After the long period of inactivity I plan to get back on track with my blogging service - and here's some more stuff to keep my visitors surf-satisfied:

Jay Lake is back in Cancerland and writes about with his usual openhearted candor >> I really feel for him and hope he gets better soon. He writes wonderful short stories and cool novels, is a blogging voice I have come to rely on, and has worked so hard this year to drive off the Fear that this is just utter unfairness exemplified. But there it is.

British SF author Ian Sales lists his personal SF Film Top 50 in response to Time Out's flawed list >> His list includes many of my own favorites and hints at some interesting films I will have to dig up. And yes, Blade Runner, Alien and Metropolis are on his list...

From the Guide to Literary Agents blog, a list of the top 10 things that make a Literary Agent *stop* reading your manuscript. They're the obvious things, really, but it's nice to have them all together. Useful for framing purposes. That blog entry should come with a downloadable picture frame and wall-mounting instructions.

Well, not my commercial success, obviously, because no one seems to want to read my scribblings so far, but about Dan Brown's. I spotted a thread on the SFFChronicles board where someone mentioned that his new novel, The Lost Symbol, has an initial print run of 6.5 million copies. That's a lot of paper.

On the board, a whole debate ensued in which some claimed Dan Brown is unable to write decent prose - and the undertone there is clearly that he does not deserve this success because of this perceived lack of skill - whereas some others claimed his prose is simply not "up to literary standards" but because it is so successful, you cannot uphold that it is "bad prose".
I tend to agree with the latter opinion. If he sells so incredibly well, he must be doing something right. For the masses at least. For a novel to become so popular, it must touch a large section of our population in a shared psychological soft spot, and the writing must at least be good enough not to detract from the story.

I feel that to malign people like Dan Brown, Ian Rankin and others who were mentioned on the board as "bad writers" is a little sad - especially when the comments come from unpublished or relatively unsuccessful (commercially speaking) writers. It always sounds a little like "I'm not enjoying this huge success but that's because I don't want to stoop so low, I'm a much better writer but the masses don't get, and the agents don't get it because they're all so focused on bestsellers...".

What do you think?

Just wanted to point out this link to Futurismic, where you can find some interesting news on the US-Mexico border protection strategy. It sounds eerily similar to what I describe in my first short story... I guess I better get it sold somewhere before it becomes completely outdated!

Expect normal blogging service to resume gradually, starting today. Our baby boy has finally come home yesterday evening, after six weeks in the neonatal intensive care unit. He's still only 36 weeks, so he should not have been born for another three or four, but thankfully he has grown strong enough to come home.

Forty-four days. It was long enough.

It's been almost a month since I wrote anything here. I had not expected the impact of our baby boy being born two months early to be so big; it's hard to imagine how that affects your "real life".

I've noticed that I miss writing. I know now that it makes sense for me to keep trying to write stuff that other people might want to read, because I at least enjoy writing it. I feel "useless" when I'm not doing anything creative at night, and it's a feeling I've had a lot lately, even though I know - rationally - that I cannot take on any other projects at the moment. Between spending time in the NICU, spending time with my kids, and high pressure at work... I'm all spent. But it feels awkward not working on anything else.

It probably makes no sense if you don't have this same - drive? But there it is. It's a bug gnawing away at me, an itch that keeps driving me in circles at night. And when our little boy comes home and life returns to normal, I'll finally be able to scratch. I look forward to it.

Our baby boy is doing fine, breathing on his own since this afternoon. He's still on the NICU of course, and needs round the clock care and monitoring.

Combined with my wife's recovery from the C-section, blogging activity will be intermittent to nonexistant. Writing fiction not planned for the next few weeks.
Total exhaustion of the mind has sapped away the creative drive. Let's hope it comes back soon.

Oh yes. Got a rejection from Futurismic, but couldn't care less in these circumstances!

Yesterday my wife gave birth to our third child, a baby boy called Nand. Those of you who know me a little better know that this is not all good news. She was only 30 weeks pregnant, so he was forced onto this planet a full two months early. Things are looking okay at the moment but we'll be living from moment to moment for the coming eight weeks or so...

Expect very light blogging until then.