Talyesin's Tales

Yes folks, it's that time again: I'm heading to sunny Southern California to hang with my American homegirls! Tickets have been purchased and I'm going, going, outta here in less than a month!

WOO!

Ladies and gentlemen, Sabledrake Enterprises and I proudly announce:



With cover art by THE Karine Charlebois!

This weekend!

Saturday May 10th and Sunday May 11th!

THE ANNUAL GREEN CIRCLE GARAGE SALE!

Where? Green Circle, Dorval - yes, that's right THE ENTIRE BLOCK!

Come one, come all to the greatest block-wide garage sale in all of Montreal!

This weekend only!

Anyone else been having problems with Gmail loading in Firefox?

Epic Fantasy: Is anyone other than George R R Martin writing it these days? Is there any call, any interest in this sort of stuff any more? What about High Fantasy (elves and dragons and wizards, set in places no one can pronounce)?

(Yeah, yeah, I know, Robert Jordan's Wheel Of Time, I know, I know...)

Mark your calendars folks: FRIDAY MAY 30TH, Invisible triumphantly returns to the stage at Clyde's!

Where: Clyde's Bar, on Lakeshore Road in Pointe Claire!
When: FRIDAY MAY 30TH at 9:00PM!

Come out and rock like a rocking thing!

I brought my comics to a buddy's place last night. He's a comics seller on eBay. He's going to sell them off for me and take a cut of the proceeds. I'll never recoup the investment I made, but better this way than in the garage sale in three weeks.

Some of the comics I brought him I've had for twenty five years. I kept a select handful of them, the ones with significant emotional attachment or the ones with a great story inside - but all the rest, gone. About a thousand or so, four and a half long boxes.

Part of me feels as is I've betrayed my geek roots, abandoned old friends. And part of me feels free - freed of the psychic weight of them, freed of the actual physical weight of them. I'll always remember them, but... I was tired of having to move them every damn time I moved. I was tired of seeing them piled in the corner, a white monolith of geekery. I was tired of being reminded of all the money I spent, and would never see back (yeah, I actually thought there was a chance of appreciating value in back issues, but the 90s speculation boom and trade paperback reprints killed the back issue market). Some of them gave me great joy, and others gave me great frustration.

Alas, farewell.

Have plague. Concentration non-existent.

Well, I got the rejection slip from Scholastic for PRINCESS SMITH AND THE CLOCKWORK KNIGHT. It was actually a great personalized rejection, and very well appreciated. (Basically they said they enjoyed the story but thought it needed a lot of work.)

And so, alas, but also hooray for not getting a form letter!

And now to get it printed up and sent off to the next publisher.

The Bone Marrow Registry needs you.

Some salient points:

1. It costs you nothing except a little of your time to register. If you match someone, you can expect to take about 3 days off - in most places this qualifies as medical leave.
2. There is an urban legend that it is excruciatingly painful to donate — this is FALSE. You may experience some discomfort, but it can be easily managed with painkillers.
3. They don’t take a sample of your bone marrow when you register — testing is done through blood samples or even a simple cheek swab.

Anyone know if Reno Depot sells 1" steel bar in 10-foot lengths? Their website is singularly unhelpful.

EDIT: Believe it or not, folks, yes, I tried calling. They don't give out information about their products, either their prices or their availability, over the phone. One wonders why they have a customer line at all, then.

