Promise I’m not neglecting my bloggerly duties. In fact, I am busy laying virtual brick and electronic mortar for my new internet stronghold: www.blakecharlton.com. Instead of a post, I offer a chance to wonder over there and see the progress. Be warned that the place is still very new and things are likely to change. Please do let me know if you find any bugs or anything out of sorts. When the web page is totally functional, I’ll set up a forwarding function to redirect to it. The same goes for http://www.spellwright.com.

Wonderful good news: I’m proud to announce that recently, I accepted an offer from the esteemed Mr. Jacques Post at Luitingh-Sijthoff for a Dutch Translation of SPELLWRIGHT. Even when I was just getting into writing, I had heard about the venerable Luitingh Fantasy list. It’s an honor to sign with them.

The game is also afoot in Germany with a very difficult decision to make from my end. More later.

Over the summer I worked with my mentor Dr. Abraham Verghese on an article that examines Tolstoy’s THE DEATH OF IVAN ILYICH for use in the instruction of medical students. While I can’t say the exact nature of its publication status, I hope to share good news soon. More recently, Dr. Verghese gave the Jonathan J. King Lectureship at Stanford. His lecture was titled “Fiction is the great lie that tells the truth,” and I blushed bright pink when he quoted a bit of the article I had written. And trust me, when a pale bald guy blushes, there’s a lot of red involved.

Other things that have kept me from the blog: I’ve been working with Renascence Man Jeremy Tolbert to create a professionally designed website. Eventually this blog and http://www.spellwright.com will be unified and moved to http://www.blakecharlton.com. I’m pretty sure we’ll be able to set up forwarding links so there won’t be a problem.

Also, I’ve been working on what’s shaping up to be a very interesting (for me at least) authorial interview over at one of my new favorite Fantasy blogs: A Dribble of Ink. I just turned in a round of questions and am interested to see what Aidan sends back. It’s making me define some of my beliefs about fiction and writing I didn’t realize I held.

Also in the endless newbie-author-self-promotion I fiddled with Facebook long enough to make a “fan page.” If you’re keen, you can wander over there. Or click the (very small) link at the bottom of this post.

Finally, I’ve recovered enough from the boards and caught up with enough publishing deadlines that I’ve begun to volunteer at our student-run free clinic. It’s wonderfully invigorating to see patients again and help them to the extent I can. It helps remind me why I’m doing all this running around.

Everything I needed to Know about Submitting a Final Manuscript for Publication I Learned from Moving my (Hypothetical) Kid into a College Dorm.

1) Some part of me is very sad the kid/book is leaving. I love him/her/it.

2) Well, actually, some other part of me is stoked kid/book is leaving. I was getting really sick of dealing with his/her/its mess.

3) I worry no one out there will love kid/book as much as I do, which is surely as much as she/he/it deserves to be loved.

4) I’m 99.99% certain that someone is going to be really horrible to kid/book, and I won’t be there to defend him/her/it.

5) I’m also 99.99% certain that I will only hear from book/kid when I am required to fork over money (promotion for book, spring break for kid).

6) Sometimes I wish I could have done better by book/kid to help him/her/it face the world.

7) Sometimes I’m pretty damn proud of kid/book and am sure she/he/it is going to take over the world.

8) Well, in any case, I’d better stop fretting about it and get back to work on the other kid / next book.

There’s a function on the WordPress softwear that lets me see what search terms lead folk to my blog. Most are about my mentors or friends “Todd Lockwood,” “Abraham Verghese,” and so forth. A few have “Blake Charlton,” or “Spellwright,” punched in, which is nice. But some are just plain hilarious. Here’s a few of my favorites and my reactions.

“I am not a nerd:” My friend, by bringing you to this blog, the internet has failed you, horribly. Prepare to be boarded by the Royal Marines of Nerdom.

“large bald & loud:” You too, huh?

