1/03/2003

I've decided it would definitely make excellent sense to place the Scattered Minds on board the O'Neill Orbital. Not much to report other than that, except my mind is happily brimming with ideas. It's the last thing I think about before I go to sleep, just about the first thing I think of when I wake up (and I'm not nearly as boring as that makes me sound).

On other matters, one or two people are thinking of doing a successor to the Shipbuilding anthology. This was put out by several members of the Glasgow SF Writer's Circle for the '95 Worldcon in Glasgow, mostly paid for by local businesses and the local council. It wasn't perfect - in my opinion, slightly marred by a dodgy cover painting that made it look a lot cheaper than what you actually got, ie a dozen stories, many of which had already appeared in pro magazines like Interzone, including my own - but it was pretty decent. This time they're thinking about doing something with local 'name' writers - Charles Stross, Ken MacLeod and the like, if they're available, and putting a cover price on it (the last one was free. I'm currently reorganising the website with a new address, www.gsfwc.cjb.net, and you'll be able to download a pdf of the book before long). If you put a price on it, that way you get reviewed.

Two particular people seem interested in doing it - Andrew Wilson from the Edinburgh group, and Neil Williamson from Glasgow. Now, I used to be really heavily into small-press publishing, but not any more, since I'd rather write these days. I'm all for it, but I'm not sure what their serious chances are about persuading a publisher to take on an anthology of sf by 'Scottish' writers, since they don't exactly make any money. And I'll have to find out if they intend to pay the writers.

Still no word from my agent Dorothy or the publishers who are reading Angel Stations. I'll be biting my nails by the time February rolls around, though I'm convinced even if they did (!) go for it, I'd still have to do a certain amount of rewriting, particularly on the last thirty thousand words which were, after all, the last to be written, and therefore the least heavily edited.

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