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At Worldcon this past August (yes, that’s right, I just came back from World Fantasy and now I’m talking about Worldcon) I had the opportunity to meet and hang out with several authors from the Nightshade Books crew.  Brad Beaulieu I’ve known for years, going all the way back to our days as striplings on the OWW, but in Reno I met Courtney Shafer, Katy Stauber, and Katy’s very cool husband, Chet. 

Taken together, that’s almost half of the blogging collective known as the Night Bazaar.

I’m pretty sure I’m the last person on earth to post about this, since the news broke on Friday.  But it’s still incredibly cool:  Universal Pictures and SyFy Films (which is not the same as SyFy the TV entity) have bought the rights to develop a Wild Cards feature film.  

In other words, there is a big-screen Wild Cards film in development!  This is a first for Wild Cards, and incredibly exciting.  The screenplay will be penned by Melinda Snodgrass, who will be a co-executive producer on the film along with GRRM.  (George and Melinda, in case you’re confused, are the co-creators and co-editors of the Wild Cards series. )   This has been in the works for a very long time (years) and it’s a testament to Melinda’s passion for the project and her incredbily hard (and uncompensated) work for years on end that there’s finally officially a deal on the table.

When the news came out on Friday morning—and because this is the Internet, after all—the fanboi hatefest started immediately.  Below the cut, I’ll address the misconceptions that keep tripping people up.

I’m heading off to San Diego for the World Fantasy convention in the morning, so posting will probably continue to be light for a few more days.  And the posting might get even lighter, if I manage to succeed in the apparent effort to work myself dead. 

But enough about me.  This evening I came across a piece in the Mineeapolis Minneapolis Star-Tribune that very nearly broke my head.

The writing life is chockablock with thrills.

Take yesterday, for instance.  I worked at my desk from about 8 in the morning until it was time to meet people for dinner.  Or today’s work session, which again started at 8am, with a brief break in the afternoon to fold laundry, sort socks, and update the blog.  Yep, weekends are a thrill-a-minute at the Tregillis household.

I was talking to somebody today about audiobooks.  Unabridged audiobooks strike me as a fantastic way to pass the time during long road trips, or while doing housework, or yardwork, or just about anything.  One of my favorite things to listen to on long drives is the original BBC radio production of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.  But I’ve listened to that many many times and know parts of it by heart.  So it’s easy and fun to listen to.

My problem, as I’ve grown older, is that I seem to have developed a 5-second attention span.  (I blame the internet.  And television.  And everything that was invented after 1935.)  It’s not such a problem with paper books, probably because I’m long accustomed to flipping back and forth between pages.  But this has led to some retraining efforts as I take audiobooks for a spin.

Unless I’m careful to avoid distractions, my forays into audiobooks usually go like this.