SFWA has posted the nominees for the 2012 Nebula awards (and associated awards)

http://www.sfwa.org/2013/02/2012-nebula-awards-nominees-announced/

This was my first year nominating, and it’s great to see the amazing work of friends and colleagues recognized by my professional guild.

Break out the Conga Rats!

This weekend, I started my first novella. Up until now, I’ve very much been a novelist, even when I’m writing short stories. My average length for a short story is about 6000-6500 words. Growing up, I read short stories, and I read novels, and not a whole lot in-between.

For those not familiar, novella is a story category describing stories between 17500 to 40,000 words. Publishing-wise, a lot of novellas that get sold as digital singles are 30,000 to 50,000 words. The top end of that range is about the size that older SF novels used to be (especially if you go back through the Golden Age to the pulp years – those books were short!)

The rise of digital reading has opened up that middle ground into a whole new market – a chance to give readers a taste of a world, to tide over a publication gap in a series, and more.

Progress has been great so far, averaging more than 2,000 words per day. Right now, I’m attributing that success to a few factors:

1) It’s a world I know well.
2) As a shorter work, it’s easier to hold the whole thing in my head at once.
3) I’ve got the whole story outlined, chapter-by-chapter.

If I can keep this rate up (not too likely), I’ll have a rough draft done in about two weeks(!)

If you missed my interview on Dungeon Crawlers Radio last night, you can listen to the archived episode here:

http://www.dungeoncrawlersradio.com/10/post/2013/02/mike-underwood-interview.html

We talked about Geekomancy, growing up geek, GenCon, and how I used RPGs to re-teach myself how to be sociable. I had a great time with the DCR team, and I hope to be able to go back and chat with them again this summer.

I’m pleased to be a guest on the Dungeon Crawlers Radio tomorrow, Monday the 11th at about 6:15 MST/8:15 PM EST (the show itself starts at 6PM MST/8PM EST). I’ll be on with the hosts talking about Geekomancy (and, in all likelihood, all sorts of geekdom – as the Geek is Strong with the Dungeon Crawlers Radio folks).

http://www.dungeoncrawlersradio.com/

There will be a link to listen live, but the episode will also be archived on their site, so if you can’t tune in tomorrow, I’ll post the link when it’s available.

This morning, during breakfast, I saw a hit on my Twitter feed, and discovered something amazing!

Presenting today at the Ray Browne Conference for Pop Culture on @mikerunderwood‘s Geekomancy, @syfy‘s Warehouse 13 & aura in the info age!

— Jacob Brown (@biffbampow) February 9, 2013

As an ex-academic myself, this was a double-dose of awesome.

Before my publishing career, I was a pop culture scholar in undergrad and in my M.A. work at the University of Oregon, presenting at conferences with paper topics like “Can I Get Change for That Plot Twist?: Dramatic Currency for Communal Narrative Shaping” and “Holy Genre Trouble, Batman!: The Dark Knight as a Pulp Vigilante Trapped in a Superhero World.”

You can read part of the conference program here, including what appears to be Brown’s abstract:

http://share.pdfonline.com/8c5735697b904059a31e260dabc483cd/Page%2013.htm

I’ve reached out to Mr. Brown, and soon I hope to have a copy of the paper/presentation to peruse.

So cool!

Earlier this week, I submitted the revised manuscript for Celebromancy to my editor. From there, my editor will give it another once-over and, if he finds it suitable (fingers crossed), he’ll send it off into the magical production department. The Production folks will take care of things like cover design, copy editing, typesetting, and all of the things that turn a Word document into a book.

And that’s not all! I’m tremendously excited to announced that Celebromancy, the sequel to Geekomancy, is now available for pre-order! When more retailers load their pre-order pages, I’ll include those as well.

Pre-order Celebromancy on Amazon and BN.com 

You can also add it on Goodreads.

If you pre-order Celebromancy, it will automagically be delivered to your preferred ereading device on July 15th. Order now, and be happily surprised on the morning of the 15th, when you will be able to read Ree’s newest adventure. And as with Geekomancy, you will be able to read Celebromancy on a web browser or on your desktop through programs like Adobe Digital Editions.

First thing’s first: I didn’t lose my head.

Now that I’ve made the obligatory Highlander reference, I can start with the report.

This was my first ConFusion, and the con’s first year at the venue. I had no real problems with the venue, though I think the restaurant management may not have taken the ConCom at their word when said ConCom informed them that a lot of people would be eating at their restaurant.

Since ConFusion is a smaller, more fan-focused convention, it had, for me, a more relaxed feel than a con like WorldCon or World Fantasy. It was closest in feel for me to WisCon, which is awesome, since I really like WisCon.

I came in on Thursday night, expecting programming to start right away on Friday. That just meant that I got some work and reading done before things got spooled up. Part of that spooling up was a good three-hour chunk of playing Talisman (yes, that Talisman. The newest version of it, at least), before we all gave up and went on our way. As is to be expected, I was turned into a Toad before I even had my first turn. Ah, Talisman, how I missed you. The game could definitely use a stronger built-in level of momentum toward completion.

Thanks to the generosity and cleverness of Programming Chair Dave Klecha, I snuck onto three panels.

