Apex Early 50

Getting to read upcoming books early is one of the major side benefits of my work with Apex. I get to read some of the best books before anyone else except the author, the author's beta readers, and the acquisitions editor. To get this privilege, I have to put in tons of hours scouring manuscripts, tweaking every little thing until it's perfect, emailing back and forth with authors, swearing at the computer for not formatting characters properly, running a fine-toothed comb through the ebook code, getting soundly thrashed at Scrabble against the boss, and sorting out when stuff hits the fan.

For you, though, it's much easier. Apex is instituting the Early 50 program. With each release, 50 die-hard readers will have the chance to get their eyeballs on the book at least two weeks ahead of release. First crack at the 50 early release copies goes to newsletter subscribers. After a week, we'll open up ordering to blog readers.

See. Much easier than what I go through, plus you get the books after we've sorted out the typos. And did I mention that these will be signed? And that you get the ebook along with the print book?

Details at Apexbookcompany.com

Groundhog Day Results, 2013

February 2 is the ceremonial opening of Marmota Watch '13. Drina, my woodchuck-in-residence and the usual subject of Marmota Watch, won't be making any personal appearances until it warms up a bit and the clover starts growing lush. Her brother- and sister-marmota living in climate controlled captivity have come out with their predictions. The two groundhogs of record, Chuck and Phil, agree on early spring. Other local groundhogs are split.

Early Spring

Punxsutawney Phil (Punxsutawney, PA)
Staten Island Chuck (Staten Island, NY)
Queen Charlotte (Charlotte, NC)
Wynter (Milwaukee, WI)
Woodstock Willy (Woodstock, IL)
Gertie (Peoria, IL)
Winnipeg Willow (Winnipeg, Canada)
Wiarton Willie (Ontario, Canada)

Six more weeks of winter

Malvern Mel (Nassau, NY)
General Beauregard Lee (Georgia)
Holtsville Hal (Long Island, NY)
Sir Walter Wally (Raleigh, NC)
Milltown Mel (Milltown, NJ)
HuckyToo (Holland, OH)
Connecticut Chuckles VIII (Manchester, CT)
Shubenacadie Sam (Nova Scotia, Canada)
Fred (Quebec, Canada)

Leave a comment if I missed your local groundhog.

Con Season Opens Tomorrow

I look forward to convention season the way most people in my neck of the woods look forward to deer season. Tomorrow is the season opener. Of con season; I have no idea when deer season is, other than that it does not coincide with when the deer are eating my orchard bare. I wish it did.

Last con season was overwhelming (see previous post). I have seven con badges hanging from my trophy wall from last year, and I don't think that's all of them. I'm scaling back this year, to preserve my sanity and leave time to do the work that I go to cons to share. Less talking about. More doing. I've got some really cool things coming down the pipeline, and they're going to need my attention.

This weekend, though, I'll be joining the festivities at Immortal ConFusion in Dearborn, Michigan. I'm not doing any programming for this one, just lots of hanging out and going to panels. I'll be representing Apex, in the sense that I'm always representing Apex when I go to functions. We don't have a formal, organized presence at ConFusion, but I'll be joining Apex Magazine managing editor Michael D. Thomas, and our partner-in-Kickstarter-anthology John Klima. I may have been instructed to tattoo the two of them.

I might be doing some conventions in an official program-participant capacity later this year. I'll announce those when I can.

If you're at ConFusion, say hello. Look for the fedora.

Where I've Been...

So, it’s been July since I’ve updated the blog in any meaningful way. I’ve been busy. Fandom Fest. Gencon. WorldCon. The Hugos. Getting to be part of the show at Penn & Teller. ScareFest. A crapton of nascent projects that I’ll probably be posting about more when the time is right for them to meet the public. Did I mention help Teller with a magic trick in Las Vegas? Getting to be a nominee’s pseudo-date to the freakin’ Hugo Awards? So, my life has been pretty full, but that’s not the real reason I’ve been remiss in updating.

Depression.

