Although I am not listed on -- as far as I know -- any of the SDCC information, I will be attending the show.

Schedule is TBA at this point. I expect to be signing at Oni and DC, but dates and times are still being coordinated. I'm confirmed for a signing at the Bantam booth on Friday, where we'll be giving away copies of Patriot Acts. As for panels, I suspect I'll be at the Dark Castle one on Thursday, and perhaps the DC Nation panel, also on Thursday, as well as a handful of others. I am confirmed for the Gays in Comics panel on Saturday at 5:45.

I should add, at this point, that the lack of information confirming that I'll be at the show is my own damn fault and no one else's. I never got it together to actually register, so it's not like anyone had a reason to believe I'd be attending.

Oh the irony.


Now for some musing...

Andrew and Xtie departed this morning, beginning their long drive back to the Land of Sun and Smog. As ever, their departure leaves all of us here vaguely out of sorts. As jonlaw can well attest, it sucks when hearty and longstanding friendships are separated by distance.

nealbailey asked if I get postpartum after finishing a novel, and I hedged on the answer. It's a problematic analogy for me, to equate the act of giving birth to the act of writing a novel, though the romance of "the act of creation" makes it a logical enough comparison, I suppose. But to answer the question more honestly than I did the last time, yes, I do. It's a combination of emotions, I think, mostly underscored by fatigue. It may be the same for many authors, or for all of them, or for none, I don't know, but the process is a...consuming one, that may be the best way to put it. I'm always reminded of a Conan Doyle line -- which I am about to butcher, as I'm too tired to be bothered to actually look it up -- where Watson remarks that Holmes looks a little rough around the edges (yes, yes, cocaine will do that, as you were), and the Great Detective's reply is something along the lines of, "I confess I have been using myself rather too freely of late."

Holmesians out there should feel free to provide chapter and verse, as required.

Regardless, that line has always resonated for me, even if I can't quote it. It's how I feel every time I finish a novel.

The rush to vacation following completion, the company of good friends and good times, postponed but did not defeat the effect. And it's catching up with me, and tonight I'm finding myself listless and out of sorts, edging up to grumpy but not quite committing to the relationship as yet. In a few more days this will pass. It has nothing to do with anxiety about the work itself, at least, not this time; my editor read and returned comments via email on the ms within, I shit you not, 24 hours of receipt, which is a record for her, at least in the confines of our relationship. As always, her notes -- brief as they were -- were spot on; in fact, her notes were exactly the ones I'd made to myself to address in the revision. Well, except for one, but she never likes it when someone cries in my novels. She genuinely seems to like the book, which is always a good thing, and, more to the point, I believe her when she says she does; after nine novels with her, I can tell when she's struggling to find something kind to say to me.

Depression may be another word for it, I suppose. The desire to do nothing for a few days, to simply read a book, or play a video game, or sleep late, all things that, for one reason or another, I cannot do at this time. To indulge myself. But there are scripts that need writing (as of this moment, actually, there are five of them, with three so close to deadline they can look down its shirt), and many editors who have been both patient and understanding as I've told them that they would have to wait until the book was finished. Well, it's finished, and they're due their due.


An unrelated question: anyone I know from that Green and Pleasant planning on attending San Diego? And if so, would you be willing to act as courier for me? I promise, it's nothing that'll get you sent down to Gitmo. Honest.

This is gonna be brief -- maybe more later today. Met up with David this morning and we went over to Bantam for breakfast with Her Royal Kateness. It was good to see her, but the meal was pretty much dulled by a) my lack of sleep and b) the lack of good news about all things publishing.

Depressing numbers, depressing news.

At first blush, it makes me wonder why I bother -- I mean, if I'm writing the stories and nobody's reading them, then what the hell is the point anyway?

But then the second blush comes, and I realize -- as I inevitably always do -- that frankly, none of that matters. I write what I write because if I don't, I'm miserable. Simple as that. Even if the material was being published on toilet paper to be used as the same, I'd still be publishing it, or at least I'd be trying to. I'm a writer, I write, and at the end of the day, I suppose, that's all there is to say about that.

More later....