Thanksgiving Advent Category
The Thanksgiving Advent Calendar, Day Twenty Four: Right Here, Right Now
Posted on November 24, 2011 29 Comments
There’s no way to note this without appearing just the tiniest bit morbid, so I’ll come right out and say it: One day, I will be dead. Indeed, if you are reading this in the future (and one day, you may just be!) I may already be dead. In which case: Uh, hello, future. I […]
The Thanksgiving Advent Calendar, Day Twenty Three: Friends
Posted on November 23, 2011 18 Comments
My oldest friend who I still know and stay in contact with is Kyle Brodie, whom I met in the second grade. We hit it off on the first day, not in class but on the bus ride home. We started having a conversation and we both found each other so mutually clever that we […]
The Thanksgiving Advent Calendar, Day Twenty Two: Music That Mattered To Me
Posted on November 22, 2011 26 Comments
My day was thrown a little out of whack with errands and Anne McCaffrey’s death, so I’m bumping the Advent piece I had planned for today until tomorrow, when I have time to write it at greater length. Today, a baker’s dozen of music that mattered to me, in various times of my life — […]
The Thanksgiving Advent Calendar, Day Twenty One: Krissy and Athena
Posted on November 21, 2011 30 Comments
Because they are my heart. And that’s all I need to say about that.
The Thanksgiving Advent Calendar, Day Twenty: Bradford, Ohio
Posted on November 20, 2011 59 Comments
I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t want to move to Bradford. It was nothing against Bradford in particular; it was that it was in Ohio, and I didn’t want to move to Ohio. I was happy living in Northern Virginia, where we lived at the time, where I had friends, and work, […]
The Thanksgiving Advent Calendar, Day Nineteen: Being Busy (and Lazy)
Posted on November 19, 2011 22 Comments
I like to say I’m a lazy person, because I think I am: I’m a big fan of the principle of least effort for maximum effect. Some call that efficiency, but I think efficiency is frequently born of laziness, as in, oh God I don’t want to do this how can I do it so […]
The Thanksgiving Advent Calendar, Day Eighteen: Writing
Posted on November 18, 2011 27 Comments
Over the course of this Thanksgiving Advent adventure, I’ve talked about a number of things associated with writing, and how they’ve affected my life. I haven’t talked about writing itself, however. So I’d like to focus on that for today, independent of all the trappings, benefits and side effects. Because the fact of the matter […]
The Thanksgiving Advent Calendar, Day Seventeen: Fans
Posted on November 17, 2011 37 Comments
I’m writing you today from Toronto, where I am because a bunch of very nice Canadians decided it would be a groovy thing to pay for my plane ticket, put me up in a hotel, and fete me for a weekend as one of their guests of honor at the SFContario science fiction convention. Tonight, […]
The Thanksgiving Advent Calendar, Day Sixteen: The Internet
Posted on November 16, 2011 28 Comments
And, well. This one’s sort of obvious, isn’t it. When a globe-spanning network of computers is directly responsible for much of one’s career, income, notoriety and daily life, what else should one say but “thanks”? The Internet has been important enough in my life that it’s worth pointing out the good things in my adult […]
The Thanksgiving Advent Calendar, Day Fifteen: My In-Laws
Posted on November 15, 2011 18 Comments
No, I’m not trying to suck up to my in-laws. I’ve been in the family for sixteen years, dating back to the day this picture was taken. We’re waaaaay past the sucking-up stage, I have to say. I have the wife! And the child! They can’t be taken away now! Bwa ha ha hah ha […]
The Thanksgiving Advent Calendar, Day Fourteen: Hand Sanitizer
Posted on November 14, 2011 39 Comments
There was this one time I was on a book tour, and I shook hands with someone in San Diego, and the next thing I knew I was in Minneapolis. Which would be fine, except somewhere in there I was also in Phoenix. I gotta tell you, I have almost no memory of being there, […]
The Thanksgiving Advent Calendar, Day 13: First-Person Shooter Games
Posted on November 13, 2011 102 Comments
Old Man’s War is my most famous novel to this point and one of the things that people like about it is that its structure and tone angles back to the “golden age” of science fiction — the review of the novel that Tor plasters on the paperback cover proclaims it reads like a Robert […]
The Thanksgiving Advent Calendar, Day Twelve: Being Heard
Posted on November 12, 2011 23 Comments
I have the expectation that when I want to say something, people will listen. I have that expectation because for the large majority of my life that is what’s happened. When I was a child, I could expect to be listened to by teachers and by others because I was clever and good with words. […]
The Thanksgiving Advent Calendar, Day Eleven: The Service of Veterans
Posted on November 11, 2011 23 Comments
Which include my father, father-in-law, brother, several cousins, and many friends. Thank you, folks. Really, thanks. (The story of that picture here, at the Wikipedia article I borrowed it from.)
The Thanksgiving Advent Calendar, Day Ten: Sleep
Posted on November 10, 2011 38 Comments
I’m not going to lie to you: I loooooooove sleep. In fact, I may love it too much at this point. There’s a quote I use a lot these days, which when I heard it was attributed to Johnny Depp, but may have come from somewhere else, on the subject of sleep. It says that […]
The Thanksgiving Advent Calendar, Day Nine: Foreign Language Editions
Posted on November 9, 2011 21 Comments
Today’s Thanksgiving Advent Calendar entry will be short, on account of me being a bit punchy from being up since four am for the purposes of traveling, but showing you all the artwork for the upcoming Spanish language edition of Fuzzy Nation reminded me that, in fact, foreign language editions of my books are things […]
The Thanksgiving Advent Calendar, Day Eight: Travel
Posted on November 8, 2011 18 Comments
I am writing this from the library of Lehigh University, where I am to meet with students who are reading a book of mine, and where later this afternoon I’ll do a reading and give a talk. In a little over a week, I’ll go to Toronto, where I give a public reading and am […]
The Thanksgiving Advent Calendar, Day Seven: Coke Zero
Posted on November 7, 2011 76 Comments
Oh, don’t look at me like that. You knew it was coming. And yes, I actually am thankful for Coke Zero, which is in my opinion the only diet cola that doesn’t completely taste of ass, and that includes Diet Coke. Which in fact is not made from the Coke formula at all: It’s the […]
The Thanksgiving Advent Calendar, Day Six: Being a Goofball
Posted on November 6, 2011 37 Comments
I have never once been cool. Being “cool” means, among other things, having a certain sort of unapproachable distance, of holding yourself at a remove, and of projecting an aura of mystery and even dignity — even when (hell, particularly when) you’re not trying to do it. I know people who are cool; indeed, I […]
The Thanksgiving Advent Calendar, Day Five: Competent People
Posted on November 5, 2011 29 Comments
There are lots of different ways you can tell you’ve officially become a grown up. One of them for me was recognizing that not only didn’t I have the bandwidth, either time- or intelligence-wise, to do every single thing out there in the world, I didn’t have the desire, either. This was actually a thing […]
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