having my first coffee here this morning. Anne must have climbed out of bed about the time the alarm went off. She got her pay this morning and most likely is out shopping. Before I get anything, we’ve got to take care of the cats, and the rent. Once we’re over those hurdles if all goes well, Anne should receive her pension bid in the bank. She went down with the forms yesterday and because it’s summer the Department of Pension might take a little longer to process her request. Until the Pension matures in march she has to provide reasons like, medical situations, and or other emergencies. If approved and they haven’t turned us down yet we will be receiving a nice little amount. I don’t like her to take this money out because once it matures she can request the interest and the interest alone might provide us with a couple of hundred bucks a month, well maybe.

This feels nice not having to rush into work for the afternoon shift. But next week is when I’m going to have to stick to my guns and do the 31.5 hours/week. I’ll be able to afford hardcover books now.

Robert J Sawyer has some interesting things to say about the current state of science fiction on his blog. I’m about to blog this response to Rob’s article:

Science fiction is becoming mainstream and this is one of several reasons why I think readership is declining. Non science fiction readers still see SF as Star Trek and Star Wars and or cliché-ridden devices like time travel. The non-Sf community would rather go watch a science fiction movie with Will Smith then read an sf book. Right now the horror genre is a where science fiction was 25 years ago and the readership seems to be gravitating towards horror. The fiction reading community is like migrating geese and even though the readership might still be out there, they’re just somewhere else where the weather is nicer. SF can’t compete with horror and even fantasy these days. It seems to me that SF needs another Star Wars or it’s version of a Harry Potter but with SF so cross contaminated these days e.g. Cyberpunk, Space Opera, Hard, Speculative etc the waters are way too muddy. Another thing I’ve noticed is that SF does not cater to the impulse shopper. I can go into any Chapters and pick up a mystery or a horror novel and chances are it’s a stand a lone. There are way to many series in sf/f. There are few stand-alone novels in the SF bookshelves. All I see these days in Canada’s National book chain something like is “book 3 of the yada-yada wars by Tom P Whatshis name and most shoppers are impulse or month-by-month shoppers. The answer in my opinion is we need more stand alone books and this is where Robert J Sawyer’s imprint comes into affect and the small press. The thing is the small press hasn’t got the “deep pockets” of publishing houses like Tor and Ace. The small press seems to be the last stop on the tour for first time authors and as the SF readership continues to migrates away from science fiction even big name authors will soon be resorting to the small press. The small press as it seems to me, needs wider distribution channels and deep pockets.

That said I haven’t worked on F over the past 2 days but I will today and more on the weekend. I’m organizing my material. I also decided that it might be a good idea to have a prologue in there and an epilogue as well near the end. I got the idea for the prologue by reading an excerpt from Charles Stross’s “Glasshouse” on Robs blog. Some of the concepts in F are totally weird and off the wall the world presented in F needs some preamble.

Anne came home very happy because her company put her vacation pay in her account and I get an extra $20 for this afternoon and that means I go out book shopping. Wuu Who!! Plus I can also get myself a haircut because Anne has a $10 coupon. Excellent. So thanks to my cheaque this week and the one next week plus the small black sheep money Anne gets from home, the rent is covered for June 

June 13th I go in and get another yeg treatment. My Doctor this time thinks that this time we’ll get that done. I hope so. Since last October, I’m tired of having my vision blurred like this. My vision became blurred really since last February 2006 but we caught it in time. I’m hoping this won’t lead to an operation.

Anyway tonight after work it’s off to Chapters for book shopping. I’m going to before work check in on Chapters and find if any of my special orders are in.

That’s all for now.

e. Jim