next few days) I say un-sunset because the sun was already below the horizon line but the clouds caught every shade of every color known to man. I shot about 70 pics, around 10 of which might make you believe that if there is a God she's one hell of a painter.

At the moment of this writing we're 85 miles and 1 and a half hours from home. Total cost of trip: $650 (Incl. Gas,food 'n lodging). Thank you all so much for joining me and Eytan on our worldcon journey and as always, thanks for listening.

Dani

Rumor has it that Naked Bookseller Guy may be in for some competition. Eytan and I embark for Vegas (from Denver where we're staying over at the incomparable author David Boop's house) and we had a very interesting conversation yesterday with a woman who thinks she may be able to give NBG a run for his money. I will say nothing more lest the call turn out to be a hoax. Suffice to say there may just be a new pict posted tomorrow for which those of you who still haven't forgiven me for NBG may now have even more reason to yank me from your wills. So...Today we left Chicago at 5 a.m. and arrived in Denver at 9:30 p.m. The day was blissfully uneventful and I was able to get a lot of writing done on book three from the unincorporated universe. I was also photobug happy and so the rest of this blog will be made up primarily of images. Of note were lots of trucks carrying very strange things. Also there were quite a few thunderstorms and i took advantage of the nature swings to catch some pretty cool storm shots. I urge you to click on the photos to see them a little larger. There are some really cool details -- especially on the thresher. Talk to you in Vegas, twitter to you sooner.

Thanks for listening,

Dani

 

 No picts. No Sleep. No Problem.  I'll keep this short and sweet since it's 4:40am and I'm in the house of a friend of mine who was gracious enough to allow us to arrive at Midnight and leave at 5 a.m. (The perfect guests!). Yesterday we drove from Montreal to Chicago with the great question being, will we be stopped at the border and will I shut my bloody mouth? The answer to that question is, ironically less than clear. So, no, we didn't get stopped at the border but yes, we did get stopped BEFORE the border. There we were cued up with hundreds of other cars waiting to funnel into the area where they check your passports. Roaming groups of US Border Guards (some with dogs) worked their way in and out of the cars. Which car did they knock on the window of? You guessed it. At the point that Eytan answered, 'Why yes, officer. In fact we did drive all the way from LA to Montreal and are now headed back," that was the point they said, "please turn off your cell phones and kindly pop the trunk." Gulp. We did, they checked asked a few more questions and let us move on. Ironically the wait at the Border (just stuck in traffic) was almost TWICE as long as the wait getting into Canada AND that includes my now famous "who has jurisdiction?" line and sad aftermath.  So post that we headed into Michigan and to Clinton Township where Eytan and I planned on visiting The Cryonics Institute and if luck held out meet its founder, Robert Ettinger--both of which had a significant role in a basic premise of our novel (in order to move our main character  from today into the future we needed a reasonably extrapolative hard science - cryogenics). There'll be more on that in a future blog but suffice to say we lucked out on both counts. Robert is a man in his late 80's and sharp as a tack. Eytan and I read him some passages from the book, which he thoroughly enjoyed and then  we discussed at length ways in which different societies accept death. Robert's written some very sharp and funny books, most of which are available at amazon but some of which are free online. If you want a prescient view of the future check out Man Into Superman. I've used quite a few passages from that one in any number of future-space panels. From there it was a hop skip and 4 or so hour jump into Chicago. No NBG. The closest we came to "odd" was passing by a town called, "Romulus." And for guys on the way back from the World Science Fiction convention that was cool enough to suffice.

Thanks for Listening, I'll hopefully post some picts from Denver.

Dani
P.S. Follow me on Twitter during the road trip. It's practically like being in the car with me and Eytan except without the smell of two guys in a car on a 6,000 mile trip.

 I could give you the highlights and the lowlights but I'll give you this instead--a confession. 

There’s an episode of CSI in which one of the show’s characters is investigating a murder at a science fiction convention. In the scene he’s sitting in an ‘alien’ saloon questioning the bartender whose half melted face appears as authentic as those of the bar’s costumed patrons.  Only it’s not. The bartender pulls off a face prosthetic to reveal his full deformity. Turns out he’s a war veteran. Then, in referring to the assortment of oddballs and introverts attending the conference he says, “they believe in a future where human beings transcend their differences. I wouldn’t mind living in a world like that.” To which the investigator replies, “Neither would I.”

