Trudi Canavan

Is what time is doing. And us. We’re currently exploring Atlantic Canada with friends, in a hire car. Worldcon was great. We didn’t manage to extract a non-broken internet cable from the hotel until the con was half over, but there was so little spare time to spend using it that I only managed to check my emails and bank account each day before being swept up in the fun again.

After the con we left Montreal for Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. It is very pretty, but unfortunately not a great time of year to be travelling here as it’s very hazy, which doesn’t make for good photography. It’s also unpleasantly hot. Not as hot as it gets in Melbourne in summer, but much more humid. Still, it’s lovely from the airconditioned comfort of the car!

We’ve seen deer, porcupines, squirrels, bear cubs, and lots of seals. I’d love to come back another time – and see other parts of Canada as well. Perhaps do a train journey. Hmmm.

Internet access has been available here and there, but with four people using it I’m still mostly checking email and my bank account, so I’ve given up on regular blog posting. Mobile coverage has been almost non-existant. I’m mentioning this because someone has been trying to call me, and for various reasons I can’t call them back, so maybe they’ll read this and realise why I haven’t returned their call – and that they should email me.

Well, looks like we’re packing up ready for the next leg of our journey. Gotta go!

Oh boy. The last few weeks have been a blur. We’ve been to seven airports (some multiple times), taken seven flights and explored three cities. We’ve strolled on tropical beaches, seen what happens when hot liquid magma and sea water meet, got stranded in Dallas airport when a man with a fake bomb caused our ongoing flight to be cancelled, walked on streets that felt like movie sets in New York, brainstormed with publishers, met famous authors and been to countless parties. All in only two weeks.

Internet access hasn’t been as attainable as I’d hoped, and neither has time for blogging. I’m squeezing this post in before bed. I wanted to share some photos we took at the US Orbit office. Here I’m being prepped for a video interview:

I’ve never been interviewed on video before, so I was both excited and a little nervous. But the recording team were very encouraging and helpful. It’s not something you get to practise for, so I was surprised then they did just one take. But I know they’ll cut and arrange things cleverly for the final clip, which for now will be used for internal (non public) publicity but may end up on the Orbit web site. (I’ll post a link if it does.) Here’s the team:

Penelope, Jack, me, Oscar, Sam and Brad. (apologies if I got any of those names wrong!)

Jack was the interviewer and escorted me to the studio and introduced us to the Orbit publishing team. Some exciting ideas were discussed for this website, so you might see some changes in the future. Here’s me and Jack, with Tim – who I first met in the UK in 2005 and is now head honcho of the US office.

It’s always great to meet the people who turn your stories into books, package them up so beautifully and deliver them to the world.

Yep, I’ve finally finished beating and polishing it into shape and sent it off to my publisher. Of course, there’s a lot to be done before it hits the bookstores, including editing, proofing, printing and shipping. But since this milestone is the one that involves the Big Looming Deadline it always feels like the one that needs the most celebrating.

As always, I don’t know when the book is going to hit the stores. All I know is it’ll be sometime in the first half of next year. For more a precise date, nag my publisher. (Not me. Believe it or not, it isn’t true that the more frequently I’m nagged for a release date the more likely it is that I’ll know it. If that was true, I’d be asking everyone to nag me for the answer to much more profound questions about life and the universe.)

Info like release dates, signings and other appearances should appear on the website my publisher created for the purpose - trudicanavan.net - so keep an eye on it.

When I said, a few posts back, that I’d have to work hard to make up the time I lost to the flu I didn’t realise just how hard that working would be. I lost five weeks to the flu. I gained a deadline extension of a month. But because we were booked to leave for our Worldcon trip earlier than that, I had only three extra weeks.

That meant working weekends. And for a while there, into the evenings as well. But I have made it. The Ambassador’s Mission will be delivered this week, once I have tackled feedback and comments from the early beta readers.

As you can imagine, I haven’t had any time to blog here - and even if I’d had there hasn’t been much to blog. Well, except that Conjecture, the Aussie Natcon in Adelaide, was heaps of fun and inspiring to boot. And Worldcon news, which I will put in a separate post.

The niftiest little thing arrived in the mail the other day.

It’s a rerelease of the unabridged audiobook of The Magicians’ Guild, as published by Bolinda Audio. What’s so cool about it is that it comes as a ready-to-play package. Earphones are supplied and batteries included (and yes they’re replaceable). No need to dig up a tape or cd player, or get to a computer so you can download it to your ipod. You just plug in the earphones and start listening.

I can see all sorts of potential in this idea. Delays at the airport? Unexpectedly need to catch a train? IPod run out of power? Just pop into the bookshop and grab one of these.

How widely available they are I can’t tell you, or where to get them, but this is one of those ideas I’d love to see take off. Even if just out of a selfish desire to be able to buy something to listen to next time I’m stuck at an airport with a delayed flight and a flat iPod.

Sorry about the silence – I’m still sick. But here’s the news I posted about:

I’m going to be at Anticipation!

Aside from a few days in New York prior to the convention and a quick stop in Hawaii to break the hideously long flight, I won’t be visiting anywhere else. This isn’t a tour, I’m afraid. It’s going to be a holiday, and one I’ll have definitely earned as I’m going to have to work extra hard to get The Ambassador’s Mission delivered on time now I’ve lost so much time to the flu.