Apartments and contests and titles, oh my

To start with some fun news for the day , Jen and I put a deposit down for an apartment last night. The landlord is running credit checks to make sure we aren’t, ya know, escaped criminals or anything. So long as that goes through, looks like we’ve got the place. It’s in a great Brooklyn neighborhood with lots of nice shops, though fortunately the apartment is on a quieter corner, so the traffic noise shouldn’t be much of a problem. Now we’ve just got to get our stuff out here from Colorado and start setting it all up. Oh, yea. And the wedding. Can’t forget that’s coming up.

It’s a relief to not have to be scanning craigslist every day for new postings, arranging meetup times and eyeing other apartment-hunting couples like they want to steal our souls.

More fun news comes from another blog. Randy Ingermanson held another quick contest, asking people for their comments on why they read fiction. I was delighted to receive an email from him this morning letting me know he’d picked my comment as the winner. I’m going to receive a signed copy of his science fiction novel, Double Vision, which deals with quantum computing and multiple realities. Here’s the link to his post, and here’s the comment I put:

“I read bad fiction so I know all the ways I should never write. I read good fiction so I know all the ways I should write. And I read fiction in general because there are only so many technical manuals and textbooks you can go through before they start looking like a viable food source.”

Thanks, Randy!

What else…oh, yes. Thanks to some great feedback, I’ve been in the process of revising one of my novels and have settled (for now) on a new title. Paramnesia. A lot better than the clunky placeholder I had for it, and I think gives a much better feel for the tone of the story. You know how it is—you write a story but never never settle on a good title because you’re so caught up in the process. In your mind it’s “That Story About That Guy,” and then you realize that’s not really going to snag anyone’s interest. So there’s the name of the project for the time being. Is it mysterious enough for you?

I see that smile.