Ad Astra 2008 Con report

The ancient and nameless Mackayhotep and I hit the road at around 10:00 AM, and had clear roads, no traffic, no construction, not too much sun, all the way in to Toronto. Stopped at an A&P for lunch – I had brought sandwiches, and Marc’s anti-gluten allergy prohibits much of the roadside fare you usually find. By following the map the hotel provided we managed to find it much more easily than the Googlemap we had last year. By 3:30 we’d checked in and dropped off our stuff in the room and we searching for friendly faces and the panelist registration, which we found before they were ready for us. The insanely dedicated Alana Otis, programme director, informed us we should come back later, so Mackayhotep and I went to the bar for a drink, where we met and were joined by Sandra Tayler, one of my authors from AGES OF WONDER, and her husband Howard, of Schlock Mercenary fame, who was one of the Guests of Honour. (And let me aside here for a moment – I really get a surreal kick out of strangers recognizing me, coming up and introducing themselves.) We chitchatted for a while, then they had to go off to meet with a friend, and Mackay and I went off to pick up our registration packages. Once that was done, we left the hotel to find someplace to have supper. (Another aside: The Crowne Royal hotel is in the middle of NOWHERE when it comes to food.) By way of a sidetrip to the LCBO, we found an Italian restaurant that was okay (though filled with senior citizens for some reason) and then back to the hotel. Met more people we actually knew, including Jana Paniccia, Karina Sumner-Smith, and Tony Pi, all authors of mine from AGES OF WONDER, among others – most of the regulars from Julie Czerneda’s newsgroup, and some NG irregulars, including Jim Hines, Rob Sawyer, and Doug Smith – then checked out the dealers’ room, where I met John Zakour, and where we picked up the copies of MISSPELLED we had ordered from the incredibly wonderful folks at Bakka Phoenix books.
What a surreally proud moment for me – there, in living colour, in actual physical form, was the book I’d been waiting two years to see. A dream, actually, really, come true. My first professional short story sale. My ACTUAL NAME on an ACTUAL BOOK.

Spent the rest of the evening before the panels began with friends, catching up and checking out the art show, which, for such a small con, was awesome – I suppose it helps having artists as the Guests of Honour, eh? We checked out the Anime Room too, which was playing some bizarre cowboy anime – except all the characters were scantily-clad girls, of course. Mackay had a panel at 9:00 and I had my Goals of Fanfic panel at 10:00. The panel was pretty well attended – which is to say for a Friday night, that late, at least the audience outnumbered the panelists . Pretty lively discussion ensued, and by the end of that I hit the sack.

Saturday began way too early with breakfast with Julie and many of the other authors in MISSPELLED, including Kell Brown, whose wife was in intermittent labour with their about-to-be-any-second-now child, a son whose name they had yet to agree upon. Enjoyed the breakfast and wandered around a bit, bumping into familiar faces, then at noon it was off to the races! I had three panels (Authors Who Edit, Buffy Season 8 (which I moderated), and Neopaganism: Fact vs. Fiction), which managed to fit around two panels I wanted to attend; still, I think I would have been better off skipping one of the panels I attended in order to have a bit of mental freespace. I tend to wander about at cons, flitting in and out of panels and media rooms and dealer rooms and art show at my whim and fancy. A strictly regulated schedule takes a lot out of me. Managed to meet Brad Carson and Costi Gurgu, two of my authors from AGES OF WONDER, though the meetings were sadly brief. Five panels later was the Newsgroup Pizza Party, which was a blast, as always. Julie did a reading, we all ate pizza, I took photos (finally remembering my camera in my bag) and then Jana, Nathan Azinger and I went to the bar and shared a bottle of wine. Eventually it was time for the Masquerade (singing: “Paper plates are on parade!”) which was very good for such a small con! Nineteen entrants, many in the Master division. And then, Ad Astra produced their various Beef/Cheesecake volunteers, attractive individuals scantily clad in a variety of geek-inspired costumes, with whom one can be photographed for charity. I was tempted to get a photo with one or more of them, but by then I was very, very tired. Though I wanted to go to the dance, I instead opted to sleep. By all accounts I missed some fun!

Sunday morning Marc and I decided not to set a time for waking, so we slept in. Well, I slept in – 8:00 AM is plenty late for me - but Marc did not consider it late enough. Still, it was a good thing we did, because finding someplace for breakfast took on a quest-like level of difficulty. Have I mentioned that the hotel is in the middle of nowhere, food-wise? Yeah, that. We drove around for an hour trying to find someplace other than a Tim Horton’s to eat before we finally surrendered and went to Tim’s. Got back to the hotel, checked out, stored our baggage in the car, then went back to the con to just basically putz around while we waited for 1:00 finally, FINALLY, arrive.