 Most of us have seen William Shatner’s, Saturday Night Live “Get a Life” episode. And if you haven’t, you should. It’s truly hilarious. But let’s not kid ourselves, the skit is meant to deride. And science fiction fans (often referred to as ‘fandom’) make an easy target. They’re the left-outs--often misunderstood, usually marginalized and as often as not, mocked. Which is of course ironic given (on average) how much smarter they are than the boobs who revel in mocking them. So here’s my question: When did passion become a crime? Why isn’t someone who obsesses over a car worthy of the same derision heaped on those who obsess over a show?  Why is it alright to be fashion conscious but considered odd to be costume conscious?   When my wife asks me what it is I do at these all night parties that are practically de rigueur at every science fiction convention, my answer still confounds:  “I talk.”  Conversations can be about anything from the prospects of nanotechnology, to the foibles of politicians; from space travel to time travel to whatever comes to mind. Move down the hall to next party and start all over again. 

In all my years of wandering and through all my years at university I have never met a smarter, more passionate group of people. Within all the social circles that my wife and I mingle--groups, I might add, that include, doctors, lawyers, physicists and entrepreneurs--none come close to the openness, curiosity and ultimately, joie de vivre of this extraordinary assemblage of individuals. I can only hope they’ll forgive me for once having been one of those mockers; and for somehow thinking that that was cool. And even if they don’t, which is their right, I can only hope that I embrace life with half as much gusto and bravery as they do.   If becoming a science fiction author has taught me anything, it’s taught me that.

 

Thanks for listening,

Dani

There's nothing quite like jumping from a 'no-sleep'  3,000 mile journey to a 'no-sleep' science fiction convention. Last night/morning we made it home by 3 a.m. For the uninitiated this is the way a con (convention) works - at least from an author's perspective. Sit on panels during the day, get into lots of conversations with lots of people in between those panels then go to parties at night...where you'll get into lot of conversations with lots of people. It's an odd tincture of pimping your product, chilling out and remembering what is was like to be 18 again (conclusion: I really have no desire to be 18 again). Also, Neil Gaiman is a rock star. Science fiction authors aren't used to seeing other authors with groupies, Neil has them in droves and easily overshadowed a room filled with the literati of SF. It gives me hope. I always wanted to be a rock star but gave that up around the time I realized I was never gonna be a rock star. Anyhow those are thoughts for day 1. Enjoy the eye candy below (mostly picts of the convention center).







Pictured below is an exhibition of our editor, David Hartwell's,  ties. What you see in the pict represents less than a third of his collection. The funny thing is it was David's article on the Three Rules of Fashion that piqued my desire to have him be our editor (not like it was ever gonna be my choice just that the article was so damned clever).



And finally, of course, Eytan assuming the pose.



Thanks for listening,

Dani

Ok. Here's a little lesson. When you pull up to the Canadian border whatever you do, do not ask the border cop the following: "If a crime was committed directly in the center of this bridge leading from Michigan into Canada, who would have jurisdiction?"  Now mind you I thought that was a really good question. I mean really, who would have Jurisdiction? So the cop looks at me for a long second and replies, "I have no idea." 30 seconds after that he points us to the "special" area where 4 other cops immediately start rummaging through our car, luggage and wallets for any sign of illegal anything. Fortunately for me and Eytan curiosity is not a crime (just, apparently, an annoyance) and so after 30 minutes of questioning and 30 minutes of waiting they sent us on our Merry way. Here's another piece of advice -- and this is truly pertinent for all you aspiring authors out there -- when a border cop asks you, "Do you have enough money for your stay here with us in Canada?" whatever you do, don't laugh and say, "We're authors, we never have enough money." While Eytan and I have repeated that line, nay, hundreds of times over the last year we somehow managed to find the one place that that ship don't fly. In retrospect it makes perfect sense. They don't want us hopping over the border and living off their welfare. However when I explained to the woman behind the counter that I was married with three kids and that even if I wanted to stay in Canada my wife would hunt me down and bring me home, well then...then I finally got a smile. Oh and one more thing. You've all seen picutres of Eytan - he looks like a biker and always wears his FU glasses (the ones that you can't see into his eyes). So make that lesson number 3. Make sure they can see your eyes. ;-)

The other highlight of the one day journey was stopping by our old haunting grounds, Flint Michigan. We visited the synogogue where our dad used to be the Rabbi and walked the halls of the after-school (attached to the synogogue) we used to attend. We even found some old photos of Eytan on the wall.



