Monday, September 18, 2006
Cry Me a River
Here's how tough my life is these days. Today my daughter started attending her preschool five days a week, up from two days a week for the last couple of months. Which means that instead of averaging eighteen hours of work a week, as I've done for the last two years, I'll be working (ie. writing, editing, and publishing) full time, for the first time since before Georgia was born.
But last week I finished all of my Publishing To Do in June list, which means I've only got writing to do for the rest of the month. Which further means that for the next two weeks I'll be faced with the following daunting list of tasks: write a Doctor Who story, write new Shadowmen story about talking gorilla spies in Africa, read a big stack of books about King Arthur, and revise a Celestial Empire short story at an editor's request.
Which leads to today, in which I actually thought, "Oh, man, I've got to stop reading this analysis of Nennius's history of ancient Britain so I can go watch the first part of Douglas Adams's 'City of Death' to make sure I've got the interaction between the Doctor and Romana down. Damn."
There were a lot of years of suck to get to this point, folks, but I have to remind myself to stop and enjoy it, every now and again.
But last week I finished all of my Publishing To Do in June list, which means I've only got writing to do for the rest of the month. Which further means that for the next two weeks I'll be faced with the following daunting list of tasks: write a Doctor Who story, write new Shadowmen story about talking gorilla spies in Africa, read a big stack of books about King Arthur, and revise a Celestial Empire short story at an editor's request.
Which leads to today, in which I actually thought, "Oh, man, I've got to stop reading this analysis of Nennius's history of ancient Britain so I can go watch the first part of Douglas Adams's 'City of Death' to make sure I've got the interaction between the Doctor and Romana down. Damn."
There were a lot of years of suck to get to this point, folks, but I have to remind myself to stop and enjoy it, every now and again.
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Juxtaposed to my own work schedule and you are living in some ideal fantasy land :)
Your hard working and loving wife.
Your hard working and loving wife.
# posted by 
:
9/18/06 5:20 PM
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9/18/06 5:20 PM
Cheryl, it's actually one of the chapters in Mike Ashley's so-far-excellent The Mammoth Book of King Arthur. But he quotes extensively all of the stuff that I'm interested in at the moment (basically anything fifth or sixth century), saving me having to read through the whole thing. I'll probably be rereading the relevant bits of Geoffrey of Monmouth in another few days. (Last week, to give a bit of context, it was all Mabinogion, all the time.)
You people wouldn't believe the hours my wife Allison works. Two weeks back, she didn't get home until 2:30 in the morning. So when I complain about having to watch a bunch of Doctor Who for research, you can imagine that I don't get a lot of sympathy...
*ahem*
Not wanting to sound too much like a fangirl here, (full sized TARDIS prop in my workshed not withstanding) but
what are you writing for Doctor Who?
Not wanting to sound too much like a fangirl here, (full sized TARDIS prop in my workshed not withstanding) but
what are you writing for Doctor Who?
# posted by :
9/18/06 9:28 PM
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9/18/06 9:28 PM
Tara, it's nothing terribly high profile. A British small press, Big Finish, is publishing an anthology of Who stories edited by Steve Savile. My friend Sean Williams let me know about the anthology back in the spring, and Steve liked my pitch enough to take it. Now I've just got to write the damned thing!
We sell a lot of the Big Finish audio stuff down at Dragon's Lair. They're a class act. If you need any more research materials, drop me an email. tara.wheeler@earthlink.net
# posted by :
9/19/06 11:30 AM
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9/19/06 11:30 AM
Can't vouch for historial accuracy - you'd need Edward James for that. But there's a lot of stuff, all published by a UK outfit called Phillimore. There's a 3-volume "Age of Arthur" (which appears to be re-published in the US though I'm not sure if it is the whole thing) plus a series of source texts including Nennius, Gildas and St. Patrick. Search Amazon for "john morris" and for "arthurian period sources". I found it very useful when working out how Bernard Cornwell had messed with the sources in his efforts to claim Arthur for the English.
Thanks for the offer, Tara. And thanks for the steers, Cheryl! Much obliged! (And rest assured, my Arthur will be unquestionably Briton... though appropriately Romanized, naturally.)
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