Publishers do like us writers to mention favourable reviews. Though this does clash rather with Traditional British Reserve, since custom and practise does rather frown on one blowing one’s own trumpet.

On the other hand, positive feedback from someone you don’t know in the least really is a great thing for writers. It validates what we’re doing and encourages us to do more and better, and that’s a big tick in the plus column on the first day back to work (officially) on a wet and windy January day.

So, for your consideration, check out the concise appreciation on page 31 of the Morpheus Tales #15 Supplement and then some particularly pleasing insights from Lady Fellshot

I now realise I didn’t post my usual Christmas Eve sign-off for the holiday season the week before last. I still had so much prep to do, I just never got round to it – which sums up my last year pretty effectively. 2011 was remarkably hectic and not necessarily always in a good way, both personally and professionally.

I parted company with my literary agent back in the Spring since that working relationship was well, just not working. At least in part as a result of that, I certainly didn’t achieve all the things I had hoped to. In some instances that was down to factors beyond my control. Then there were a couple of happenings/wrangles which I could have managed better. So appropriate notes have been made and lessons learned and all that kindathing.

On the plus side, I did some things I hadn’t expected to, notably going to California, spending some days in the Bay Area as well as attending the World Fantasy Convention in San Diego. That was a fabulous trip. I’m also expanding my range and testing my mettle as a writer with some new projects of which more in due course.

I did far more guest blogging and I’m particularly pleased with the contribution my pieces have made to the vexed questions and on-going debate about equitable representation of women (and other minority) writers in the SF&Fantasy field as well as the challenges for all genre writers in the wider literary landscape. Being part of this conversation has also shown me that while very real issues remain to be tackled in our genre, there’s a lot worse goes on elsewhere!

We had a very pleasant Christmas to New Year break, including the seasonal slew of family birthdays. All told, it’s been a most welcome recharging of our mental and physical energies in this household – which has led to a degree of collective resolution not to let ourselves get as overscheduled and overtired as we did towards the end of last year. Not least because 2012 is Junior Son’s GCSE year and Senior Son will be finishing his college course in the summer and heading out into the world of work…

I say this, already committed to the SFX Weekender at the start of February, P-Con in Dublin at the start of March and Eastercon in April. I’m also deeply engaged in the Arthur C Clarke Award judging process and will be judging the James White Award short story competition. I’m chairing the Eastercon 2013 bid, EightSquared, and will be helping out with Congenial, the Unicon/BRS gaming convention in Cambridge, 10th-12th August, specifically on the book-related programming.

That’s all as well as working on an update and redesign of my own website and on publishing my backlist in ebook form. At least for those last two projects, I have the able and generous assistance of two splendid women with the talents and time that I lack.

On the writing side, I am in discussions with a new agent, of which more later. Darkening Skies, second of The Hadrumal Crisis trilogy, will be published in March/April – precise date tba, and I have three assorted short stories in anthologies due this year, first of those being my contribution to The Modern Fae’s Guide to Surviving Humanity in March. Meantime, I will be getting on with writing Defiant Peaks aka Hadrumal Crisis 3, due for delivery in August.

So… time to draw up the first To Do List of 2012…

There’s a new interview with me now available at The Zone an SF, Fantasy, Horror and Mystery site well worth a visit and a browse for news, reviews and interviews.

Jim Steel of Interzone was asking the questions and very interesting they were, including some I’ve not been asked or even thought about before, Enjoy!

So how did I get on with that list I posted on Monday?

Pretty well, actually. I have about a day’s work still to do on that steampunk short story but other than that, the rest is ticked off.

Which leaves the rest of the Christmas To Do List to be tackled.

Plus sundry essential domestic chores. Sigh.

Still, the lads have finished school and college and I’ve already given them fair warning that next week will see them doing their share, according to established custom and practise.

Now it’s time to cook dinner and open a beer.

Some reaction to the anthology news in my last post goes along the lines of ‘but you don’t do steampunk, do you?’ To which the reply is rather, I haven’t done steampunk before now. The same is true of urban fantasy. No, I’ve not done it before and when I’ve been asked, I’ve said I would need a new and original idea since I have nothing to add to the current pack of werewolf/vampire stories.