Not the “feeling bummed” kind. The “have you lost interest in things you used to enjoy?” (like blogging) kind. The “any thoughts of suicide or homicide?” kind. Since the middle of July or so, day-to-day life has felt like having my brain soaked in epoxy. All the thoughts get stuck in place, so I can’t muster the gumption to do anything. I’ve been muddling through, doing at least some of what needs to be done to project an illusion of being functional. To be honest, though, everything since about August is kind of a smear of days, a lot of them spent lost in my own head with thoughts that I would prefer not be there.

It’s the kind of depression they medicate you for, and refer you to psychotherapy. I’m getting both, and that’s cracking the epoxy in my brain. I also feel better when I’m around people, which may explain how I managed to do at least three cons and a couple of other professional events that involve being smiley and personable even though most of the rest of the time, I’ve been swinging between numb, weepy and bitchy at unpredictable intervals.

Why blog about this? Because I live-tweet every case of Con Crud I come down with, yet I feel the need to justify disclosing a medical condition that has nearly knocked me down flat more than once. Because I spent twenty minutes staring at a screen wondering if I should even use the words “mental illness” in a blog about my depression. Because I would not have tried for four months to walk off physical pain that was as severe as what’s been in my head. I’m lucky to work in a very supportive industry and to have friends and family who are no strangers to this and worse, yet still I  wonder if I should mention anything.

Where Does the Time Go?

One of the stranger things about having been in hotels for the past couple of weeks, with my head very much out of the real world for about a month: time still passes normally in the rest of the world. When I left for GenCon, it was most assuredly the blazing middle of summer. Even when I left for WorldCon, I left in the summer. I came back to the world, and it's autumn. Pumpkins and apple cider have all but replaced summer sweet corn and peaches.

No, I Didn't Forget About You Lovely Folks

Has it really been since the middle of July since I blogged? Life has been exciting around here, and the best I can say is that I've been so busy living it, I haven't had time to blog about it in nigh on a month and a half. While I'm ensconced on the ninth floor of the Flamingo in Las Vegas, overlooking the flamingoes, I'll try to fill you in on what's been keeping me away.

Musings on Moon Day

Today marks the anniversary of the day that, spurred on by fears evoked when a country with a different economic system hollowed out a thermonuclear-capable ICBM and sent a beeping metal basketball into Earth orbit, the United States strapped three military officers to the nosecone of another missile and claimed the ultimate high ground in a cold war. They planted the flag of one country and left a plaque that read "We Came In Peace For All Mankind."

Rank hypocrisy aside, it proved what humanity could accomplish when we put our minds and a budget to it.

Our planet has lapped the sun 43 times since the first time a human being set boot on an extraterrestrial body. Think about that. Forty-three years. We have a guy currently running the United States who was gearing up for his eighth birthday when that happened. When I was gearing up for my eighth birthday (the same day as his, several years later), the shuttle fleet had been grounded for six months in the aftermath of Challenger. Before the accident and the grounding, watching the shuttle launches lit the early embers of my imagination. What is possible is a powerful force at that age.

This December, we'll mark 40 years since the last time a human being set boot on an extraterrestrial body. Forget having a guy in charge who was eight (or nearly so) when we were landing on the moon. We've got about three election cycles until we'll be giving serious consideration to candidates who hadn't yet been conceived when humanity stopped trying to reach past low Earth orbit.

But at least even then, we were trying for LEO. I have  niece who is about the age I was when Challenger happened for me, and when Apollo 11 happened for the president. Her space milestone: the decommissioning of the shuttle fleet and arguments about whether we're even going to fund a replacement at all. She could have the possibilities beyond even the moon landing, if we'd put even a full penny on the tax dollar to conquering our fears constructively. The enemy has changed, but as a society, we're as afraid now as we ever were then. The difference is that in the 1950s and 1960s, we channeled that fear and the attendant budget into a space program. Now, we channel the fear and a much larger budget into the TSA.

Fandom Fest Report

After three days, I think I've finally recovered from Fandom Fest. Even a designated extrovert has her limits, and while I can stay "on" for a full convention, at the end, I crash and crash hard.

First the bad. Stephen Zimmer assembled a killer literary track, and in spite of his considerable efforts, it withered under the lack of support from the media/film side of the organizers. The panels were sparsely attended if at all. Two of mine got called on account of no audience.

