life is great!

Email notifications ON!

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My son just sent me an email (meaning he wrote the message in my msn account and sent it to the msn account, which I picked up in webmail at the Starbucks) letting me know a fat package from Random House just arrived.

Hello, copy edit for Circle of Enemies. I will be home shortly to scribble on you.

Progress in all things, right? I’ll finish the first draft of the short story I’m struggling with first, then it’s time for home-made meatballs delivered in yummy sandwich form and every grammar insecurity I’ve ever had laid bare on the page by the copy editor’s sharpened pencil.

In unrelated news, the guy sitting across from me keeps picking his nose, scraping at gaps in his teeth and digging his ear. Blech.

F*&$ing Amtrak

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I finally got in from my Amtrak train, only 37.5 hours after the original scheduled arrival time. The cab pulled up in front of my apartment literally at the stroke of the new year.

I’ll get around to responding to emails and comments tomorrow sometime. My son is still opening Christmas presents, and I’m getting some much needed family time.

Happy New Year, everyone.

I’m what you might call “dismayed” right now

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And a little ticked off, too.

The reason: I’ve been officially bumped down to coach for the whole trip to Seattle. Two nights in a chair with no space to do even rudimentary pain-controlling work on my legs. And this was supposed to be a chance to take a couple of days to myself and finish the submission package for A Key, An Egg, An Unfortunate Remark (aka “The Auntie Mame Files”) for mailing next week. I still plan to work, but in coach I’ll be much less productive, if only because I can’t fucking sleep in a chair without a lot of pain.

Oh Jeez, was that negative? Am I posting negative things on my blog, when so many experts advice me to be all cheerful and upbeat and fascinating?

Well, that’s a load of ass. I’m in for two and a half days of pain and I’m deeply unhappy about it. I’ll deal with it, because I always do. I have Tylenol and an extra book to read, and even the coach seats comes with electrical outlets. I’ll work, and eat sandwiches wrapped in plastic, and I’ll carry a bag of bagels onboard. Or something.

Christ. This is going to suck.

Added later: The Chicago Public Library is completely gorgeous, and they even carry my books. I’m sitting in the “Winter Garden” a big, beautiful room with marble floors, trees and ivy in planters, and a glass ceiling to show the blue, blue sky. It’s very soothing a beautiful.

Now I’m going to head out to get some food, then try again for a roomette.

Added later still: Got one! Actually, I got two rooms, one for the first two-thirds of the trip to Whitefish, Montana (about 9pm on Thursday night), and another, much nicer room from Whitefish all the way into Seattle. They’re calling the nicer room a “Deluxe” and I admit I don’t know what that means. If it’s the next size up from the “roomette” I’ll get my own bathroom and shower.

And I get to eat actual restaurant food instead of plastic-wrapped sandwiches out of the lounge.

Now I’m in the “Metropolitan” waiting room, where people w/ sleeping accommodations wait for their trains. It’s as different from the coach waiting room as a hotel lobby is from waiting area of the county hospital. There are leather chairs, big screen TVs, and a fireplace decorated with lights and stockings (not to mention a live fire).

Swank.

The machine urine is brewing

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In my hotel room, there are two little bottles of water with a cardboard collar around them that says “Refresh” in big letters and “$3.00” in teeny tiny letters. I’ll drink from the tap, thanks.

There was no price tag (I could find) on the coffee machine, so I’m braving the hotel coffee. I just wish it didn’t sound so much like someone pissing into a cup.

Dinner last night was pizza in the lounge, but it made me violently ill back in my room. Can you tell I’m having a good time? In a few moments I’ll check out and catch a cab back to the train station to begin my desperate attempt to keep a room for the last and longest leg of my trip.

If I can, I’m going to check out the city a little bit. I need to restock my reading material and, if they refuse to give me the room I paid for, food supply. There’s a Books-a-Million nearby, which I’ve never been to because it’s a regional chain from outside my region, but they cleverly left their store hours off their website. Well, I’m certainly not going to call them from a hotel phone, for all I know its five bucks just to hear a dial tone. Maybe I’ll try Waldenbooks instead.

But there’s the library (second largest in the world) and an actual deep-dish pizza (which I hope to hold down).

Anyway, it’s time to go. See everyone on the flip side.

F/u to previous post

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Now I want to tell the story of meeting my editor for the first time:

It was San Diego Comic Con, and I was on my first ever panel, which was held in the first few minutes of the first day. I’d never been to SDCC before and had little idea what to expect. Not to mention there was some unusual social interaction there that I didn’t have time to process. So I did my best, but I was a bit of a mess.

Then I looked out into the audience and saw my editor in an aisle seat, watching the panel. I’d already looked her up with Google Images (anything to procrastinate!) and recognized her instantly. Of course, seeing my editor out in the audience made me feel even more confident and calm.

Oh wait. I mean just the opposite.

Anyway, I flubbed a bit and rambled a bit more. I had some buddies in the audience (who had basically held my hand through the travel and badge-acquiring process) but I tried not to look too much at any of them.

Then, after the panel was over, I walked up to her and introduced myself. She lied and said I did well, and I felt kinda awkward.

