Three things:

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First: Child of Fire is on the bestseller list for Mysterious Galaxy. Yay! Dear Internet, please bring me more news like that.

Second: My wife had a sleep study appointment tonight. We hired a babysitter, went out to dinner, I dropped her off at the room, then headed out to the bus stop to put my son to bed. Ten minutes before I arrived, at 9:15, my wife called to say the technician had called in sick and the study was cancelled. She had to take two buses home and this is not the first fuck up in scheduling this study.

Third: I forget the third thing. I’m tired. Good night. Oh wait! No I don’t! For dinner, we went to a German pub/restaurant and had spaetzle, fried pickles, a big fresh pretzel with sinus-clearing sweet hot mustard, pork with mushroom sauce, and other delicious things. I had two German beers (Kostritzer, which is a black lager and Radeberger Pils)–typically, I’m not a fan of lagers, pilsners and such, but these were really, really good.

Now I’m tired. Good night.

Passing the time

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While I sit here, discussing what is and isn’t “fair” or “no fair” with my son, I thought I’d mention that I’ve added links to the sidebar of my webpage for you good folks to pre-order Game of Cages (or put it on your wish list or whatever).

Now, back to the “no fair”s.

Some catching up

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This will be a quick rundown, because it’s late and I want to sleep, but I also want to cover some things:

Yesterday, I got two flu shots, seasonal and H1N1. That evening I was coughing and by bedtime I was feverish and shivering. The fever broke around 4:30, and I went back to sleep. Right now I feel mostly okay, but damn, why didn’t I go to bed earlier.

My son had his eighth birthday party today. It went well.

I mailed Man Bites World to my agent. Only 15 minutes in line at the post office! I promised it to her by Giftmas, and she’ll have it. I just wish I’d had time to polish the prose more.

Tomorrow, I’m going to celebrate the mailing by spending a sizable portion of the day reading.

But, while so many of you poor folks were out killing brain cells watching AVATAR, I stayed home with the family to watch HOGFATHER. It’s a flawed show but it’s wonderful, and the end always puts tears in my eyes. My wife absolutely loves it. Go Christmas!

And now I collapse.

A holiday moment

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Because Christmas time is the time for weeping uncontrollably.

Avatar = Battle for Terra

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As I suspected, Avatar is crazy similar to Battle For Terra, not to mention a few other films.

Skipping it. I’d rather watch BfT again.

Busy today. My son’s birthday party starts as soon as the first kid arrives, and I have to sneak out later to mail off the completed agent-draft of Man Bites World (Yay!).

Oh, crap!

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Me am forgetful.

Chapter one of Man Bites World starts on page one, as expected.

Chapter two starts on page 163. Three: 181. Four: 209

At which point I forgot what number I was on and started labeling them “Chapter Next”: 215 (! Four pages?) 231, 249, and so on until the end, every 15-25 pages, the way they should be.

Ummm, maybe I should standardize those before I send it.

Randomness for 12/18 (this is a funny one)

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1) iBox 2.0 God, how I laughed at this, and I never even saw the movie.

2) A Christmas webcomic by Chris Sims. Also with the laughing.

3) This would have been better as a single shot, but it’s still pretty cool. via TNH’s Particles.

4) EpicWin wins epically. Also via TNH’s Particles.

5) Batman as written by PG Wodehouse (and more).

AVATAR

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Is anyone else as deeply uninterested in James Cameron’s AVATAR as I am? It’s exactly the sort of thing I should like (space ships, aliens, action scenes) but everything I see leaves me feeling meh.

De-stressing

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After a touch day, you know what makes things better? Riding a carousel with my wife and son, visiting the Pacific Place mall shopping center to watch their indoor “snow” fall–really just a bunch of bubbles, but it looked great and the boy loved it, checking out this year’s gingerbread house displays at the Sheraton (very nice!) and dinner at the boy’s new favorite restaurant. Pictures will be forthcoming.

I also discovered that Barnes & Noble has sold six of the nine copies of Child of Fire they stocked. That’s nice, too.

That said, there’s one more note to be dealt with in my book. I’ll reproduce it here in full:

[these empty lines suggest I meant to expand this scene, but after a month and a half I can’t remember what it was supposed to be. Note to self: make notes to self.]

It’s been longer than a month and a half now, but for the life of me I can’t remember what I was supposed to put there. Must have been important, huh? I’ll just delete the note and call it done. Tonight I’ll prep it and send it to my agent; I’ll polish while she reads, and thank Pikachu that this think is nearly done.

“Religious symbols don’t give you superpowers.”

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In a weird quirk of fate, two audio interviews I’ve done has gone live on the same day.

One is an interview I did with Author Magazine associate editor Jeff Ayers. It’s the longer of the two interviews, but since I’m the only interviewee, it’s a shorter listen. Hear the advice I give to aspiring professional writers! Long-time readers of the blog will not be surprised to discover that it involves self-recrimination.

The other is the interview I did with Seattle Geekly. I’m the first of four authors interviewed (the others are Ben Thompson, Ken McConnell and Caitlin Kittredge,) and they cover other geeky topics, too, including the Jet City Improv Christmas Show. The world, it is small.

You always wondered what my voice sounds like, yeah? Well, it’s no great shakes, but you can hear it at either place.