Amanda is now 8 and
a bit months' pregnant, and she wanted to have our baby off the grid,
in the middle of the woods with nothing and nobody around but
midwives, a doula, and me.
Which seemed like an
odd idea when she first floated it by me, but has come to strike me
as more and more sensible in the last few months, especially when I
would look at my deadlines. It's been a mad year anyway, and more and
more things have crept onto my schedule: the idea of going off to a
cabin in the woods and writing, away from phones or emails or any
distractions seemed increasingly attractive. So I get the best of all
worlds: undistracted time with Amanda, undistracted time with Amanda
and the baby (when he appears), and relatively undistracted time to
write.
Photo by Kyle Cassidy, last Friday.
Except, the
birth-month is September. And September is the month when everything
is happening.
It's the month that
the Chris Riddell-illustrated boxed set of my children's books comes out in the US, for example.
It's still ridiculously cheap on Amazon, for three books you could not previously get in these editions in the US.
It's the month that The Sleeper and theSpindle is released in the US.
The last issue of Sandman Overture will come out in September (although not the hardback collected edition of the whole thing. That comes out on November 10th -- my birthday, oddly enough: details at http://bit.ly/OvertureDeluxe )
And, more personal
for me even than these, it's the month that the Humble Bundle
happens.
You know what a
Humble Bundle is, don't you…? It's a bundle of Digital Stuff
(usually games, sometimes eBooks or Graphic Novels) that goes out to
the world on a Pay What You Like basis. Sometimes you can get
hundreds of dollars of stuff cheaply.
But I think it's
fair to say there will never have been a Humble Bundle like this
before. Why ever is that? you wonder. Ah, you will have to be patient. It's going to be remarkable.
But...
I'm going to be
away. So I'm planning to learn how to use the various timed posting
things on Twitter and Facebook and here on the Blog. People will
think I am back from the woods, but no, I won't be. Magical timed postings will be going up to let people know what's happening.
(This may also result in a
few tone deaf postings in September, as I apparently plug the Humble
Bundle or Sleeper and the Spindle immediately after I hike into town
to find internet to tell you that the baby has turned up. Forgive me
if they happen.)
Labels: Baby, chris Riddell, Humble Bundle, Sandman Overture, The Sleeper and the Spindle