« the gentle art of nuance & backstory | Main | the very first copy »

compliments, comments, signed books & Scalzi

I'm not good with compliments. All of my adult life I've struggled with accepting them gracefully, and mostly I still fail. So let me say, while I love it when readers comment here and really appreciate the effort and time that takes, I would be so much more comfortable if comments didn't contain compliments about my work. This isn't to say I don't appreciate the generous and kind things y'all have to say -- I do. But I worry that somebody may have the idea that a compliment is the necessary price of admission. Really, not. I am always very much aware that not everyone will like what I write, and that's okay with me. This is part of the reason that I rarely quote my own work to demonstrate a point I'm trying to make about the technicalities of writing. I have this horror of showing off, which I believe was ground into me by the nuns. I felt the need to make this clear, but most probably I've confused you.

I'll try to gather myself together for more on backstory tomorrow; in the meantime, Catherine wrote in response to the series of posts on characterization and backstory:

If I finish a book and want to know “more” and not just “what happens next”, then I know the author has truly engaged me in the world he/she created. Pacing and the amount of detail can correlate, but one doesn’t necessarily have slow the other down, if done correctly. I think that is sort of what you were driving at yesterday...

That is what I was trying to say, but Catherine managed with far fewer words, and very clearly. So you should be reading the comments, because there are some excellent contributions you'll be missing otherwise.

On a different matter, I've had a few inquiries lately about signed books:

I have destroyed two paperbacks of Into the Wilderness, from reading and re-reading, and lending to many people. Is it possible to obtain a hard back copy? how about a signed one?

This gets a little complicated, because (1) the hard cover edition of ITW is out of print and (2) I don't currently have a post office box. This is because the very quirky, very cute sub-station nearest me (which was located, quite charmingly, in an old fashioned hardware store) has closed and not yet been relocated. There's a rumor it will reappear soon in the gas station store, which is also quite quirky and and while not charming, at least interesting, but until that happens, I can't be reached by mail.

In the meantime, here's my suggestion. You could contact Village Books (my local independent, a store very good to authors in the area) by email. If they happen to have the book you want, I believe they'd be willing to mail it to you. You'd just have to ask them to contact me, because I'm always happy to stop by there to sign books. I will also be doing a reading/signing at Village Books in early September.

Or you could just wait until the post office box situation is sorted out. At that point it will be possible to mail me books to sign, as long as sufficient postage is included to return it to you. In the meantime, you can probably track down a hard cover copy of ITW or any of the other books by means of the various used book websites... except I just checked, and it looks like such copies are pretty rare. This is a shocker, $190 for a first edition first printing, unsigned. Wait here while I go collect my senses. Edited to add: the very helpful Stephanie just left a comment with info on isbn.nu . I had no idea this service existed, and I'm very impressed. Thanks, Stephanie. Here's the direct link she provided:

isbn.nu makes short work of a hardcover search.

I realize this has been a fairly complicated answer to a simple question, so I'll summarize: when I have a post office box again, it will be possible to send me books to be signed. It may also be possible to get signed copies through Village Books. As far as obtaining copies of hard cover books now out of print, it may take some searching to find an affordable copy.

And a final note in this rather scattered post: Scalzi's quick analysis of the presidential candidates is both very funny and sadly right on the money.

July 23, 2004 04:28 AM

Trackback Pings

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.tiedtothetracks.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-t.cgi/184

Comments

Posted by: Stephanie at July 23, 2004 06:58 AM