So today's the big day. Tonight is my reading at KGB.
I'm feeling like a real writer today. I have a message on my answering machine from a very friendly Terry Bisson, just calling casually to tell me that he and Ellen Datlow are really looking forward to the reading, and checking to be sure we're all set. He sounds, as █████ pointed out, like a drinking buddy calling up to check that we're on for Monday Night Football.
It also helps that this past weekend I had a pretty successful reading at Readercon in Burlington, MA. I read Sunday morning at 11:30, and there were about 12 people in the audience, which is not too bad at one of those affairs. Among the audience were Jeffrey Ford, Rick Bowes, Scott Edelman, and Resa Nelson, all writers I respect a great deal. (Scott, in fact, was occasionally my editor on stories for the late, lamented Science Fiction Age.) I read "The Diagnostic Feast," a story that will be published next month in Beyond the Last Star. I thought it might be a difficult story to hear read aloud, but I got uniformly good comments on it afterward—most satisfyingly of all from Jeff Ford, whose story "Creation" is so far my choice for the best short story of 2002.
Anyway, I'm still getting ready for tonight's reading. I'm currently trying to edit down my two selections from Missionary Man to 25 or 26 manuscript pages combined—including introductory natter—which is about all I can get through under the 40-minute time limit. (I've timed myself, so I know.) I had a crisis hour on Saturday, when I read through my selections alound and found them to be utter shit, but I've calmed down now. I think it will be all right.
I came to work early this morning, so I can get out early. I need to go home, shower, and change clothes—I'll be wearing some boss threads that █████ picked out for me. (The pants, in fact, which are blue-striped and very cool, she had custom-made for me.) Then █████ and I will meet editor Jim Minz at Tor Books and go out for a drink. (Only club sody for me.) Then we'll show up at KGB well ahead of time, and hope the throng of friends wearing my T-shirts show up before China Miéville's fans overrun the place.
My agent will be there, and with luck an editor or two. John Oakes of 4 Walls 8 Windows has told me he'll try to make it. Maybe someone from the New York Press will be there too, I don't know.
Anyway, I'd better get back to my editing. I still have four pages to ruthlessly elide.
::deep breaths::
