Callum Alexander Forest Osborne was born very early this morning: 12:45 AM. He was 8 lbs, 6 oz and 22 inches long – very healthy. He and his mom are still in the hospital, as her blood pressure is a little high and they want to see it stabilize before they send her home – perhaps tomorrow morning.
Not much writing done this weekend (okay, none so far . . .)
. . . on my current novel. Everything is set up and in place for the climax. Today I begin that final piece. Can’t wait!
Thanks to Ron Friedman of my Imaginative Fiction Writers’ Association for compiling this partial list of eligible works for the Auroras — with the slant that all these writers are from Calgary (or were from Calgary or are good friends of Calgarians). Some to consider, at least:
Long-Form Works ================ Sawyer, Robert J. IDENTITY THEFT AND OTHER STORIES (collection). Red Deer Press, May 2008 Trenholm, Hayden. DEFINING DIANA. Bundoran Press
Novelettes ======== McCharles, Randy. “Ringing the Changes in Okotoks, Alberta.” Tesseracts Twelve, edited by Claude Lalumiere
Short Stories ========== Forest, Susan J. “Back.” Analog Science Fiction and Fact, June 2008
Sawyer, Robert J. “Apple Will Own Margaret Atwood,” The Globe and Mail’s Report on Business Magazine, January 2008 (reprinted as “E-Mails from the Future” in Sawyer’s collection Identity Theft and Other Stories).
Trenholm, Hayden. “Love In its Season” On Spec #73, Summer 2008
===================== Other Non-CanadaSF eligible:
McCharles, Randy (fan achievement) for chairing World fantasy convention. Jeff Campbell – for editing Gaslight Grimoire: Fantastic Tales of Sherlock Holmes
And at a later date I’ll talk about my story “Back” (Analog, June, 2008) which is eligible, but right now I’d like to promote Randy McCharles for Best Fan Organizational. If Randy doesn’t win the Aurora for that, something is really wrong. That World Fantasy conference was classy from first to last. Not a glitch in the entire thing, and there were millions of examples of little touches that just made it that titch more elegant. The book bags will keep everyone reading for a couple of years. The hors d’ouevres served with the art gala, the location right on the Stephen Street Mall with all its shops and restaurants, the hosts and gifts for the guests — I could go on and on. Thanks, Randy, for a world-class convention. You can find out more about the Prix Aurora Awards at the
Got another crit for a short story done this AM, and chapter 7 of “Assassins” is done. Ran into a bit of a block starting chapter 8, but it was an interesting process. I knew I couldn’t just continue with what I was doing because I was too long away from my main POV character, yet I really didn’t have a passion for what the main POV character would do at the beginning of chapter 8. Yes, she is there, and yes, I know what plot actions she needed to take, but there has to be passion; drive, or the story is boring. So I went back to the main theme / motivation for the book and discovered that I was doing (AGAIN) what my crit group chastised me for last June: letting my main character “drift” through the book, pushed by outside events, rather than being driven by her own internal motivations. So, I went skiing and did a couple of other things for 2 days, thinking about this. And, of course, it came to me where her motivation is not coming out in the book. So now I have a couple of short fixes to previous scenes and the drive for her actions in chapter 8. Will write it today and see if that’s got it!
Susan
