So many things, so where to start....

Alrighty then, let's do this as logically as we can:

Le Mag
Ish 4...

was back from the printers and waiting for me when I got back home from Fcon on Sunday.
It's getting posted out Mon/Tues.

Ishes 5 & 6

Now here's the dilemma - given the lateness of Ish 4, do I stagger the dates on the next 2 to compensate, or do I combine 5 & 6 into a bumper Xmas issue to keep 7 & 8 on track for next year?
Currently I'm leaning towards the joint Xmas issue but need to work out the figures properly so will update as and when.

When we re-open for fiction submissions next year, I'll have a new submissions editor to handle things.... still working out the finer details.

Fcon

Was great! Despite the fact that I spent most of it sick as a wotsit. (So apologies for those that tried to get some sense out of me and were met with zombie brained blank looks.)

Unfortunately I missed ALL the panels, which was a shame cos from what I could hear, there were some good ones with Juliet McKenna and Graham Joyce and many others...

Argh, just don't mention the Sunday BFS AGM.

Fcon 2005

Now here's where the fun starts.... Debs & Nicki decided they didn't want to organise it again next year so Vicky Cook and myself promptly went and opened our gobs and volunteered.

So what are we looking at for next year...? Well, we'll be in the same hotel as this year - The Quality Hotel, Walsall. (Yes, we know it looks like a motorway hotel, but trust us, we can do things with it....)

On dates, we're looking at mid September... sometime around the weekend of the 16th/17th ish.
(Difficult year next year as there's Worldcon up in Glasgow in August and some folks have said they won't be able to afford both... to them I'd say come to Fcon instead, it'll be lovely!)

On guests - we're plotting to get a US guest over, as well as UK ones.

We're still in the early discussions stage so that's about as good as the interesting details get.
Naturally, since this our first Fcon, we want thoughts and ideas on what folks want to see/do. Either email me or leave a message on the BFS boards here

Meantime, I've discovered it's possible to function with only 4 hours of sleep a night!


Other bits

So mum wrote this tenants help guide book thing, drawing on her centuries of experience as a letting agent/landlord/tenant/inventory bod etc. and a publisher accepted it and she's signed the contract and it's coming out in April. Blimey. Don't know where she gets the energy from.

At the moment, she's at the proofing stage which is quite a fascinating process. She got sent a copy of the manuscript with these coloured sheets with all kinds of suggestions & questions on.
Some of the questions/points were a bit daft, most were more sensible - like grammatical points on the mixing of tenses & possessives etc.

One of the things up for discussion is the title - she wanted to call it The Tenants Survival Guide, but unfortunately someone's already done one with that name (which is currently out of print, but still...) so we spent an afternoon bashing names around and have got it down to about 3 we really really like.
Which I can't remember off the top of my head.

Apparently she's got 2 weeks to look it over and change/discuss. (Hasn't had time to look it over properly yet, given the usual end of month frantic-ness the Barber Empire suffers from. She's scheduled it in for next week so will add more later about the weird world of factional book publishing...)


And, naturally, mum being mum, she's already plotting the next few books.... she's already started an 'interesting' retirement guide book, and wants to drag me in to co-author a couple of sacred site type books. My favourite potential project idea being the 'The Lazy Bastards Guide to Ancient Sites' :->