Spent most of the time since my last post producing another issue of Bento. Yes, each issue of our nearly-Hugo-nominated zine takes about one week to write, edit, lay out, and paste up. It’s at the printer now and we should have copies at the Worldcon.

No writing during that time, but I did get back into it after taking the zine to the printer on Monday. I’m grinding slowly through the edits on the novella… slowly because it’s hard to make the changes I’m trying to make, and because I don’t have a lot of time for it. Some days the word count goes up, some days it goes down, rarely more than 50 words plus or minus. One day I worked for forty-five minutes and achieved a net wordcount change of one word.

I did get a couple small bits of writing egoboo: a college professor asked permission to use my story “The Last McDougals” in a freshman seminar on science fiction (along with a lot of other stories by better-known writers) and someone on LiveJournal whom I don’t know recommended two of my stories (available online) as reading for English-as-a-second-language learners. Also, an excerpt from “Primates” has been posted at the Asimov’s website.

We leave for Anaheim in six days. I have tons of stuff that needs to be done before then. We’re waffling over whether or not to go to Disneyland again. And a voice in my head is trying to tell me that I might win the Hugo after all. I’m trying to slap it down. Not going to win no way nohow. I’d rather get myself in a frame of mind where a loss is expected and a win would be a pleasant surprise, rather than one where a win is expected and a loss would be a disappointment. But I don’t think it’s working.

My final Worldcon schedule:

• What I Do When I Should be Writing: Wednesday 2:30-4:00pm
• Mix & Match Writing Challenge: Wednesday 4:00-5:30pm
• Writers Workshop (closed session): Thursday 1:00-4:00pm
• Autographs at the Asimov’s table in the dealers’ room: Thursday 4:00-5:00pm
• Physics of Superheroes: Friday 11:30am-1:00pm
• Zen Scavenger Hunt: Friday 4:00-5:30pm
• Intermediate Writing: Friday 5:30-7:00pm
• Is SF Like a Shark?: Saturday 2:30-4:00pm
• Hugo Ceremony: Saturday 8:00-10:00pm
• Reading: Sunday 11:00am-12:00pm

(Not gonna win. No way nohow. Never gonna happen. Nuh uh.)