After that we drove to the house we used to live in (what we remembered as miles turned out to be less than a third). Again, we both could've sworn the place was way more huge than what we saw. Not so much.



Ane finally, as I've been repeatedy warned not to keep bringing up naked bookseller guy I will from now on only refer to him as NBG and since, once again, there were no NBG type characters to be seen anywhere, I leave you with this rather shocking image.


Thanks for listening.

Dani

I did, however, find a somewhat racy rest stop (see last pict). I also included a few more photos shot in Utah and Colorado.  Not much to report on day two of this fairly insane journey. 14 and half hours in a car, 18 hours total on the road. The good news is I'm getting a lot of writing done on book three of The Unincorporated Universe and I'm even allowed to reveal the name of book two....as if you hadn't guessed already - It will continue the saga of Justin Cord V Hektor Sambianco and will called...Ta Dum! The Unincorporated War (Releasing in May 2010). What else? My 'bring all the food in a cooler plan' as worked wonders to save us money and time. This of course didn't stop Eytan from stopping at a local Walmart in Denver and buying a sub sandwhich big enough to qualify for its own zip code. Tomorrow we head for the Canadian border. I'm really hoping Eytan doesn't say something so smartass that the next thing we know underpaid guys in funny uniforms are slipping on latex gloves [SNAP].

Not much else to report. Very bleary eyed. For those of you who don't know yet, I've been twittering the journey as well. If your interested in following them go here: http://twitter.com/dkollin

Enjoy the picts below. Must Sleep Now zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz





Coming into Denver



On the way to Denver, through Utah.



Welcome to Nebraska. Hello white line fever.



No naked booksellers but is it just me or is the name of this rest stop and the message on the pump somehow subliminal?

Ye

I'll suppose the joke starts as: We're so crazy....
Then you say, "How crazy are you?"
Then we say, "We're so crazy that instead of flying to Montreal for Worldcon, we're gonna drive there."
Then you say nothing because you've gone slack jawed (and really, who could blame you?).  Because you look at the map above (or for more clarity on mapquest) and realize that that purple line represents three days of driving at an average of 14-16 hours a day covering roughly 2829.78 miles of asphalt. That's 2829.78 miles of subway wrappers, chips, empty rock star cans, very bad jokes and even worse radio. You see, Eytan bought one of those ipod receiver things that turns your ipod into a radio station. What the packaging failed to advertise was that it turns your ipod into a bad am radio station.

Anyways it was either this route at a total cost of $550 in gas divided by two or by plane at pretty much triple that (once you throw in car rental).
On the plus side you never know what you might see along the road. Take this image I shot a few weeks ago on the way back from Westercon in Arizona.



Little old bookstore alongside the rode. 113 degrees outside, 111 in the store. Can't say that I blame proprietor but I wish he woulda warned me first!  Still, he bought our book so who am I to complain?

But I digress. This is just an email to let you know I'm taking you all with me. I'll be blogging and twittering daily from the car. I expect by the time I hit Iowa and hundreds of miles of cornfields have passed me by you'll begin to sense a bit of Jack Torrance in me. If I stop blogging all together try to find the wreckage somewhere along the purple line. We'll be in the gray Honda, rigor mortis set in with our hands locked firmly around each other's throats.



Thanks for listening. We'll be taking off August 2nd -- wish us luck.

Dani
P.S. Rumor has it we may be hitting a few book stores (for reading, mayhem and signings) between here and there. Denver's a definite possibility -- not sure what our publicist has lined up. When we know, so will you.

