Sunday, November 8, 2009

What I'm Writing, What I'm Reading

I cranked out 2000+ words on The Last Captain this weekend. A respectable number, given the other demands of family life. This recent spat of writing has been motivated by a number of miseries in my personal life and a great deal of hope for the future.

I attended the World Horror and Fantasy Convention the weekend of Halloween, and several events there were very significant for me.

I was blessed in that I was able to drive an author around that wrote one of the mainstays of my reading since I was 16 and living in Switzerland. David Drake was gracious, thoughtful, fun to be around, and generally the type of man I had imagined him to be.

I made a new friend, another author of speculative fiction. Mark Van Name, also gracious, thoughtful, fun to be around, and generally the type of man I like to associate with.

I made many other contacts and new friends. It was enormously stimulating to me to associate with people smarter, better educated and more experienced than I who were interested in the same things as I. So stimulating that despite a very late night, a great number of drinks, and a strong desire to just snooze, I could not sleep well the entire weekend. Entirely over-stimulated.

I am currently reading One Jump Ahead, by Mark Van Name. A fun read and thoughtful, just like it's author.

2 comments:

  1. Count me as officially jealous. I've been a fan of Drake ever since I picked up a copy of Hammer's Slammers in a grocery store when I was around nine or ten and talked my mom into buying it for me.

    I acquired the hardcover compilations of the series not too long ago, and re-read them all. Still great stories. I blogged about them a few months ago.

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  2. He is quite a gentleman, and I'm so very happy to have met him.

    The next WFC is in Columbus, OH on Halloween. Go. It is not to be missed. You could still crank a book out in that time and have something in hand for the convention.

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