The adequate: The venue was much better suited for the convention than the one last year. Of course, last year's venue doubled as a set for an adaptation of Dante's Inferno. That is not a high bar. I suspect the couple attempting to hold a wedding and reception around a horror convention may feel a bit differently about the venue, but I'll be happy to return to it again.

The Good: I got to go all fangirl with an actual, live Doctor Who (see second photo below), though I did wait until I rounded the corner before making any squee-like noises. I went slightly less fangirl over John Scalzi, with a big thanks to Jerry Gordon for the introduction there, so it didn't seem like I was quite so randomly approaching him for the autograph outside of the designated signing time.

The best part of the convention was getting to hang out with rarely-seen and brand-new friends for a weekend. There were hijinks, shenanigans and a few naked women (none of them were me). What sort of hijinks? Well, Friday night, over pizza, we discovered that there was still someone alive in 1984 who had not heard "Like a Virgin" all the way through, leading to the humorous observation that I'd lost my "Like a Virgin" virginity to a bunch of guys - and I might add, roughly 25 years after everyone else on the planet.

I also got an invitation to a fun anthology project, which will be the last I say about that until after it gets out of Super Sekrit Projeckt status.

Me in my red shirt with my copy of Redshirts and John Scalzi and his ukelelePeter Davison keeps a buffer of Elie between himself and that crazy stalker woman

New Study: People Want to Work From Home (also, water is wet)

A new survey commissioned by Citrix shows that people would give up just about everything short of a gonad to work from home. I do work from home, and you know what I'd love to give up? Citrix meetings. Yes, the study that shows that people want to work from home was funded and released by the folks that make the webinar software that allows bosses to let people work from home without having to give up one of the things people want to work from home to get away from: staff meetings. With Citrix, you get all the fun of unnecessary meetings, except that now you have to bring your own doughnuts. On the bright side, you can attend meetings buck naked. I've done it. I don't typically work in the buff; I'd stripped to my birthday suit specifically for the meeting. I recommend placing a couple layers of sticky notes over the webcam lens just as a precaution, because the webinar software does have video capability.

Even if the "study" was a shameless PR stunt to show bosses that their workers want to telecommute and ohbytheway we've got something that enables that without you having to give up your control, I'm inclined to believe the general thought behind the marketing ploy. When people find out I work from home, the most common response I get is jealousy. That's understandable; I love working from home, too, and I think I'm incredibly lucky to have landed on something that pays the bills and only asks that I prove I'm still human by checking in vocally once a month.

The second most common response I get is a complete misunderstanding of what working from home is. First and foremost, it's work. Having an eight foot commute and no need to get froofed up just gives me more time to work since I can be plugged in and working within about 20 minutes of waking up. I typically nibble a little lunch at my desk, take a couple hours fam time around supper, and hit work again until bed. So, you see, I work 14 hour days like anyone. Working from home just means that I get to choose which 14 hours those are.

Fandom Fest Schedule

Fandom Fest is next weekend in Louisville, Kentucky, and for the second year, I'm part of the literary track programming. My panel schedule:

• Assemble the Team: How Librarians, Fans, Creators, and Libraries Can Benefit from Each Other (Friday 7 p.m., Morrow Room)
• Making Your Editor Happy (Saturday 1 p.m., McCreary Room)
• Knuckle Sandwiches Bullets and the Great Depression: Writing the Action of the Pulps (Saturday 4 p.m., Stanley Room)
• Effective Marketing for Authors (Sunday 10 a.m., Morrow Room)
• The Devil's in the Details (Sunday 1 p.m., Taylor Room)

I get to wield the moderator stick for Making Your Editor Happy and The Devil's in the Details. The latter is a panel idea I pitched, and this will be the first convention I'll be doing it at. I'm anxious to see how it turns out.

Between panels, I'll be table minioning for Apex in the dealer room alongside Apex Overlord Jason Sizemore, except when he's off dispensing his own accumulated wisdom at panels, or I slip away to geek out at some of the celebrity guests. We're planning some cool as-yet-undisclosable schemes for the weekend with some not-very-surprise guests (Maurice Broaddus and Jerry Gordon). If you're near The Galt House in Louisville, stop in.

ADDENDUM: One of the previously-undisclosable schemes is now out of the bag. Jerry and Maurice will be headlining a special event on the function of faith in horror, Saturday at 8:30 p.m.