Oh, all right, just the one meme...

I don't usually go in for memes, especially more or less randomly generated "quizzes", but it was difficult to resist this morning's which science fiction writer are you?. Especially after pnh pointed out that one of the questions was "how big of an asshole are you?", clearly indicating that the quiz compiler knows our tribe only too well... Anyway, it seems that I am

Hal Clement (Harry C. Stubbs)

A quiet and underrated master of "hard science" fiction who, among other things, foresaw integrated circuits back in the 1940s.

which was not unwelcome, but a bit of a surprise, given what's typically hard in *my* sf. Though not as much of a surprise as it was to autopope when he discovered that he is secretly Robert Heinlein. :-)

word count and chats

Only 600 words on Saturday, but 1800 words on Sunday even with the interruption to go to the chat session at Romance Junkies yesterday evening. Another 800 already this morning, taking me over the 40,000 word mark for Spindrift. It is now officially novel length by SFWA definitions. I was hoping to have hit this mark a bit sooner, but progress is good at the moment, and I'm on target to get the first draft finished by the end of the month.

[update re paragraph below: ritaxis points out that it's not fair to provide a link to a site without warning that it comes from the "how many epileptic fits can we induce?" school of web design. Sorry. She phrased it more politely than that, but even the bits of it that I see with my non-Flash browser are somewhat eye-searing, and apparently if you have Flash you get even more blinking, in fluorescent colours, plus much shouting as well.]

The chat was fun, although a bit wearing on the typing tendons. Romance Junkies has a chat room where readers can go along to chat to authors, and my publisher Loose Id has a regular monthly chat there. Last night I was one of the three sacrifical victims, facing questions like "is it more inspirational writing clothed or naked?"... I'll swear the readers are having a competition to see who can come up with the weirdest questions. "Do you do *personal* research?" isn't that daft a question, considering what I write, but I suspect the answer of "no, I read a lot and ask friends" was somewhat disappointing. This in a chat room supposedly rated PG13.

squeaking in delight

Just checked The Syndicate 1 over at Fictionwise. It wasn't on the second page anymore, somewhat worrying me. It turned out to be not on the second page... because it was on the first page, at #12.

I am Pleased.

(And for the RASFC crowd - Alma's at #10 on the fantasy list today.)