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February 26, 2006
ECLIPSE Wins 2005 Best Australian SF Novel Aurealis Award
That's right. You read that right. At the Aurealis Awards ceremony held in Brisbane last night, ECLIPSE beat a field of intimidating challengers from major publishing houses to be declared the Best Oz SF Novel for 2005.
We were all quite verklempt on learning this. As boggled as I was, I think possibly my parents were even more gobsmacked, making plans to phone up every known Bedford relative in coo-ee to pass along the astonishing news.
It wasn't possible for us to have been at the awards ceremony last night, since that would have cost us a great deal of money we don't have now that we've paid for our flights to LA in August. So Publisher Brian arranged for a couple of his friends, who live in Brisbane, to attend on my behalf, and the collected the impressive item. They tell me it's this shiny, pointy, glass object. I have to send them our snail mail address, so they can post it over to us.
If I had been there, I would have thanked Michelle (without whom nothing is possible), of course, but also my family, for unflagging, endless support, and my publisher, who laboured mightily and long in turning my manuscript into the fab-looking novel it became. Oh, and the people at Aurealis magazine, of course.
Posted by adrian at 02:20 PM | Comments (13) | TrackBack
February 21, 2006
UMBRA Almost Finished! [Tilt!]
I could also have titled this entry, "Author Boy Gets His Groove Back", but I did that once before, some time ago, and I do try to keep things fresh.
All the same, the title says it all. As of right now the book is at 94,500 words, of which I did 3000 words just today. I've got a headache, and it's been blindingly hot (40.1 C) and muggy (up to over 80% at one point), replete with thunderstorms (!) but all the same I've been chugging along pretty well, banging the flippers at the keyboard, just like old times. I used to feel like I couldn't really imagine finishing this book. Now I can see that I could finish it, probably, by no later than next week. Or even sooner. It all depends. I've got a murder to organise, and a strange chess match, and some nasty, nasty shocks. Or at least I hope they'll be nasty shocks. Who can say? There's one thing about what's going on in the story that nobody knows but me, but I've recently begun worrying that, when all is revealed, what if folks just giggle? What then? Guess I'd better make it work, regardless.
Tune in next time, when, you never know, I might be done! Phwoar!
Posted by adrian at 07:33 PM | Comments (5) | TrackBack
February 17, 2006
Author Boy Still On Fire
I finished the scribble last Friday night with 80,020 words.
I finished the scribble tonight, a week later, with 89,550 words.
So that's 9500 words in a week. Up until this week, it had been taking me about three or four weeks to get that much done, and it was driving me nuts. It just took so loooooooooooooong.
What's changed? I think I passed a psychological barrier, the point at which I realised the end (of the book, of course) is coming. It's around here someplace. Time to get stuff going, set off more Improvised Explosive Plot Devices, and make My Synthetic Hero's life even more sucky. Just today, to follow the "explosive" idea, first I blew him up in a big explosion, and then, when he woke up some time later, ears ringing and in pretty poor shape, he discovers that things are now much, much worse.
Not sure what exactly the ending will be, but I have a better idea of where it's going than I've had for quite some time. Things are becoming clearer. Also? Kinda fun.
Posted by adrian at 09:20 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Space Elevators Get a Lift--sorry.
I've loved the idea of space elevators ever since I first learned about them, many years ago now. I've posted quite a bit about them here since starting this blog nearly four years ago, but naturally all of those old posts are now lost. Take my word for it; I'm a big fan of the idea. At one point I contemplated writing a murder mystery set on a space elevator car, but wound up using a lot of that material in HYDROGEN STEEL, which features an extended section set on a--well, you know what.
So I was chuffed senseless to see the following item pop up in my New Scientist magazine RSS feed today.
Space-elevator tether climbs a mile high
* 15:29 15 February 2006
* NewScientist.com news service
* Kimm Groshong
A slim cable for a space elevator has been built stretching a mile into the sky, enabling robots to scrabble some way up and down the line.
LiftPort Group, a private US company on a quest to build a space elevator by April 2018, stretched the strong carbon ribbon 1 mile (1.6 km) into the sky from the Arizona desert outside Phoenix in January tests, it announced on Monday.
Posted by adrian at 09:09 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack
February 15, 2006
After Sluggish Production, Author Boy Suddenly on Fire
As of last Friday, the UMBRA manuscript had hit 80,000 words. As of this evening, it's 85,000 words. In the long weeks leading up to this week, it's taken generally about a week and a half to generate 5000 words that I could live with. Now I've gone and done it in three days. It's exciting! I'm thinking about how much I might be able to do tomorrow. The actual ending for the book could be in sight! This is big news, at least for me.
Also news, though I don't know about "big" so much: yesterday Michelle and I visited our travel agent, handed over a giant wodge of cash, and thus booked our flights to LA for the Worldcon in August. The only remaining detail we have to sort out is travel insurance, which should present few problems.
Meanwhile, the headaches continue. I've got an appointment next week to see still another doctor, this time a "specialist physician". I'm guessing it'll be the full physical workup, the idea of which is to determine if the headaches might be due to some other factor other than something being wonky in my bonce. I mean, it's got to be something. It's hard to believe I could have nasty headaches nearly every day (got one right now that's showing some real talent) for years on end, for no reason at all.
And when I'm not flapping the flippers at the keyboard, etc, I've been watching the Winter Olympics. I love this stuff, particularly the crazy-insane stuff like the Downhill Alpine Skiing, the Luge, the Ski Jumping, and such. I know the Figure Skating is one of the big glamour acts, and at times it can be very impressive and compelling, but I love the other stuff more. Few things make me sit on the edge of the couch, even holding my breath, watching these people doing their thing. It's spectacular.
Last: it was Michelle and my 13th Wedding Anniversary yesterday. Hard to believe that 13 years ago, on a stinking hot Sunday afternoon, the fabulous Spunkasaurus, looking divine in a shapely cream dress wrapped in lace, and me, wrapped in a tux that, sadly, wasn't quite big enough, got married in a simple, informal ceremony. It was quite a day. Yesterday was similarly hot and horrible: 38.7 degrees, and saturating humidity. The sort of heat where you can't even say, "Well, at least it's a dry heat," because it's just not dry.
Posted by adrian at 09:52 PM | Comments (4) | TrackBack