Three Items O' the Day

First of all, a small correction: Jason (my editor) tells me that Crown/TRP is a division of Random House, not whatever garbledygook I was talking before. Please correct your press releases accordingly.

Second, I have been reading The Essential Dr. Strange because I suddenly decided I had to have it, and wow, Steve Ditko may be a scary Objectionist Ayn-Rand worshipper, but he's also a pretty awesome artist/plotter/head-messer-with-er. This stuff rocks, right up until the point where he quit. Remember back when I asked y'all what comics characters you'd like to get your hands on? For me, it'd be the Defenders in some wise or another; not so much the Hulk/Sub-Mariner/Silver Surfer incarnation, but the bunch of weirdo second-stringers that Doc Strange used to send around to deal with messes they really weren't qualified to handle. Nighthawk! Hellcat! Valkyrie! Devil-Slayer! Anyway. Now I got to find me some more Ditko.

Third, but MOST IMPORTANTLY: Strange Horizons is having their Fall Fund Drive! We love SH 'round these here parts, not just because they are lovely (in every sense of the word) people, or because they are run by volunteers, or because they pay their writers and artists pro rates, or because they know how to throw a tea party. When it comes right down to it, we love them because they bring us great stories and columns and reviews and poetry Every Damn Week. Give them money. That's an order.

Back to Life, Back to Reality

So I am definitely feelin' the love from all y'all (notice how I retain my folksy manner of speaking), and thank you for that. Good things only mean so much without friends to share them with, and based on the number of folks who've expressed their congrats through various channels, I've got a lot of 'em. Thanks.

Back to work, though. I can't just bask in the love, and I have no editorial letter in hand yet, so last night I went and worked on my newest manuscript for a while. Nothing more humbling than actually writing; it didn't go too badly, though. Any scene in which someone gets killed is a winner, right? Hm.

Finally, I just have to point this out to y'all. Scarlett sings Waits!?!?! This is either going to be the greatest thing ever or a debacle on the level of Shatner singing the Beatles. Either way, I'm buying a copy.

The Biggest News

So, I've checked with all concerned about whether it's OK to go ahead and announce this, and even though I'm afraid that talking about it out loud like this will just make the whole thing evaporate, I can't contain myself anymore.

I sold a book.

Yes. Thanks to the efforts of superagent Shana, Superpowers will be appearing as a trade paperback sometime in or around the Spring of 2008. The deal is with Three Rivers Press, an imprint of Crown, which is a division of Random House. (I think I've got that right.) I'm going to be working with Jason Pinter, who's a writer himself (his debut crime novel will be out next year), and who sounds really excited to be working on the book.

What is the book? Well, here's the description that went out on Publishers Marketplace:

David J. Schwartz's SUPERPOWERS, dubbed "The Incredibles" meets THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF KAVALIER & CLAY, in which after a night of heavy drinking, five friends wake up to discover they have superhuman abilities, but lacking super-villains they find that the ramifications of their new powers are more complicated than they anticipated, to Jason Pinter at Three Rivers Press, by Shana Cohen at the Stuart Krichevsky Agency (NA).

That's more or less the book, all right, at least the capsule description.

They're paying me, too; and they're paying me well, particularly for a first novel. It's more than I've ever made in a year, in fact aside from a couple of my years bartending it's easily twice what I've made in any given year. (Keep in mind that I've never made a whole lot. Still, this is very nice.) To me this says they believe in the book, that they believe it can be a big seller. I plan to prove them right.

It hasn't really sunk in yet, not completely. But I've been in a transitional stage for a while now, since finishing my Master's, and this will give me some freedom to make the decisions I need to make. And now I can call myself a novelist without feeling like I'm not being entirely honest. Holy shit.