I'll be honest. I dreaded going to Comicon. Yes, I realize that among many quarters that statement is tantamount to heresy but here's one that may be even more scurrilous  -- I have very little interest in comic books. Yes, I've read some captivating graphic novels but for my money I'd rather imagine worlds than have them painted for me -- no matter how brilliantly rendered. To make matters worse I'd visited Comicon some 3 years back when I worked at Mattel. Since that company had a large presence there the employees got free passes and bus trip down.  Believe me when I tell you I walked the floor in about 40 minutes, saw nothing that even vaguely interested me and spent the rest of the afternoon tooling about town until the bus brought us back home.  It was with these memories that I headed for San Diego.

What a difference a book makes.

Not only was the con good, it was actually much better than I'd expected.  First of all, it was truly great to walk through the Mattel exhibit as a duly minted author who was not only speaking at a panel but also signing books.  Why? Because the company fired my ass, that's why. It's rare indeed to get that kind of retribution. I know it may seem petty (hell, most of the people at the booth were friends of mine) and that I should be above it all, but I'm not. At least not yet. And until I am I'm gonna enjoy remembering that little walk for all it's worth.

A few other highlights.  If I had any worry that no one would show up for the panel  (and I did) I didn't realize the scope of this con. There are over 125,000 attendees. Just the people getting lost and ending up at our panel would've amounted to the largest crowd we've ever argued in front of. But my fear emanated from the other lines I saw.  The one for a Mark Hamill autograph wrapped around the length of the building. Other 'shorter' lines had staff members at various points indicating where those waiting should que up with signs like, "Line ends here" or "Line continues here."   Fortunately we had Greg Bear as one of the panelists and that assured  that the room would get a good showing. Below is a pict taken 10 minutes before we even started. At start time almost every chair was full.



Even funnier was what I found on the back of my name card when I sat down:



For those with strained eyes the part that cracked me up was, "Please be aware that many members of your audience may be under 18 years of age."

There was also a dedicated dude with large placards at the back of the audience. At different times he held up cards that said, "15 minutes", "3 More Questions" and then "One More Question."

When we did wrap up, the table was immediately swarmed by fans of the various authors wanting either autographs or simple conversation (typical for most cons). Not this ship, sister. There was another dedicated employee whose job it was to get between the author and the audience while gently telling both that they could talk all they wanted at the book signing event immediately following the panel. She then proceeded to herd us all off the dais and, holding up sign, beckoned us to follow her to the next area. Which, ironically, was shaped like a cattle pen -- a series of inter-connected, hip-length barriers funneled people to the long desk where all the authors from the panel sat.




And finally, the people. Unlike most SF cons where people dress up and will occasionally be photographed, at this con posing is the name of the game. Ask someone if you can take their picture and they almost immediately assume a pose. How wild! I leave you with some of the picts I took from the day's events. Like my newfound appreciation for Comicon, they're both unexpected and wonderful.

Thanks for listening,

Dani

 Imagine doing a voice over for an infomercial about 'performance issues' and erectile dysfunction only to be told halfway through the session that you're not quite the voice they were looking for. This isn't so much to illustrate irony as it is to illustrate to what ends a fledgling author will go to put a meal on the table.  Yes, little ole me has a voice over reel from my days of broadcast copywriting (where I stood in as a voice for 'real' actors and found that I actually had a decent one of my own) and every now and then I get a call for voice work.  I got 'excited' about this one because well, it paid 4 bills for a 2 hour read.  One hour later I got the boot and half the paycheck. Still, not too bad. My wife, however, was quite 'satisfied." She was wondering how on earth she'd explain to friends and family how it was that her husband had become the voice of erectile dysfunction.

Sorry this post didn't ahem...last very long but I was really in the mood for a quickie...I swear.

Thanks for listening,

Dani

My friend came over to the house the other day with book in hand for me to sign. The second I held it I knew something was off-- the damn thing was lighter than the books I've been schlepping all over the country for the past few months. Now I've learned this year that there can be many iterations of a book. There's the ABM which stands for advanced bound manuscript (essentially your manuscript soft bound), there's the ARC which stands for Advanced Readers Copy (a much tighter version of your book) and then there's the book itself. Apparently there's also another type of book out there that I failed to take into consideration -- the counterfeit.  Take a look at the picts below.
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