The week in links

The other day I pan-seared some salmon for dinner, and the whole house began to smell like fish (and lasted for days), and I regretted not taking the laundry off the racks and putting it away first.  Beyond that, my neck is better and I got a nice chunk of wordage written.  How’s things with you?

First up, I made an appearance yesterday at Rebecca Roland’s Spice of Life blog for her interview series “Thumbnail Thursdays,” which is here.  (Don’t ask about the space rabbits, it took a dark turn.)

Random House’s sci fi e-book imprint Hydra (and you’d think they would not have chosen a name synonymous with comic book villains) is offering undesirable contract terms for … well, any writer, really:  no advances; a “profit sharing” split between author and publisher that takes publishing costs out of the author’s share, at Hydra’s discretion; and gobbling up all sorts of rights in perpetuity, or at least for life-of-copyright (WHAT.) John Scalzi took them to task for it on Wednesday.  Random House responded in a letter yesterday.  Anyway, that’s going on.  Moral of the story: read your contracts.

Here’s a fun example of how other authors’ actions sometimes serve best as a warning to others: 29 Ways NOT To Submit To An Agent by Carole Blake

Finally, there’s only one month left to apply for this year’s Odyssey Writing Workshop, an awesome six-week bootcamp for writers of science fiction, fantasy, and horror.  You get to immerse yourself in a supportive environment of writing, workshopping, and critiquing while you enjoy New Hampshire in the summertime.  This year’s guest lecturers are authors Jack Ketchum, Patricia Bray, Adam-Troy Castro, Holly Black, editor Sheila Williams, and writer-in-residence Nancy Holder.  So get your applications in.

I’ll be at the alumni program that follows the workshop, so come to Odyssey and we’ll get to meet face-to-face! Fair warning, I’m a hugger.

And now, I’m off to see whether packing tomato soup for lunch and wearing my favorite white shirt on the same day will go down in history as a classic bad decision or not.