So hey, I should have mentioned this before -- I'm at New York Comic-Con this weekend! I was on a fun panel today, which was lovely for me although I am afraid it does not help any readers here who might have wanted to come, sorry! and then tomorrow (Saturday, that is) I will be signing from 12-1pm at the Del Rey booth (#1920). I have heard conflicting reports on what I will be signing; there are definitely copies of His Majesty's Dragon to give away, but there may or may not be copies of the Victory of Eagles ARC too. :D

From beta session from the story I'm currently working on, set in ancient Rome, spurred by the mistake "we has received":

Francesca: it was so nuts it might be intentional
Naomi: lolcats rome
Naomi: heeeee
Francesca: but I don't think so!
Francesca: ahahah
Francesca: yes
Francesca: you really ought to!
* Naomi rewrites all my work in lolcats
Francesca: we has received testimony!
Francesca: wow, yes
Naomi: Temeraire: I can has cow?
Francesca: hee
Naomi: Laurence: No you can't has. Not yours.
Naomi: Temeraire: :(
Francesca: Napoleon: DO NOT WANT!

And now back to wrestling with both Mark Antony and Ruby on Rails, and also back to my carrot cake from Dean & Deluca, which surprised me (I have been Disappointed in carrot cakes on many occasions) by being really excellent and not over-full of raisins, with icing that is just a nice thin soft not-too-sweet smear instead of a layer of mortar. (I am not by any means eating this before eating actual dinner. No, no.)

Tags: conventions, loldragons

I am freshly back from Norwescon, but the first joyful thing I have to share is not about the con, but that the Organization for Transformative Works is now open for membership! \o/ And you can read all about it (in English, Čeština, Deutsch, Español, Français, and Italiano) at the otw_news community -- where, by the way, we are eagerly looking for more translators. You can also see our very cool (if I do say so myself, cough) roadmap for the design of our archive software.

I got to meet a whole bunch of really smashing fellow fans, including Rob Carlos, who started sketching in my Q&A at 11am on Friday, and less than 24 hours later handed me this piece, which he's put in the wiki: Temeraire, Lily, Maximus. Oh, and then as an afterthought he whipped out this one the very next day: Napoleon & Lien.

I also happily scored a copy of Pat Rothfuss's first book, another one by the very dapper Bruce Taylor, and two spectacular art books by Ciruelo, the artist guest of honor -- I've loved his work for years so it was an especial treat to meet him, and also to hopefully not-too-embarrassingly fangirl all over Dan Simmons. *g* I also picked up a truly fabulous feather headdress in the dealer's room and a couple of pieces by Mai Nguyen, but sadly wasn't able to stay for the art auction to try and grab the larger one. But it is just as well! Cons are dangerous places for the wallet.

Of course for now the books have joined my sad unread pile, while lies behind the terrifying stack of the copyedited MS that I am supposed to be working on right now. My current excuse is the copyeditor switched to blue pencil from red, and all my copyediting pencils were carefully chosen blue exactly for contrast! argh. But I have dug out a few hot-pinkish ones from my old box of colored pencils and hand-sharpened them with a penknife since they are too crumbly for the pencil sharpener (uphill in the snow! both ways!) and must go back to the grind.

Last bit of glee: while I was at the con, Bill of Subterranean Press sent me the hot-off-the-presses limited edition! I don't know if I mentioned what they're doing with the covers -- after some back and forth with Dominic Harman (who did the gorgeous original UK covers), the decision was that for the first three, we'd do modified versions of the three UK covers, and then starting with book 4, Dominic will be creating new art in the UK-cover style, for a complete matching set. \o/

Tags: conventions, otw, temeraire

Going straight from one much-extended deadline to another, I have managed (with much indulgence from the editors) to get my story in for Fast Ships, Black Sails, Ann & Jeff VanderMeer's pirate anthology from Night Shade books, full of fabulous piratey goodness from many amazing writers, including fellow lj'ers matociquala and truepenny!

My own story is "Araminta, or, The Wreck of the Amphidrake" (cough, please ignore the multiple signs of title indecision you might find littered across various mentions of the anthology -- either I have a title when I start or I wrestle with it for ages afterwards). I had really a ridiculous amount of fun writing this; in my own head it was a mix of Georgette Heyer, those old Sinbad movies with the stop-motion monsters, and Orlando. (Whether any of this got onto the page you'll have to tell me if you read it. *g*)

I am currently doing the last real edits on Victory of Eagles (well, okay, what I have mostly been doing is re-reading all Heyer's regency romances in a fit of post-book laziness, but edits are also getting done), and then I have a whole seventeen months before my deadline for book 6. \o/ I have been working on a Temeraire book nonstop since I started His Majesty's Dragon in January 2004, so now it feels like glorious vistas of playtime stretch out before me! Thanks to various spurts of procrastination over the last few years, I have the beginnings of a couple short stories, a screenplay, and three novels -- the hard part is going to be choosing what to work on. *dances*

Meanwhile, I am going to be at Norwescon in Seattle from March 19-23, New York Comic-Con April 18, and Balticon May 23-25, and then, gulp, apparently there is a book tour up ahead. *quivers in fear* I don't have details yet but it will probably involve hitting San Diego Comic-Con. More news to come!

The first chapter of Victory of Eagles will go out over the Temeraire mailing list (signup on the website) and be posted here soon as copyedits are done, so look for it probably the week after I get back from Norwescon.

whee!

Tags: appearances, conventions, temeraire

Having waited to very nearly the last hour, I finally sat myself down yesterday and devoured the entire Hugo short-fiction slate, all of which is online, before voting, and oh! The novelette category! I mean, everything nominated was good, but this category, I don't know what, but it was just fully wonderful, and had the winner of the year for me, too, which was Pol Pot's Beautiful Daughter (PDF) by Geoff Ryman. Which you should all go read, even if you don't read a lot of short fiction. It made me cry and left me with a taste like fresh fruit.

I have also got my Worldcon schedule:

Fri 12pm How Healthy is the Short Story
Participants: Ellen DATLOW, Gavin J GRANT, Joe HALDEMAN, Larry NIVEN, Naomi NOVIK

Fri 4pm Interview with Naomi NOVIK :o

Sat 12pm Meet the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer Finalists
Participants: Jay LAKE, John A DAVIS, Lawrence M SCHOEN, Naomi NOVIK

Sun 12pm Defending Public Domain from Corporate Copyright Maximalism
Participants: Cory DOCTOROW, Inge HEYER, Naomi NOVIK, Patrick NIELSEN HAYDEN

There will probably be things like a reading or a signing added, but they haven't told me about those yet. Also, I am entertained by the EMPHASIS of the last names.

And I mentioned this to a few people offline, but more of you may be interested -- this is the site I've primarily been using for studying japanese: japanesepod101.com. All their podcasts, which are kind of hilarious and full of colloquial modern japanese, are available for free (you can subscribe via itunes if you just search for 'japanesepod101.com'), and I am finding their premium site actually worth the price -- 4-way transcripts, lots of really useful reference tools, flash cards, etc.

This Java-based kanji flashcard site is also nice, because it will draw the strokes for each character with animation if you click the character image on the right side of each flashcard.

Finally, I have gotten the section for Empire of Ivory up on the website, including the first-chapter excerpt, and also put up the two deleted scenes that I've previously posted on here.

So, that's my weekly dose of procrastination done; now back to Victory of Eagles.

Tags: conventions, reading, research