More Shit I Gotta Do

My publisher may be switching to an electronic review of copy-edited manuscripts, and goddamn, am I excited. Currently we do things the old-fashioned way: They mail me a pile of steaming paper with handwritten edits and I stet away with my blue pencil until my wrist aches (bastards dare to edit my glorious prose). Now there’s a possibility that in the future I will get a nice tidy file in my email, and it’s about time. And not only because I can search-and-replace my name in place of the main character.

I love books, the printed, bound wonders that they are. I hate piles of paper, however. I have filing cabinets filled with my old manuscripts, tomes written back in the days before I caved in to word processing, and now I wish I’d caved a long time ago, as those brittle pieces of paper are either going to burn up in a blaze someday or simply bury me in paper, leaving me to tap out desperate sandwich orders on my Twitter account. Someday I intend to spend about 5 years scanning everything down to nifty PDF files, probably just in time for PDF to stop being a universal format and leaving them as useful as my old Commodore 64 Kwik Writer files (which I still have, for reasons I can’t articulate, on ancient 5.25″ floppies).

Forget eBooks and Kindles – this is what technology is going to change. The way we produce and work, not necessarily how we experience completed work. I remain unconvinced that anyone’s going to want to ditch printed books entirely – at least not in significant numbers – but I personally will ditch printed page proofs in a second. Faster, even. Eventually, I want my proofs and copyediting beamed directly into my brain. And then I want that Stephen King Typewriter of the Gods.

I use the term ‘action’ loosely, of course. But you can watch me and the other 599 panelists at the recent NYCC Authors Round Table over at suvudu.com.

The highlight, naturally, is at 5:20 when I stumble in, panting, like a very late jackass.

Okay, so I’m getting everything together to begin my NYCC odyssey. This ought to be interesting; I’ve never been to a con like this before. I’m a total noob. Naturally, whenever I am entering a potentially humiliating moment in my life, I’ll be updating y’all constantly. So if no one shows up for my signings – you’ll see it in live video!If I’m bumrushed out by security – live on video! Check here for updates.

I’ll also be tweeting – my location in the hall, if you’re looking for me, and what I’m doing from time to time, so follow me on Twitter if you want to keep up with my adventures.

And if you’re attending – see you there!

So, as I mentioned, I’ll be mooning about NY Comic Con this weekend. If you’re going to be there, track me down, give me the secret blog-reader handshake, and say hello. If you don’t give the handshake, my wife will tackle you and beat you up. Sorry, it can’t be helped.

My concrete scheduled things are:

Friday 2/6, 3pm: Signing at the Orbit booth. Swing by and I’ll sign anything you want, even body parts. Well, most body parts.

Saturday 2/7, 1:30pm: Sci-Fi, Supernatural and Fantasy Authors Round Table, followed by a book giveaway in the Autograph area.

This means, of course, that I’ll be missing the Robot Chicken panel, which upsets me greatly. Anyone want to stand in for me at the panel so I can go geek out over there? You’ll need a) glasses, b) a bottle of something in a paper bag, and c) a vague notion that you write books. That’s it!

Come on by and say hello. I’ll be twittering my adventures and possibly live-video-blogging the whole thing, so if you’re trying to find me, check Twitter and this blog.