At Wist End

Last weekend, the Toronto Transit Commission Union gave us a fair, 48-hour warning of a possible strike, and came to a tentative deal which would be voted on by its membership. People made contingency plans for Monday in the event of a strike, and some people had sympathy for the TTC workers.

Very late last night, they voted and rejected the deal, and at 11:30 p.m., the transit workers were told to shut down the system at midnight.

30 minutes of warning on a Friday night, when people are most likely to be out enjoying the town, leaving their cars at home so they can drink, or parking on the outskirts of town and taking transit to get downtown. Most people wouldn't even be watching the news at that hour. What do you do when you live an hour away by transit, it's past midnight, and it's impossible to get a cab because everyone is calling for one?

Today, no one has any contingency plans for getting to work. Countless people have their weekend plans torpedoed. Way to go, union. You just lost all support for your cause from 2.5 million Torontonians, myself included.

It's time to declare the TTC an essential service.

I sold my short story, "Come-From-Aways" to On Spec!

I'm really glad my Newfoundland story is appearing in a Canadian magazine. Yay, eh?

Suzanne Church (canadiansuzanne) interviewed me over the course of last week on the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy group on Facebook, as part of the Aurora Nominees Interview series. The interview thread is reproduced below. I'd be happy to answer further questions in comments as well. Many thanks to Suzanne and Donna (the moderator) for doing this.

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More reasons why amber is fascinating...microscopic prehistoric insects!

I'm getting a personal behind-the-scenes tour of the entomology department at the ROM on Friday. Now *that* is going to be awesome.

Up against the wall with other Aurora Short Form Finalists

Hanging out with Kevin J. Anderson, Rob Sawyer, Carolyn Clink, Jim Hines, Stephen Kotowych, Mike McPherson, and Jessica Strider

Details soon...

Here it is: Prix Aurora Awards 2008 Ballot!

I've been keeping this news under my hat for a week now, as I was waiting for the official Prix Aurora Awards ballot to be released first (originally scheduled for release on March 21). They were having some problems, but now the word is out!

I'm thrilled that "Metamorphoses in Amber", published in Abyss & Apex 24, is a nominee in the Best Short-Form Work in English category for the Prix Aurora Awards 2008.

Many thanks to everyone who nominated the story. Also congratulations to my fellow nominees in the category (especially my 'good twin' and WOTF buddy, Stephen Kotowych). ETA: in all the excitement, I forgot to congratulate Robert J. Sawyer, my writing teacher, and Derwin Mak, who are in the Long Form category; Jana Paniccia and Julie Czerneda in the Other (anthology) category. Congrats!

The novelette is online, as are several reviews, recommendations and opinions from readers:

The Fix Online (Nicole McClain)

SF Revu (Sam Tomaino)

Rich Horton, who also reviewed it in the January 2008 Locus

A.C. Wise

agilebrit @ LJ

jarodrussell @ LJ

As for my Ad Astra Schedule, here it is:

Sat 11:00 AM (Ballr. Centre) Heroes: Save the Writing, Save the Show
Stephen J. Barringer (mod), Sephera Giron, Tony Pi, Colleen Hillerup, Wayne Brown

Sat 1:00 PM (Gall. Centre) Getting the Most Out of a Writer's Workshop
Stephen Kotowych (mod), Suzanne Church, Tony Pi, Douglas Smith

Sat 3:00 PM (Ballr. East) Star Wars: Lucas and Novels
Kevin J. Anderson (mod), Tony Pi, Rebecca Moesta, Brian Kierans, Amy De Ruyte

Sun 10:00 AM (Ballr. East) Writers of the Future
Jim C. Hines (mod), Robert J. Sawyer, Mike Rimar, Stephen Kotowych, Tony Pi

Sun 1:00 PM (Salon 443) Reading
Tony Pi

See you there!

Be irrational and transcendental today.

Turns out that the clever Obay ads were from Ontario Colleges, trying to get across the message that universities aren't the only options for higher ed, and that you shouldn't try to force your kids to go to universities if they don't want to.

A bit of an anti-climax - the original ad was far more intriguing than the yellow post-it style explanation slapped across the earlier versions of the ad. If you hadn't seen the first wave, the ad itself would make no sense.

Strange (but clever) ads have been popping up all over Toronto, advertising a drug called Obay. My partner and I first noticed it on a subway ride Thursday, and it's been tantalizing us ever since.

http://www.thestar.com/article/304963

Any ideas what it's about?

Congrats to this quarter's Finalists, 3 of whom I have had the pleasure to know personally or via the 'Net: tinaconnolly, matthewsrotundo, and Geir Lanesskog - a talented Illustrators of the Future winner I met at the workshop last year. He illustrated seaweed_shark's story, "The Gas Drinkers".

