Technical Difficulties

The Goblin Emperor has gone back for a second printing!

On MAY SIXTH I am doing an AMA-type event at Bitten by Books. We kick off at noon CST and I would love to see you there! ETA: if you RSVP here you get 25 entries in the giveaway contest (5 copies of The Goblin Emperor to give away!) when you show up for the event.

I've done guest posts at:

• SF Signal (genre conventions in fantasy)
  
• The Booksmugglers (grimdark)
  
• A Dribble of Ink (hope in fantasy)
  
• Fantasy Cafe (women in Tolkien)

And interviews with:

• Dungeon Crawlers Radio
  
• The Book Plank
  
• Between Dreams and Reality
  
• My Bookish Ways

I will have at least four more guest posts and a podcast interview appearing like daffodils in the month of May.

And just a reminder, because seriously this cannot be said enough times, to help the career of ANY WRITER YOU LOVE, Buy, Read, Talk.

FIRST, Happy Book Day to Felix Gilman, whose book The Revolutions also comes out today. I don't know Mr. Gilman personally, but I admire his writing. And The Revolutions sounds awesome.

SECOND, Happy Book Day to me! To celebrate, my invaluable webtamer has put up the map of the Ethuveraz on katherineaddison.com.

THIRD, there's also a FAQ. I'm sure that more questions will need to be added for The Goblin Emperor, but I haven't been asked them yet.

FOURTH, John Scalzi graciously let me do a Big Idea post about fantasy and technology.

FIFTH, for Forces of Geek, I did a post about inventing languages.

SIXTH, for Tor-dot-com, I wrote a post about coming-of-age stories and quests.

SEVENTH, I also did the Pop Quiz at the End of the Universe for Tor-dot-com and can't remember if I posted the link or not.

EIGHTH and furthermore, there's a Q&A up at Riffle.

NINTH, if you haven't had enough of me yet, there will be other guest blog posts cropping up as my gracious hosts' schedules permit. I will, of course, post links.

TENTH, not one atom of this post is an April Fool's joke.

ETA: ELEVENTH, Tor-dot-com's That Was Awesome feature, in which I explain why you should be reading Scott Lynch.

Five of the six promised books are on their way to (or possibly have already arrived in) California, Oregon, Washington, and Estonia. (Also, the book from the Con or Bust auction went to Scotland. I love it when my books are world travelers!)

Zafar, if you are reading this, I owe you a book! Please email me at semonette (at) gmail (dot) com so we can work out the details.

My author copies of The Goblin Emperor have arrived. (Please add exclamation points to taste. I don't think LiveJournal's character limits will let me put enough in.)

That means that the contest to name my sock elephant is coming to a close. I'm going to let it run through the weekend, so that if somebody has been dithering about putting in a suggestion, they don't get the rug yanked out from under them. (Also, so that there's a fighting chance no one will only HEAR about the contest when it ends.)

Please spread the word widely! All suggestions are welcome, and remember you can make more than one entry!

Tor.com has kindly collected the first four chapters of The Goblin Emperor here, for all your teaser needs.

Tor.com has put up Chapter 4!

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Chapter 3
download Chapters 1 & 2

1. Yesterday I posed with a giant inflatable colon to promote colorectal cancer awareness. Most surreal Thursday morning ever.

Yes, a colonoscopy is not the most fun you will ever have, but speaking as a friend of the awesome Jay Lake and as someone who has had a polyp removed from her colon and will be going back for another screening in a couple years, colon cancer needs to be beaten to death with a stick.

2. Liz Bourke has reviewed The Goblin Emperor for Tor.com. As an author, positive reviews are great, but what you really want are good reviews, reviews that understand the book you tried to write and convey it well. This is that kind of review.

3. I am currently undergoing all kinds of adjustments to my . . . I don't even know what to call it. The victory conditions for sleep? They're shipping me a different mask to try with the little Cthulhu machine. It will still look like a disastrous attempt at an elephant costume, but hopefully it will (a) be more comfortable and (b) seal to my face better. Yes, I have seen Aliens. Please don't remind me.

But ALSO, my sleep doctor and I are trying to rejigger my RLS medications, because I'd gotten to the point where it was requiring way too much narcotics to club the damn thing into unconsciousness. The new medication is definitely working, so that's a plus, and I am re-weaning myself off the narcotics. Yes, there has been just a tiny bit of withdrawal. I haven't gone off them entirely yet, but I am working on it because I hate the damn drugs. I am hoping that when I can finally stop taking them, I will be less tired and also that my creativity will come back again.

It did come back in December and January before drying up again in February, and the creepy thing is that I can actually articulate the difference. When everything is working correctly (i.e., what I thought of as "normal" until the clusterfuck began in 2010), there are words in my head. Well, there are always words in my head. I am like Hector Puncheon, who "usually thought articulately, and often, indeed, conversed quite sensibly aloud with his own soul." So maybe it's more accurate to say that the staus quo ante, to which I desire ardently to return, is that there are stories forming, word by word. Because there are words, separate from my internal narration/dialogue. They form themselves into sentences, and the sentences form narratives. When it was working right, I would frequently "get" sentences from Booth out of nowhere.

Now, I can force prose. There are always days when you have to. But it's not the same, at least from my side of the proscenium, and I really didn't realize what I'd lost until I had it back. I didn't realize that there was a wellspring, that I wasn't imagining that writing used to involve joy instead of just grim desperation.

I had it back, and then the RLS went bad, and it was gone again. I knew that bad RLS nights correlated with low or nonexistent creativity, and now I know what it's attacking. I know that there's a thing that should be there that isn't. And I can only hope that it can grow back. Again.

ETA: Kirkus gives The Goblin Emperor a starred review. Please add exclamation points to taste.

My splendid editor, casacorona, has an equally splendid assistant, who today sent me the dust jacket for The Goblin Emperor.

Fig. 1: My lovely assistant Catzilla* will show it to you:



Fig. 2: What do you mean, that isn't what you wanted?



Fig. 3: For somebody we only keep around for your thumbs, you're AWFULLY picky.



Fig. 4: Is THIS better?



Perfect, Catzilla. Thank you.

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*No, Catzilla isn't his real name. It's his internet handle.

The first two chapters of The Goblin Emperor are available for free download at katherineaddison.com. Spread the word!

Con or Bust auctions are live!

I have two items in the auction (and believe me, there are pages and pages and pages of COMPLETELY AWESOME SHIT):

1. the absolute last copy of the Kyle Murchison Booth chapbook Unnatural Creatures

2. a copy of The Goblin Emperor, just as soon as my author copies come

Also, just in general, Con or Bust is an excellent endeavor. Even if you can't bid, please spread the word!