Newsletter #29 mailed out 5 September 2005

Dear People,

I've got dustjackets for The Fortress of Glass (due out from Tor in April, 2006). The jpg on my website [http://david-drake.com/news.html] is impressive, but the real thing is even better. Donato's art is beautiful, simply beautiful. I told him that I could imagine this one being hung in the Royal Academy in 1880, with Burne-Jones gnashing his teeth as he looked at it.

Tor is also bringing out a $3.99 edition of Lord of the Isles, with a $4 rebate (from Tor) if you send in proof of purchase from The Fortress of Glass. This is obviously a marketing ploy intended to increase sales for the series as a whole as well as for the new book--

But you know, my reaction on hearing about it was to think, "How very nice!" And it was a nice thing, besides being a calculated business activity.

There are writers who have very difficult relationships with their publishers; and indeed, there are publishers with whom I would have a very difficult time. But I don't work for them. I genuinely like the people I do work with, and they give every evidence of liking me as well. I think more people would be happy if they put a high premium on having business associates they could like and respect.

Speaking of work, I'm about midway on Some Golden Harbor, the next RCN space opera. It's going fine in objective terms, but unfortunately what goes on in one's own mind isn't objective. Probably because of the considerable disruptions during the plotting and now the writing itself, I'm back in a mindset I'd managed to get myself out of during the past several books: "What I'm writing is crap; I used to be able to write but I've lost it; I should go back to driving a bus."

It doesn't stop me, of course. I have my plot and I continue to execute it. But I hope the next book (an Isles fantasy, The New Land) will see me perkier in mid-book.

I mentioned disruption, but I didn't mean the writing was disrupted by bad things alone. My wife and I went to Yosemite for a week, hiking among wonderful scenery and seeing sequoias (which are amazing.) We stayed an extra day in San Francisco; my friend Alan Beatts squired us around, and then I signed at his store. (The signing was more fun than any similar event of my experience.) In all, a wonderful vacation--

But it broke my rhythm, and the proofs for The Fortress of Glass were waiting when I came. They took another four days of concentration before I could return to the novel. I'm back to work in normal fashion now, but my mindset isn't all it might be.

This is an interesting problem, by the way. If I simply sit at home and work, I'll be as content as I'm ever likely to be--but I'll also be effectively dead. I take great pleasure in the new experiences I force myself to try, but they disrupt my routine and thus make me depressed. Well, more depressed.

I guess it boils down to something I realized a long time ago: life involves trade-offs. The trick is to get the balance right for you as an individual. I'll continue to work on it, and there are a few pictures (out of many) of a really neat trip to Yosemite and San Francisco up at http://david-drake.com/california.html

Another of the things waiting for me on my return was a dun from the IRS for a considerable amount of money. I took it to our tax attorney, who sorted it out ably.

Turns out the IRS had applied one of our estimated tax payments to somebody else's account. After I had jumped through sufficient hoops and had supplied the IRS with bank records, they admitted I didn't owe anything. Apart from the attorney's fee (well earned) and a week of hassle doing one of my least favorite things, I'm back where I would've been if the IRS had been staffed by decent, competent human beings. Compared to the response to Hurricane Katrina, this is pretty small potatoes, but I won't pretend it helped my mood.

I was interviewed (basically about sword and sorcery fiction) at http://www.swordandsorcery.org/interviews.asp The result is there for those who're interested.

I've sold another collection of military (well, militarish) short stories to Baen Books under the title Other Times Than Peace. 'Sold' is kind of a misnomer. In my reprint deals with Jim, I take no advance and he promotes the books with more enthusiasm than is normal for reprints. Royalties on the titles add up quickly since there's no advance to be paid off.

I regard anything I get from reprints as money found in the street; but you know, there's quite a lot of money to be found there with a publisher like Jim. (And note what I said above about working with people whom I like and respect.)

I don't have any new translations from Ovid up since the most recent newsletter. I completed a draft of the (quite long) Phaethon section of the Metamorphoses, but I haven't taken the time to go over it because I've been concentrating on Some Golden Harbor. I'm beginning to think that I should make it a priority as a way of settling my mind, though. Translating Latin has been my stabilizer of choice for over 40 years now, and it may be time for another dose. No promises, but if you check the Ovid section of the site regularly you may find an additional 400+ lines one of these days.

For the heck of it, I'll mention something that involves me only as unpaid agent. My friend Barry Malzberg wrote a unique commentary on SF in 1982--The Engines of the Night. There are a number of good memoirs of the field by writers, and any number of dissections by academic outsiders (there may be good examples of this genre also, though I haven't run into them). Barry did a third thing: he created a work that is part memoir, part fiction, and part criticism--but all from an intelligent, intensely personal, insider's viewpoint.

Engines has been out of print for a long time. I told Barry that if he would expand it by interweaving more recent material (his fascinating essay on working in the fee department of Scott Meredith Literary Agency as an obvious example), I would venture to sell it for him. When Barry agreed, I brought the property to Jim Baen--who took it without hesitation.

This was what I expected would happen. Baen Books has been the leader in bringing classic SF stories back into print, and Barry has been the most important support Jim and Eric Flint have had in doing so. Those with a narrow view of Jim and his company may be surprised to learn that Baen Books is Barry Malzberg's publisher, but Jim, Barry and I consider it natural.
We think it's pretty funny too, I'll admit.

That's a cheery note, so I think I'll let it end this newsletter. I hope to be a lot perkier when I do the next one.

All best,
Dave Drake
david-drake.com

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