I mentioned a while back that I'd signed a book contract. I can finally say that it was for a work-for-hire novel set in the Forgotten Realms universe that has been the setting of many, many novels, Dungeons & Dragons game products, video games, and comics over the last twenty years or so. I've spent a lot of time in that fictional universe, as a reader and gamer, and I'm way psyched to join the many fine writers, artists, and designers who have built on Ed Greenwood's creation.
The publisher of the Forgotten Realms books, Wizards of the Coast, releases information in a carefully managed manner. For now, pretty much all I can say is that I'm contracted to write a novel, and that I've already turned in the first draft of of a short story that will appear in an upcoming Realms anthology.
My good friends Holly Black, Gavin J. Grant, and David B. Coe—who are all even better pals than they are fantasists, if you can believe it—helped me find my way along the path to this project.
Holly and Gavin have also been cheerleading me along on my other big project, the novel Sarah Across America, which is still being written and about which more... sometime soon.
So, I have two novels to write in 2009. I'm not exactly a super-duper online-all-the-time guy already, at least compared to some, but I'm planning on following some version of the VanderMeer model and back away even further, at least during work hours. There's also other exciting stuff in the works, this on the academic front, that influences this--a lot of folks can be very productive while living active online lives, but I'm not one of 'em, unfortunately.
Oh, and speaking of the academy, a nice little cherry on top of my personal year opening parfait. Karen Joy Fowler is teaching an sf/fantasy class this quarter at UC Santa Cruz, and one day will be spent on my stories "The Voluntary State" and "The Force Acting on the Displaced Body."
I grew a beard so it wouldn't seem quite so girlish when I giggle like this.