Almost exactly three months after the agreement in principle, I’m looking at my contract with Tor books. The delay, incidentially, was not really due to slothfulness on the part of Tor; when I went out to New York at the tail end of January there was a contract ready, but I had a few clarifications I wanted to have made, and the company was pleasingly obliging. Overall, the contract negotiations were quick and painless; heck, they didn’t even ask for my first born (which is well and good, since she’s already been lent out to Rough Guides).

Typically speaking, authors shouldn’t be handling contract negotiations for the same reasons barbers shouldn’t try to repair toasters; it’s not really in the job’s skill sets. This is why one has an agent, after all. However, in this particular case my agent doesn’t handle fiction, and the sums of cash involved were modest enough (it’s that first novel thing) that I felt comfortable that I couldn’t screw myself too badly. It helped that I have walked through book contracts before with my agent; those contracts were for non-fiction books, and this one was for fiction, but many of the nitty gritty details are the same sort of stuff. (Mind you, I’m currently in the process of getting an agent for fiction; like many things, walking through a contract is one of those things that’s interesting exactly once, and I have no interest in becoming expert enough to do it on a regular basis.)

In addition to the big stuff (like, how much you get paid for your advance and when), contracts cover a lot of smaller details as well: How many free copies you get, for example, to foist on friends and loved ones, and how much you’ll have to pay for copies after that; the various rights you’re letting the publisher have, which include several media, such as microfilm and cartoon strips, that you’d probably never think about on your own; and even boilerplate that covers what should happen if the publisher really wants to print your book but can’t because an unfortunate tsunami has washed away the corporate headquarters. Clearly some of these clauses can border on the ridiculous. But on the other hand, no one expects a tsunami, and yet they happen nonetheless. Be prepared, say the Boy Scouts, as well as the lawyers they grow up to be.

(Incidentally, those of you who paid to get a download copy of Old Man’s War, those things are officially collector’s items, since the contract makes me agree to cease all electronic publication. Enjoy!)

I’m personally excited to sign the contract, although not because I’m looking forward to the advance money. I mean, I am, don’t get me wrong (baby needs new shoes. And a pony. And graduate school). But mostly I’m itchin’ to sign the contract so that I can finally join SFWA — Science Fiction (and Fantasy) Writers of America. To be entirely honest, I have no compelling practical reason to want to join, since I can’t imagine what I would want SFWA to do for me; I’m unlikely to use its emergency medical or legal fund or its other services, and while it’d be swell to vote on the Nebula Awards, it’s not something I stay up nights dreaming about.

I just want to be in it because in its own incredibly geeky way, it’s just a very cool idea. If you’re the sort of dreamy shut-in who writes science fiction in the first place, what not to like about consorting with your own kind? At least you know they won’t laugh at you (at least, not for writing science fiction). Really, I can’t wait. I’ve already got the application downloaded. All I have to do is sign the contract, and I’ll be eligible. Hold on a sec –

There. Signed. Now I’m official. Somebody get me a Nebula ballot, already.

Long time readers of the Whatever will note that for the first time in a very long time, I’m including links on the page (links that are not part of an entry, that is). I’m intentionally keeping the number of links very low, for a couple of reasons. First, creating a list of links is a real pain in the ass, and secondly, I want to reflect the blog/journals/whatevers I actually visit on a more or less daily basis, rather than an orgy of links. Many other people do that (and include my own site in their copious lists, for which I say: Thanks!), but I prefer to keep things short and simple.

For fun, here’s a quick explanation of the categories.

Daily Blog Hit List – Quite clearly, the blogs I visit every day. There are some very popular blogs here, InstaPundit being the most obvious; maybe someone else would post more obscure blogs to boost their hip quotient, but the fact is that while most sites I’ll hit maybe once or twice a week, these are the ones I actually visit every day, often more than once. I’d advise against trying to guess my politics from this line-up, incidentally, since they don’t track. In the case of James Lileks and Patrick Nielsen Hayden, they’re there because they’re people I know personally; Steven Den Beste is there because I find his posts fascinating to read on several levels, and Metafilter is there because it’s so darn random. Glenn Reynolds is at this point all but unavoidable, but that’s because he does a fine job being the top ganglion in the Blog Brain, so more power to him.

Old School Journallers – These people were writing online before the term “blog” hit the mainstream; all of them go back to the stone age (i.e., 1998) if not earlier. I know almost all of these people personally; they’re either friends in real life, or I have known them online for quite some time.

WebbBlogs – Blogs and journals of people who went to the Webb School of California (or, in the case of Katie Granju, the Webb School of Bell Buckle, TN). With the exception of Ms. Granju, I know all these people personally; Josh Marshall and I graduated in the same year (1987, in case you were wondering).

Other – Catchall category, pretty clearly. glenn macdonald runs a music review site I greatly admire, while Rick McGinnis writes several intermittent blogs on movies, Canadian culture and life in general. Romanesko is a hangout for journalists, and BlogCritics I include because, aside from it being an interesting site, I also happen to own one of the domain names that connects to it. I don’t know Chad Orzel, but I like his site, so why not.

There you have it, my links in full. If you’re not linked to, please don’t take it as a slight. I love your blog, honest. And I’m open to bribery.

Okay, here’s why I changed over to Movable Type.

1) It’s free. Although I suspect strongly I’ll be sending along some money to the people who created it, because why not.

2) My pal Bill offered to install it for me, thus allowing me to avoid (mostly) a show of my own total and irredeemable stupidity when it comes to all things software. I make no bones that I’m barely qualified to change the color values on the Movable Type CSS scripts; if I try to do more, something is sure to explode (probably a vein in my head).

