Three things make something closer to a post

First: it's the sixteenth, and that means I'm over at SF Novelists again. This time I'm continuing my points from last month, with "Competence is hot, part two."

Second: the same guy who does the Page 69 thing also had me contribute to My Book, the Movie (reposted over here). Long-time readers of this journal may recall that I've been on that blog previously, when I talked about my mental castings for Midnight Never Come and In Ashes Lie; this time I update it with A Star Shall Fall and With Fate Conspire.

And third: if you're going to be at FOGcon, then a) so am I and b) I'm also going to be one of the critiquers in the writing workshop, along with David Levine and Cassie Alexander. I don't know when signup for that closes, but I believe you still have time to join, if that's your cup of tea.

Since I'm combining things here, I'll leave comments open -- but on the competence thing, please do go leave your thoughts over on the SF Novelists site, rather than here. No login required, but if you're a first-time commenter please give me a little while to fish it out of the moderation queue.

End as you began

Ahahahaha.

When I set out to do my Wheel of Time re-read and analysis, I based my schedule on the projected release date of the final book. But I have enough experience with this series that I knew better than to assume it would come out as planned in November 2011, so I deliberately aimed to overshoot that date.

Well, I didn't overshoot by enough. As Sanderson says in the above post, the new date for A Memory of Light is January 2013. We were doing so well, right up until the end . . . but of course this series has to end with a massive delay. Because that's how it goes.

This means I need to think about how I want to handle my posts for The Gathering Storm (which I've been meaning to do for, well, months now) and Towers of Midnight. I don't want to lose every bit of momentum I had with this blog series, but I also don't want to be left waiting for nine months or more before the final book. (However fitting that might be.) If I'd known there would be this large of a delay, I would have started stretching things out last summer -- but too late for that now.

What's likely is that I will do two posts for TGS, one that's pure reader-reaction (what I think of various plot developments), and one that's analysis. Then I'll do the same for ToM, in the latter half of this year. But I'm open to other suggestions, too: should I post about "The Strike at Shayol Ghul"? Or the companion book? How should I kill time until this thing is finally done?