kc November Update

ello fair readers!






Well -- life is certainly interesting, is it not?

Fall is always a busy time for me, but a few family issues have ramped up the pressure a little. Busy is the new black. Or...frantic is the new busy.  Or something like that.

Anyway, this post will have to serve to bring you up to date on A Few Things I Am Up To, as well as A Few Things I Currently Find Interesting. Shall we begin with the former?

On chatting with my Most Wonderful Agent this week, I found myself promising to show her BOTH books I currently have Under Construction by the end of the year. [Insanity runs in my family. Have I mentioned that here before?]

One -- SEVEN DAYS, is a re-write. [In fact it is both a re-write and a co-write, as I am trying a new little social media experiment with the story. I'm hoping to be able to get more specific about this shortly.]

The second is the realization of a project [as yet unnamed] that has been several years in the making. [To give you an idea of just HOW many years, I began working on this story before I took a stroll with a certain Scots colleague through the streets of Edinburgh during the last winter Olympics.]

Yipes! Time flies. I took this picture on that trip. It's a distant shot of Edinburgh Castle taken from the North Bridge and across the city on a moonlit night. I still remember the wind.
Edinburgh in February -- beautiful!

Anyway, this project is the first in what I hope will be a series of steampunk y/a novels -- time travel a required element, of course.

I'm also working on a large desk-topping project [hardly ever do this sort of thing any more, but occasionally the draw of the dollar compels me to creep down out of my artist's garret and make a few bucks]. Not sure where I fit this in, but...will figure it out.

This week I am making a trek to Philadelphia, PA, in order to speak at the NCTE conference. This, for those who don't care to click the link, is the National Council of Teachers of English, and they are holding a giant conference in Liberty City. I'll be going [and appearing] with Kari-Lynn Winters, Lee Edward Fodi and Lori Sherritt-Fleming. Hoping to meet lots of teachers and share as much WALK as anyone will care to listen to!

After I get back, I have the performances of the New Westminster students' plays -- the fruitition of some of the writer-in-res work I've been doing.

And this week I collared Sean Cranbury who was crazy enough to agree to brainstorm a potential collaborative project starting in the new year. In the meantime, make sure you check out his site at Books On the Radio  . He has scored some amazing interviews lately!

More on all of these doings as they ripen. I'll be tweeting @kcdyer if you feel like following the action more closely. 

And to finish -- A Few Items of Interest [aka a tab-closing fest for all!]

*   The first is the blog responsible for the beautiful drop-cap I've inserted here today: DailyDropCap.com A click of the needles to knitting/blogging goddess Leanne Prain for the tip via twitter!

*   The Telegraph's List of a Hundred Books that Defined the Noughties. Definite UK bent, but an interesting means to open debate on the topic, just the same. How many have you read? And which others would YOU add to the list?

*   Just found out there is to be a mini-TED right here! TEDx-Vancouver ... the very idea of it thrills me no end. Not sure how it will all shake down, but you can follow the details HERE.
That's it for now -- more to come. Busy week ahead!

~kc