3) It posts and archives simultaneously, which is one less thing for me to do.

4) Finally, it does various things (like set up comments and RSS feeds and what have you) that I wouldn’t particularly care about if I had to set them up myself, but which I think are kind of cool if I don’t have to bother with the heavy lifting.

The major drawbacks to MT that I can see at this point are that the software lacks a spellcheck (which means my spelling is about to become a whole lot more awful around here), and that if my Web site should ever collapse, there goes a whole bunch of writing. I could take preventative measures in both cases, but if you’ve noticed a running thread in this entry, it’s that I am dispairingly lazy. So more misspellings and a reliance on Google’s cache are sure to be in order. I don’t know what I’ll do if Google stop caching. I assume it will be because the apocalypse is upon us. In which case, cached Web pages, or lack thereof, will be the least of my problems.

Someone has already been kind enough to formally welcome me to the Blogosphere (if you use blogging software, you are by implication at least blogger-esque). I appreciate the thought, and I do expect I will probably start posting some more shorter, blog-like posts now, simply because it’s no longer a pain in the ass to do so. But I imagine I will still largely write the longer-style inteminable ramblings you’ve all come to expect from my fevered brain, if for no other reason than that’s what I’ve been doing for five years now. I’m old! I’m cranky! I’m set in my ways!

Anyway, enjoy the new look and surroundings, and feel free to use the comments section and whatever else. However, don’t get any smudges on the wall. I want this place to look new for at least a couple of days. Okay? Okay.

Hi there. Yes, I’ve made an executive site-editing decision to go with Movable Type. I’ll explain more in just a little while. But for now — welcome to the new digs. Adjust your bookmarks accordingly, and tell everyone you know to do the same.

Update: Arrgh — as I am a complete incompetent, I’ve managed to erase most of my previous March 2003 entries (this was a parting shot from the evil Front Page software, I assure you). Rest assured I will track them down and reconstitute the missing articles; in the meantime, here are the Google cached versions. All hail Google, the kindler, gentler Total Information Awareness.

3/12/2003 — More Software Thoughts
3/14/2003 — Book on Stupidity
3/17/2003 — House Rules
3/19/2003 — Antebellum
3/21/2003 — Oscars, Feh

That should do it for now.

Update Update: The Google Cache entries have disappeared. It’s a conspiracy!

First, a personal note: I got my advance copy of The Rough Guide to the Universe yesterday; you can see it modeled by my beautiful assistant just to the right of this text. Notwithstanding one minor flaw (there are a couple of places where metric units should be alongside more familiar imperial units like miles and degrees Fahrenheit and aren’t — not that it’ll matter to those of you here in the US), it looks really nice. If you’re in the UK, you’ll have it on your shelves in a couple of weeks, while here in the US we’ll have to wait until May. Hopefully the universe won’t change too drastically by then.

In case you’re wondering what it’s like to hold a book that’s actually written by you, let me tell you: It’s very cool, similar to (but, I’ll be the first to admit, on a substantially lower level) the feeling you get when you hold your child for the first time — that whole I can’t believe it’s actually here thing combined with the wow, I made this thing. The major difference, of course, is that one’s actually a child, and the other is actually a book, and someone who gets as wrapped up in the latter as much as the former needs to get out more. Also, you won’t have to pay for your book to go to college, or worry that it’s going to marry a jerk one day. Even so, it’s neat.

***

I went 4 for 6 for my Oscar predictions, which is slightly worse than I usually do, but slightly better than I expected this year, because I haven’t been paying attention. Moreover, I don’t feel at all bad about the two I missed — Adrien Brody as Best Actor and Roman Polanski as Best Director — since no one expected either of them to walk away with the hardware. Especially Polanski, of course. However, in this particular case, it probably didn’t hurt Polanski that the woman he had raped with when she was a girl wrote an article in the LA Times saying she thought the Academy should just go ahead and give Polanski the Oscar. As they say, you just can’t buy that sort of publicity. One wonders now if Polanski will be allowed back into the States; when even the rape victim has publicly backed Polanski, the position of the LA District Attorney that the man should go to the big house might appear to be churlish. Not incorrect, mind you, just churlish.

Also, of course, I pegged the Bowling for Columbine win and Spirited Away; the former was not a surprise, but the latter was, at least to a number of media, who assumed that it would go to Lilo & Stitch because it’s Disney, and it was a big hit. But this is one time when Academy members differentiated between fun and competent (L&S) and an actual work of art (Spirited Away). Also, it’s the highest grossing film in the history of Japan, and 100 million anime fans can’t be wrong. The Spirited Away win is also good news for the Best Animated Film Oscar, since the choice of art over popularity (in the US, at least) legitimizes the award as something other than an opportunity for Disney and Dreamworks to pad their Oscar tallies on alternate years.

As for Columbine, as I said, I don’t know why anyone’s surprised about its win. Aside from its worth as a film (which is not inconsiderable, although it’s not really accurate to call it a straight-up documentary), it was a prime opportunity for Academy voters to make sure a political statement was made on Oscar night without jeopardizing the image of Hollywood at large — after all, it would have been surprising if Moore hadn’t have gone off on Bush. And it’s just the Documentary award. It’s not like Nicole Kidman went up and said “shame on you, Mr. Bush.” It’s like inviting the proverbial bull into the china shop. You know something’s going to get smashed. And maybe that’s what you want to have happen.