Well, 1:00 FINALLY arrived and it seemed so strange, sitting in front of an audience, while Jana, Karina and The Narrator explained the game they’d set up to celebrate the launch. You see, as a way of making the launch a con-long event, they’d arranged to provide the attending authors and our celebrated editor with slips of paper upon which were printed clues. These clues, once deciphered, became an anagram of a code phrase. The first to decipher the anagram (thus correcting the “misspelled” words) won a prize. (Aside: I also participated as a Goblin Lover – helping Jim Hines out with his own launch of GOBLIN WAR, the last in the Jig the Goblin series, which as I understand it was very well attended.) As the Narrator explained, the authors each stood and recounted the backstory of our stories. Prizes were awarded and cupcakes were eaten, and then, the signing. I signed many, many copies, both for people purchasing the book and for Bakka Phoenix (who provided the copies) to sell at a later date. I really enjoyed the signing, though I really need to build up a repertoire of stock phrases to sign above my name – and the oddest thing happened: You know when you write a word so often it stops having any meaning? That happened with my name. Also, I think I need a different, faster signature for signing books.

Then we were off. A little more traffic, but we still made good time. Stopped at Whiskey Willy’s in Kingston for supper, instead of the traditional roadside fare which never completely satisfies. Downsides to the con? No hot water in our room (had to let it run for 5 minutes+ to get it close to lukewarm) and did I mention there’s NOWHERE TO EAT around the hotel? But in the end, these were downsides to the hotel, not necessarily the con, which from my point of view was very well done – good panels, good times, good discussions, just a good, solid con. Congrats to the con staff! And thanks to everyone with whom I had many an interesting discussion. (And apologies to everyone whose name I forgot – I’m terrible with names! But I’m working on it!)

Next year: AGES OF WONDER!

Yes yes yes yes yes, a con report is forthcoming.

What I need from you is, author signing stock phrases: As I was signing my book I found myself at a loss for words. What are some of the things one sees in authors' signings? (Not being one to collect signatures myself, I'm unfamiliar with the process.)

Thanks!

For those of you who may have been wondering, here's my panel schedule for Ad Astra next week:

Fri 8:00 PM Misspelled Game Intro (My story is being launched on Sunday!)

Fri 10:00 PM Goals of Fanfic Writers (because, you know, it's out there - ignoring it isn't going to make fanfic go away)

Sat 1:00 PM Authors who Edit (seeing as I've done both!)

Sat 2:00 PM Buffy Season Eight (somehow I'm moderating this one! I should go pick up the latest issue)

Sat 4:00 PM Neopaganism: Fact vs. Fiction (Sorry Jim! Looks like I have to miss the Goblin War launch!)

Sun 1:00 PM Misspelled Launch (AAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!! *excited Kermit-like arm-flailing and running-about behaviour!*)

I have an eight-month old Dell Inspiron 1501 I'm looking to sell. Nothing wrong with it, I just found it too cumbersome to use on the bus. It makes an excellent desktop replacement.

If you're interested, let me know by replying here, and I'll post more details.

Thanks!

So the official news is AGES OF WONDER (the fantasy anthology I co-edited with Julie Czerneda) is slated for March 2009.

Woo!

Many thanks going out to all of your for your birthday wishes. You rock!

Fantasy set in the Victorian Era: Recommendations?

Open to - but not exclusively - Steampunk, of which I can find few examples.

http://i41.photobucket.com/albums/e293/geektype/20080225.jpg

So the GM of the Universe is a jerk. Right.

So playing around on YouTube at lunch today I found out that the man behind the Pixar short film "Boundin'", appearing prior to The Incredibles, was none other than Bud Luckey. Now, most people who have watched the DVD know this, because it also includes a short entitled "Who Is Bud Luckey?" What they DON'T tell you, is that Bud Luckey used to work on Sesame Street.

When I first saw Boundin' it had such an incredibly raw emotional impact on me, and I couldn't figure out why at the time. It must be Bud Luckey's down-home voice and musical style, tying into my childhood memories of watching such Sesame Street classics as "The Ladybugs' Picnic" and "Infinity (That's About the Size of It)" - which, coincidentally, is my favourite Sesame Street song ever: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5qd9Bd4nX9Q .

Brains are a funny stew of memory and emotion.