General info: August 2007 Archives
(posted on behalf of Ken Rand)
Y'all,
Port Chicago Isn't There Anymore--But We Still Call It Home is DONE. I've said that before, I believe, as I've touched several milestones that felt like 'the end,' and it makes me wonder when a book is really, finally, finished. When you write 'the end' on the last page of the first draft? When you finish the 'final' edit, macro or micro? When it sells, or when it goes to print? Some special award or recognition? It's all a process--no news there. I'm realizing the process RIGHT NOW. I just got my POD copy of Port Chicago Isn't There a few minutes ago from Lulu. It arrived sooner than I thought. There are some tweaks I need to make--I should have a TOC for the ARCs, IMHO, and an author's bio in the back, but I can proceed for now without an index and the memorial list and that short '3 questions' chapter I've been chewing on. (Come to think of it, the book can be published--as is--NOW.) I'll see how easy it is to make the tweaks this week. If it isn't easy, I'll fuggetaboutit and order 25 of what I got. It'll do for my purposes--solicit corrections, additions and comment from a select list of principle contacts.
I done it. There are more milestones yet, of course. When Patrick sets it, when we get a cover done, when he ships the first box of books, when I ship the first signed copy to the first buyer--and so on. More milestones—but I done it.
I done it.
I started this project in 1984. Quit several times. Worked on it almost daily for the past two years. Got rejected 116 times. Tens of thousands of hours of research and reading and writing, thousands of articles and documents parsed, millions of words written deleted and rewritten and edited, and hundreds of interviews conducted.
I done it.
By the way, if you don't know what I'm talking about it, read the intro to the book on my website. Comments welcome.
Ken
Read the introduction to Ken Rand's Port Chicago Isn't There Anymore--But We Still Call It Home at www.sfwa.org/members/Rand/. (to be published Saturday, July 26, 2008).
Okay, so it's only $0.49. Still if you want a little more detail on the world of Elantris, (by Brandon Sanderson), this is a very inexpensive way to get some additional information beyond the content of the book. You can find it on Amazon.com, under The Hope of Elantris.
It's a good little read.
Salt Lake City (and the surrounding area), has two anime-only stores:
- Aszreal's Mess, which carries a variety of licensed material imported strait from Japan. They also carry domestically released character good products (collector and action figures, bookmarks, cell phone straps, wall scrolls, posters, and so on). They will be at Anime Banzai, Utah's first and only anime convention, at the end of August. The owner, Lori Hall, is willing to hunt down harder to find items (such as this figure of Lum, or this one!), and she interacts with visitors to the site through their blog.
- Tokyo's Anime House, the first anime-only store to have a physical presence in the Salt Lake area, carries DVDs, CDs, and manga (though the manga selection was small the last time I was there). They also carry a small amount of (mostly pirated) character goods. You have to be careful about the DVDs and CDs, too, as half or more of them are pirated (even shows which have been released domestically, which can be pretty dangerous to a company's bottom line), so we recommend making sure you're getting the real thing when purchasing there).
You can find domestically released anime and manga at many local stores in addition to the two above. Just be careful you know what you're buying as some of the other local stores carry pirated goods, too.