That’s what I said when Joshua Palmatier and Patricia Bray invited me to contribute to this anthology. Ah but, they said, you might have an idea. You never know. Just see if something turns up. Well, it did, and there’s not a fang nor any fur involved, just so you know. My story, ‘The Roots of Aston Quercus’ will be there alongside tales from –

Seanan McGuire
Susan Jett
Kari Sperring
Avery Shade
Kristine Smith
Barbara Ashford
April Steenburgh
Anton Strout
S.C. Butler
Jean Marie Ward
Shannon Page & Jay Lake
Elizabeth Bear
Jim C. Hines

Stellar company to be in and all graced with this cover art. Pre-order your copy now or mark your diaries for March 2012

Okay, here’s the plan

– review page proofs for Darkening Skies
– write catalogue/cover copy for Defiant Peaks (Hadrumal Crisis Book 3)
– finalise my steampunk story for ‘Resurrection Engines – 16 Extraordinary Tales of Scientific Romance’
– write and post Christmas/holiday season cards
– teach an aikido class (Tuesday)
– go to school concert to cheer on Junior Son (Wednesday)
– continue with the Arthur C Clarke Award reading

Then Friday’s the end of term and we get to start doing Christmas preparations.

So, overall, not the best Monday to wake up with a surprise new headcold. Sigh.

No, honestly, this blog isn’t about to become an unbroken stream of feminist consciousness raising – but I cannot let this pass without comment.

A new study reveals the public find it hard to differentiate between the language used by convicted sex offenders and mainstream magazines.

– by which they mean the so-called ‘lads’ mags’. Full article in The Guardian.

Which is, in a ‘Nuts’-shell*, why I keep saying the increasingly prevasive pop-culture of sex/sexism is as much of an issue for the parents of sons as it is for those with daughters.

*because we’ve got to find some humour somewhere, even if it is in a very weak pun

With the debate about harrarssment coming to the fore in a whole lot of places at the moment, I’m seeing a phenomenon I’ve noticed before, which deserves a post of its own.

The Good Guy Comprehension Gap. Which really does trip up the good guys, the nice guys, the ones raised man and boy to respect women and girls in the same way that they have always respected their mothers, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, Miss Teacher and all the rest.

They would no more consider running naked down their local high street than they would, to take today’s example, send a 1615 word email to a woman berating her for not agreeing to a second date, while still clearly expecting one to happen. (see here for the story).

They would not dream of intruding, pursuing, or indulging in any of the entitled, obnoxious behaviours detailed in this post A Guy’s Guide to Approaching Strange Women without Getting Maced or this one, I Just Want To Go For A Walk.

So they can really struggle to comprehend the extent of the reality which women live with.

Which can, alas, so often lead to the minimising comments so ably skewered by Jim C Hines.

Sharing a personal experience with the good guys usually doesn’t help either. For example, if I tell the tale of the fat, sweaty sleaze who admired my tits in a lift when I was on my way to the library in the shopping centre in Poole and suggested we go and have sex – when I was thirteen years old.

The good guys’ eyes instantly give them away. Relieved, because now they know, they understand. Clearly I had this unpleasant, unusual encounter at such an impressionable age that’s so traumatised me I now have this skewed viewpoint.

Er, no. For the record, I was startled, repelled and yes, I took stairs everywhere in public places for months after – but I really wasn’t traumatised. I might have been if he’d tried to touch me but all he did was leer. Please believe me when I say it wasn’t a big deal. Not least because when I told my pals at school, pretty much every girl had her own equivalent story to tell. And that’s what should be the big deal. Why should a class full of teenage girls be forced to conclude this is an inevitable part of life?

But I digress. This post is for the good guys, the nice guys, the white knights and heroes. Mind the Gap.

As some of you will have learned – actually, as I hope most of you will have learned – there was a particularly unpleasant individual at the San Diego WFC sex-pestering women, up to and including making physical contact, which is by the way, assault. He was eventually removed from the premises, not without difficulty.

This was a notable incident but harrassment in whatever degree is still harrassment, it’s vile to be on the receiving end, and it is as unacceptable in SF&F fandom as it is in any other walk of life.

Increasing numbers of writers are standing up to be counted, as people someone being subject to harrassment can count on to help them deal with such an incident. I am one. Never mind if we’ve not been formally introduced. If some creep is wrecking your convention experience with unwanted attentions, come and find me. I dealt with such cases in my time as a personnel officer and still have that particular skill set.

Whether you’re male or female – this doesn’t only happen to women. I will stand between anyone and these jerks.

If this has never happened to you personally, you’re still involved, if you’re involved in fandom and want that to be a safe and enjoyable place for everyone.