Good luck to all three!

Short story sale of "Stilts and Straw" to Flashing Swords!

Stilts-and-sorcery. What's not to like?

So, four of us got together today at a restaurant on Dundas to celebrate Chinese New Year. I know Derwin Mak from a couple of conventions, but never met Eric Choi or Kent Wong. We had a splendid dinner and chatted about everything from conventions, lost TV shows, SF in China and Canada. Quite an interesting night!

Also, thanks to a great online brainstorming session with dvandom, nthmike, jarodrussell, and thandrak, I solved two plot problems for Manticore! Thanks, guys. Time to write it all down.

Day Six of WOTF

A red-carpet night to remember!

Joined a book club run by my friend Jessica on Sunday. We discussed Lord of the Rings as a club opener, since everybody has read it and seen the movies. I was surprised that some people skipped the appendices, and missed some juicy bits...like, did you know that Sam took the last grey ship to the West, after Rose died? Or that Gimli got special permission to go with Legolas to the West, perhaps to see Galadriel once again? Anyway, so many questions came up during the discussion that I'm tempted to tackle the Silmarillion again to find the answers. (If I don't zone out in the process.)

Anyway, everyone threw in one favourite, and we drew randomly to determine the order for the next six months. We specified first books if a series, and not massive tomes. The books are:

The Time Traveler's Wife
Dragonsdawn
Interview with the Vampire
The Traveler
Lord of Light
Magic Kingdom for Sale - Sold!

Guess which is my pick. I picked up the first book at Bakka yesterday. Good to see they went with my Chinese New Year's suggestion for the front display (although it wasn't the only choice among the displays).

Day Five of WOTF

Highlights: My partner finally made it out on Thursday. I now really wish I had taken the digital camera to the Jet Propulsion Lab. Those robots were incredible!

Day Four of WOTF

Woke up and started writing quite early. There would be no breaks except for the Starbucks run as Stephen mentioned, and I found myself cutting out irrelevant parts of my story because I *had* to, due to time crunch. I was going to write a pre-amble, a more complex ending, but not if we had to turn them in by 6 p.m.! And that forced me to be terse, which was a good exercise. Frantic doesn't even begin to describe the day most of us had. I finished around 5:40, and rushed to line up for the printer. And I was insanely jealous of those who had finished early and actually had time to have an early dinner...because I didn't know we'd be caught in 3 more hours of lectures. There was also a room change because John's partner and son had arrived, but the hotel misplaced their reservations, so I would room with Ed Sevcik seaweed_shark for a night.

I don't remember what I did about food at 9:30 p.m...probably just stuffed myself with leftovers. Luckily, I only had two stories to read and critique for the next morning. It was actually great that my story got picked, because I really could use the comments.

Then, blissful sleep...

Day Three of WOTF

In contrast to Stephen, I only talked briefly to someone collecting recyclables, so my story idea had to do with fringes of society. Then, research in the library led to Japanese myth, and I had the kernels of my story. The only thing that made it from the inspirational item (mine was a polar bear earring) was the idea of snow, which became a theme in my story.

And thus was "Showdown in the Floating Worlds" (formerly "Third Eyes") born.

No, it wasn't easy to write - trying to do it in 24 hours, in a readable state that won't embarrass me in front of the others, really stressed me out (and my roommate John Burridge). We hit the grocery store and bought a whole roast chicken and other foodstuff so that we could shut ourselves in our room and work throughout the night and day. I would only really see Stephen (and the ubiquitous photographer, Hughette) throughout the next 24 hours.

By the time John and I went to bed around 2 a.m., I had worldbuilding and one paragraph.

And I would discover that John is able to type in his sleep, on a really loud keyboard! I caught whatever sleep I could get, and hoped that my subconscious would pull a rabbit out of the hat and give me the rest of the story, plus an ending, soon...

Monday - in which I am assigned my twin, and learn a heck of a lot about writing in a single day, and get a polar bear for inspiration.

The first of my roommates was John Burridge, one of the Wordos.

I expect to be busy with a new assignment this week, so my posts will be few...but for your enjoyment, here are Stephen Kotowych (my good twin)'s posts on the WOTF experience, which he is reposting for the benefit of the new WOTF crop. (And what an exciting experience they will have!) So, here's the first link, chock-full of pictures. In fact, if you have any questions about the trip that he hasn't answered, or questions about my side of the experience, post here and I'll annotate.

Stephen explains the purpose of the posts

Day One, in which I waited anxiously at the airport for Stephen...

I found more cybernetic insects designed by Mike Libby, and I'm absolutely astounded by them. Unable to resist adding a few more to my icons, I upgraded to an LJ Plus account - whether I'll regret the ads or not remains to be seen.