Then one of my buddies (the one with the hammer) ran up to us and said, in a very loud voice, “Mr. Connolly! Mr. Connolly! Would you sign my girlfriend’s breasts?”

That’s what happened the first time I met my editor.

Beta!

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Minecraft has entered beta as of this week. Unfortunately, as I write this, there’s a bug that won’t allow it to launch in MacOSX. My son, who was so freaking excited about the new changes, can’t play and probably won’t be able to play until the new year, considering.

Still, it’s a cool game, even if I did lose my diamond sword and pick because an errant swing of my pick brought lava down onto me, killing me in a blink and destroying everything I was carrying.

Dammit.

The price has gone up now that it’s in beta, but you should check it out anyway… although maybe give them a chance to work out a couple of bug fixes.

That train trip I have been talking about?

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It’s only four days until my big train trip across the country. Already! Time, it flies. My son and I have been pretty excited about the trip, and I’ve been kicking myself that I didn’t take the train more often. Yeah, it takes longer, but if the journey is part of the pleasure of the trip, you’re not losing out.

We also have a Superliner Roomette reserved. It’s a room of our own, for those times when an 8yo gets to feeling kinda crazy and would drive the other passengers crazy. Also, my son is a night owl, and is brimming with energy at the end of the day[1]. Better for him to have a little place for his craziness.

And we knew it would be small. I mean, we knew. We saw the dimensions right there on the site linked above (although they had a different flash applet to show the roomette’s features.

Then we saw this video.[2]

Holy crap, that’s small. Especially for a two-day trip with a kid who spends most evenings practicing “Chairkour.”[3]

Erm, maybe we won’t be spending all that much time in there after all. However, on the trip back, I’ll be spending two days in one of those, with no kid, no internet, no nothing, except my books, my work in progress, and the passing view of the country. Heaven!

We’ll see how well I hold up.

[1] No, we haven’t murdered him for it, but it’s been close.

[2] Facebook users, you’ll have to click through to see that embedded video.

[3] An indoor apartment version of parkour, ‘natch.

Just got back from our “tour” of Seattle gingerbread house displays.

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They were beautiful, but there weren’t very many to see.

For me, I was hoping to have A Key, and Egg, An Unfortunate Remark ready to send to my agent before I left for upstate NY. I leave on Monday (by train!) but looking over the number of words left to revise, I know it’s not going to happen. Sorry, [my agent]. Maybe at the start of the new year? I feel almost like I have a handle on the voice at this point, so revisions are doing much better than expected.

Now I’m off to help pack. We have quite a bit to do before we go, not least of which is prepping enough activities to occupy an 8 year old on a long train trip through the snowy northern U.S.

Meanwhile, check out these pics of the gingerbread houses. Everything is made of food (mostly candy, gingerbread, and icing).

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The Fremont Troll!
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More at the set.

The obligatory Turkey Day post

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The pies have been made, the dishwasher has been unloaded, loaded and then run again, the coffee has brewed, and it’s snowing. Thanksgiving! (for Americans, at least) Me, I’m about to go do today’s pages before I get together with the family for cooking, eating and watching some old movie (up this year: Errol Flynn’s THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD–and didn’t my 8yo roll his eyes when he saw that DVD cover.)

But it’s a time to take note of those things we’re thankful for. Me, I’m a guy who thinks about thankfulness and gratitude all year long; in a sense, I obsess over it. I’m always measuring my debt to those who are kind to me or who love me, and I’m constantly trying to pay back. However, today is a day when those feelings are normal, so I’m going to indulge, especially since I have something new to add this year.

First I’m thankful for my family. Nothing is ever going to trump that. If aliens came down in space ships and gave the world free energy machines, pills that heal knee injuries, and cameras that never took a picture of a politician with their mouth closed, I’d still be more amazed that my wife not only puts up with me and all my craziness, but agreed to have our child.

But for the first time I have something new to add to the list. Maybe I should have said this last year, but I was still kinda dizzy from publishing that first novel. I’m thankful for all the folks who read my books, enjoy them, and recommend them to their friends. It’s a tough economy right now, and a lot of new series are struggling or have already been cancelled. The Twenty Palaces books still have a chance to continue, though, and that’s because the readers have been so great.

So thank you for reading and spreading the word.

The menu for today is pretty traditional: Filling but unhealthy breakfast, then cut vegetables with dip, along with pickles and such. For dinner: brined turkey, sausage stuffing (I ground the sausage myself), giblet gravy, mashed potatoes, roast asparagus, cranberry sauce, honey-glazed onions. If I’m lucky, the boy will try–just try–the turkey and cranberry sauce. We also have some nice wines to enjoy after dinner with Errol and sweet potato and/or apple pie.

And finally! I’m am thankful to the guys at Wyrd and all the folks doing great work on the book trailer. And because I can’t resist, one more image. This time, it’s not a photo taken on set; it’s an actual frame grab from one of the shots, showing Ray throwing his ghost knife.

Frame grab--Ray throwing ghost knife

Damn. Now that’s Ray Lilly.