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Sep. 30th, 2004 07:06 amTired today. Mostly because I went to a Neal Stephenson signing last night, and didn't get to bed until 9:45. That hurts when the alarm sounds at 4 AM.
The signing was good - Neal is not a great speaker, and he's obviously uncomfortable in crowds. By his own admission, he's an introvert (I sympathize). I suspect he does this solely because his publisher tells him he has to in order to sell books.
One of the better questions of the night: "How is Qwglhm pronounced?"
A: "Tagham. That's not how the natives pronounce it - the language has glottal stops and clicks that have no equivalent, but that's the standard English mispronunciation."
One of the better answers of the night, in response to a question about how he got to be good at writing - like how to get to Carnegie Hall, practice. He's been writing for 25 years now. Neal says that he can only write for about three hours in the morning while he's fresh, and then he starts writing crap...
What I'm reading: Dave Duncan, Jaguar Knights (I have several books to get through before I start System of the World)
The signing was good - Neal is not a great speaker, and he's obviously uncomfortable in crowds. By his own admission, he's an introvert (I sympathize). I suspect he does this solely because his publisher tells him he has to in order to sell books.
One of the better questions of the night: "How is Qwglhm pronounced?"
A: "Tagham. That's not how the natives pronounce it - the language has glottal stops and clicks that have no equivalent, but that's the standard English mispronunciation."
One of the better answers of the night, in response to a question about how he got to be good at writing - like how to get to Carnegie Hall, practice. He's been writing for 25 years now. Neal says that he can only write for about three hours in the morning while he's fresh, and then he starts writing crap...
What I'm reading: Dave Duncan, Jaguar Knights (I have several books to get through before I start System of the World)
