This morning I started out with 90 pages of revisions to go. I wrote 2800 words today. Now I have 95 pages of revisions to go. *weeps*
So last Thursday Ted and I went into Dublin to meet GRRM, or at least to get him to sign books for us. This mostly involved standing in a very long line with increasingly achy feet, but involved some chatting with friends, which was great. When we got up to the man himself, the guy in front of us, with whom we’d spoken some, took out what must have been a first edition hardback version of A GAME OF THRONES, with a cover I’d never seen.
“Ah!” said Mr. Martin, “don’t get mugged on your way out of here, this one’s worth about a thousand dollars.”
I happened to be carrying a copy of the SONGS OF THE DYING EARTH anthology, which is a great big thick hardback book, as well as my paperback CLASH OF KINGS, so I put the paperback down on the signing table, said, “Excuse me,” to GRRM, and made as if to whack the guy in front of me over the head with SONGS so I could steal his thousand dollar copy of GoT. There may be photographic evidence of my utter lack of propriety, but my coat, which I was carrying over one arm, flew up in front of my face, so possibly there’s photographic evidence of *someone* but not *necessarily* me trying to mug a guy at the GRRM signing. :)
Ted and GRRM were both wearing flat caps, and GRRM clearly recognized Ted later at the after-signing meet-up, which I suspect was in part because of the cap. :) We didn’t stay at the meet-up very long, but it was all around a very nice evening.
We also swung down to Dawson Street, where the … Harris & Tweed, or something like that (Hodges Figgis, apparently), bookstore is. We had been told my books were being carried there, and lo, they were! So I signed the ones they had, then went and introduced myself to their SF/F guy, who looked at me in vague bewilderment, mostly because he had a hand-written list beside him of books he was ordering, and my name was on it for the TAKE A CHANCE* graphic novel, and it struck him as exceedingly unlikely that one of the authors on the list he’d just written out had walked up to introduce herself. :) Anyway, apparently my books sell quite well there, and though they didn’t offer to do a signing, they did offer to order in 20 or so copies of DEMON HUNTS when it comes out, and to do a face-out display thing and get me to sign the books and all, so we felt it was *well* worth having gone by. Also, they have a really good SF/F selection (for Ireland), and we may have accidentally bought a handful of books. So it was goot!
*He wanted to know what TAKE A CHANCE was, and I explained it was a graphic novel, which he seemed quite pleased about, as they have a pretty good GN section there. But he was confused because he hadn’t been able to bring it up in the system, and was somewhat dismayed to hear that was because the graphic novel has been delayed indefinitely.
(also, randomly, I think this mood icon is a particularly *terrible* choice for a mood of ‘fine’, because in this frame Gambit has been stabbed through the chest with a GIANT SWORD and Rogue is telling him “While I live, you don’t die.” That’s really not ‘fine’, I don’t think…)
miles to Minas Tirith: 38.05
ytd wordcount: 248,600