I’m at best a haphazard and slightly under-organized person. I didn’t realize just how close July the 1st was until, well, today. June has disappeared in a trail of words, chapters, and the end of school. I’ve done a fair amount of writing, and I’m three quarters of the way through Cast in Chaos (which I always now type instead of Silence). I’ve also finished revisions on what exists of House Name, having added some seven thousand words, and I’m now at the point where I’m once again writing new words in that book’s closing arc.
Someone came into the store a couple of months ago and suggested that one of my future Cast novels should be titled Cast in Concrete, which was very funny – and if I can think of a reasonable mafia for Elantra, I swear I’m going to do it.
But that’s not why you’re here. Today, because it’s Canada Day, I’ve posted the first chapter of the upcoming Cast in Silence. You can find it under the appropriate book in the Chronicles of Elantra page in the sidebar; it’s in .pdf and .html.
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Okay, and now, the question. Well, first the preamble:
It’s been suggested that I’m not very active on-line, and this is partly true. I spend time reading on-line, but I don’t post often, and if I do, it’s frequently with a sense of driving outrage. This implies that I’m normally a fairly silent person, unless pushed, which is sadly not entirely representative of the truth, especially not if you ask my brother. (Hands up, any brothers who feel that their sisters actually do not talk all of the time).
I’m a fairly housebound person. But I’m not really a gardener (because I have black thumbs), and knitting is always a proof-in-concept of extra-dimensionality. I am not a very visual person, and I can draw stick figures on a good day. I can’t sing, and if I listen to music while trying to write…well, I listen to music. I don’t travel very much.
I work in a bookstore, which I managed until my oldest son was born. I like the part-time work there, because I get to handle new books, and I get to see real people. I understand parts of the writing process, I understand parts of the publishing process, and the business therein.
I do read, because I can’t actually remember a time in my life when I didn’t. Reading is very much part of what I do, and how I think or feel. I see movies, but mostly, I see movies that I can take the kids to see. The two exceptions to that in recent memory that stand out: The Lives of Others and Il y a Longtemps que Je t’aime. Both of which were, in their own stark way, so profoundly beautiful I still try to make people watch them. But I don’t watch very much television at all, and if I do, I play catch-up on series when they’re released as DVDs.
I do have children, and my oldest is now sixteen years of age, and he has given me permission to talk about some of his earlier life and his earlier experiences; I’ve never felt entirely comfortable talking about them in public before because only part of them are my life. My oldest was diagnosed with Asperger’s, part of ASD, when he first hit school, and some of that experience occupied a great deal of my thought and time.
I also read some manga, and play some computer games. I spent a number of years playing World of Warcraft, and I have some things to say about the nature of on-line MMO’s in a variety of different ways (gender roles immediately come to mind, and, ummm, I may have been guilty of long, looooong rants about the difference between “male” clothing and “female” clothing in game).
But I’m not sure that any of these things are profoundly interesting to people; they are all, of course, interesting to me.
I understand that it’s important to have samples of actual writing here, because that’s more or less what I do with my day.
Writing is not a terribly entertaining spectator sport, unless it’s been a particularly bad writing day, in which case it’s at least audibly interesting. At a safe distance. (My son says no distance is safe at that time <wry g>).
So… what I’m wondering at this point is: What do you want to see, when you drop by here? Is there enough here, with the books and the not-perfect-bibliography? Would posts about the disconnects experienced in raising an ASD child or posts about funny/infuriating things in an MMO, or more frequent ‘read this book’ posts be reasonable?
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I have not really gone to this site very much, sidetracked by work and grandbaby and really just by life. I feel actually kind of intrusive offering an opinion about anything other than the Cast books, which I love. This is not our site, but yours. you are not required *some beliefs to the contrary* to even Be Here. anything you wish to cover I really feel is okay with me. Connections to others can be made in odd ways. SOrry, not explaining myself well but the site looks great and anything you feel like talking about or speaking of is fine.