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As always, I'm on the road again.
This time I'm off to Rutgers University -- New Brunswick Writers' Conference. I'll be teaching two classes, one on genre fantasy and the other on science fiction world-building. Also, Saturday evening I'm scheduled for a speaking/reading/signing event.
Then on Sunday it will be all over.
This is one of the things that makes the writing life so odd. Events loom up, dominate one's life very intensely for the duration, and then fade away in the rear view mirror. But there's that one instant just before you make any appearance when you feel like a deer in the headlights.
Which reminds me of the second-best advice I ever received about awards...
I was in Moscow for Roscon, the Russian national science fiction convention and was about to receive the Grand Roscon Award, which is a very big deal. To me in particular. I was sitting beforehand with my Italian friend Alberto and told him I was feeling nervous about my speech.
Alberto grinned. "Don't worry about a thing," he said reassuringly. "Tomorrow, nobody will remember a word you said."
Words to live by.
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From Swimming Pool (2003): Awards are like hemorrhoids. Sooner or later every arsehole gets one.
ReplyDeleteYes, but now so many of your comments are on the internet now so that fifty years in the future some grad student can download them all, data mine through them, and then put together one heck of a Ph.D. thesis about you. Or Marianne or Gardner or almost all of those that follow your blog. Damn, wish I could read it.
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