The first was “Let’s Remake Star Wars,” where the dominant sentiment from the panelists and audience was “Actually, no, let’s not. But if we have to, here are some thoughts.” I think I was probably the panelist most forgiving of the prequel trilogy, which stands to reason since I was also the youngest panelist. I still think that Episode I was a big mess, and that the prequels pale in comparison to the originals, but in-between griping about the prequels, we did come up with some cool possibilities, including discussing what Disney might do with the franchise. I remain cautiously optimistic that we might see the new era of Star Wars be as successful as the Marvel Studios films and Avengers arc have been.

My second panel for the weekend as a participant was “Fandom vs. Social Media.” That panel was a bit odd, since the title of the panel didn’t exactly match the description. I was very excited by the description, which I’ll copy again here:

“Geek culture has become somewhat ubiquitous these days, and with its ascent, some of our pastimes and obsessions have really gone mainstream. With that comes criticism – some valid, some less – and with critique an almost inevitable fandom backlash. Is it good that some of our favorite things have become too big to easily evaluate in a critical way? Does the legitimacy gained by the popularity of a Game of Thrones come at the price of being able to point out some of its flaws, and is this a worthwhile trade when considering the vitality of the genre?”

That topic, right there, is one I was super-excited to dive into and pick fights with, especially with my Subcultural Studies background. Hell, it’s practically the dissertation topic I proposed while I was applying to Media Studies and Communications doctoral programs a few years back. We didn’t end up doing that version of the panel.

We were unfortunately missing two of the panelists, so it was just the three of us: the moderator, Peter V. Brett, and myself. We managed a decent chat about distinguishing public and private lives, how to protect your fannish activities from prying and/or disapproving bosses when you need to, and the utility of social media in fandom. But I was kind of pulling for the other topic. There will be other cons, and plenty of chances to share my opinions on the matter.

The third panel was probably the most interesting (to me) of my three. This one was called “What’s Still Taboo?”, discussing societal taboos and how to use them in writing. The panel focused mostly on the first part of that topic, though we talked through several matters as they pertained to writing, and despite a very sensitive topic and a fairly full house, the conversation was very amicable. I was extra-impressed with the maturity of all participants involved in handling the topic.

In addition to a variety of other solid panels, I managed to hit several readings by various writer friends, which included such great stories as highway-side zombie-on-zombie brawls; forensic analyses of a Wendigo; a three-way fight/conversation between an alien, a mugger, and a confused everyman; the machinations of a superhero and supervillain’s sidekicks; a badass critique of Spenser’s The Faerie Queene in the form of a short story; and a snowball fight told in Sword & Sorcery tone. I know some rockin’ writers, folks.

Awesome people met and/or hung out with over the weekend included: Saladin Ahmed, Scott H. Andrews, Brad Beaulieu, Peter V. Brett, Ron Collins, Myke Cole, Michael J. DeLuca, Scott Edelman, Jim C. Hines, Justin Howe, Doug Hulick, Howard Andrew Jones, Dave Klecha, Mary Robinette Kowal, Holly McDowell, Peter Orullian, Bryon Quartermous, Lawrence Schoen (my gracious and tidy roommate), Amy Sundberg, Sam Sykes, Diana Rowland, Derek Silver, Patrick Thomlinson, Mary G. Thompson, and at least a half-dozen others who I am currently forgetting and/or whose names I forgot due to an over-abundance of awesome stimuli during the weekend.

Big props to the staff for a marvelously-run con. I always felt very welcome, and I’m very much looking forward to coming back next year.

The detailed schedule for this weekend’s Immortal ConFusion is now up, so I can give some descriptions and get wide-eyed at the awesome co-panelists on my programming. The panelists are a mix of people I’ve already met and hung out with at cons previously and others where this will be my first change to make their acquaintance.

I’m very jazzed about the topics, since they hit right in the center of several of my geekdoms (Star Wars, Fan Studies, Re-mix Culture/Transformative Works, Subcultural Studies)

Let’s Remake Star Wars

It’s awards season! Or, more accurately, award nomination season.

Geekomancy is my only 2012 publication. It is a debut novel, so in addition to being eligible for the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy/Locus etc. under the novel category, it’s also eligible for First Novel/Debut Novel awards.

Since my first pro-level sale was in 2010, I am not eligible for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer this year. Luckily, there are many awesome people who are.

If you are looking for other work to nominate, I’d draw your attention to my Favorites of 2012 post.

Happy nominating!

“Here we are…born to be kings we’re the”…wait, that’s not what they meant by immortal?

Next week, I’m attending Immortal ConFusion, a smaller-ish SF/F convention in Michigan. I heard amazeballs things about the convention after last year, including the Fantasy Author Old-School D&D session. I’m making a concerted effort to hit more conventions this year, so I’m putting my money where my mouth is.

Thanks to the kindness of the programming team, I will be appearing on a couple of panels:

Saturday          2:00:00 PM  Let’s Remake Star Wars

Saturday          4:00:00 PM  Fandom vs. Social Media

It’s like they know me or something. 🙂

Other than that, you can probably find me wherever the “writer professional development zones” (aka bars) are located. Look for the sharp-dressed geek talking shop about publishing using Star Wars metaphors.

See you there!