“Stanford Med student lovelife:” Oh, honey, not nearly enough when you’re studying , likely even after.

“fantasy authors make too much money:” On what planet do you spend most of your time?

“offensive funny jokes about dyslexia:” Only if you’re also dyslexic. And we’re drinking beer.

“Should I shave my head against the grain?” HOLY GOD IN HEAVEN, NO!

“USMLE is sucking out my SOUL:” Don’t worry; it grows back. Kinda.

I’m not sure why, but when I punch these into Google, my blog doesn’t show up in the results…I wonder why…

Finally, I checked it.

And here’s the thing: I did fine. Better than I had hoped. I didn’t believe the score report. I downloaded it three times. In fact, just after I wrote that last sentence, I downloaded it again. Some part of me still believes there must have been a mistake. The score has elicited the strangest storm of emotions. There is the obligatory joy, euphoria, and content. But below that there is a powerful fear and confusion. Considering the number of breakdowns I put my friends through, I’m more than a little embarrassed. When sheepishly reporting my score to those who I leaned on the most, I received a well-deserved salvo of eyerolls and I-told-you-so comments. The score has transformed me from a sympathetic disabled fellow, struggling to overcome a frightening obstacle into an just another unsympathetic med student who’s inappropriate fear of failure is made more annoying by perfectly acceptable performance.

I have always been contemptuous of those who abuse special accommodations, contemptuous of those who take an accommodation who do not need it. And yet, here I sit, having received a score without accommodation that is well away from remedial. Clearly, the NBME was right. I did not need the accommodation, and yet I was so very close to fighting for that accommodation. Had I gotten it, I would have been one of those who abused the system. I would have been the very type of person I despise.

I wonder how it was that I was so phenomenally wrong. How could I have felt so certain of failure when failure was not certain? Why the panic and the dissolution of character? I need to do more thinking and research about the subject. But I suspect it has something to do with identity. Disability has been part of me since they pulled me out of second grade and shipped me to special ed.  I’ve spent most of my adult life trying to either fight or embrace my dyslexia. That struggle has always been part of who I am. Not that my dyslexia will ever fully go away. You can look forward to smiling at misspellings on this blog for a long long time yet to come. But, suddenly, official recognition and the need for accommodation for my dyslexia is gone. I am left with a profound feeling not being entirely sure who I am.

I have to write two more books about characters coping with disability. This is going to change them. I’m just not sure how.

I’m becoming obsessed with the phenomenon of withdrawing accommodations. I’ve heard more than one horror stories from disabled friends about accommodations that have been inappropriately withdrawn. But in some cases, like mine, denying accommodations is the right thing to do. I wonder if there’s a better way to do it. I wonder if there are more sensitive ways of detecting whose accommodations should be withdrawn. If you or anyone you know has struggled with such an issue, or if you’ve run across an article about it, please let me know. I’m hoping to get my head straight about it, and maybe write about it one day.

Meantime, I’m going to be on the road for the weekend and then early next week attending the “First Stanford Symposium on Bedside Medicine,” which I’m very excited about. I’ll post more about that later. But the posting will be light for the next week or so.

Blake: Yes.

Admin: I’m Dr. ____’s assistant and I’ve just realized that even though I confirmed Dr. ___ would make your lecture, I also confirmed him for a lecture twenty minutes later on A DIFFERENT CONTINENT.

Blake: Wow. It sounds like Dr. ____ is taking the Global Health Initiative very seriously. That’s a lot of ground to cover.

Admin: Are you being sarcastic?

Blake: Me? Noooo.

Admin: Little med student, do not cross the sistren and brethren of admin assistants. We will _break_ you.

Blake: ….

Admin: What’s that strange sound?

Blake: That’s the sound of the part of my brain that will have to repair the course’s schedule dying a slow and agonizing death.

On the publishing side of things, I’m very happy to report that negotiations for translation rights for SPELLWRIGHT have officially begun with both German and Dutch publishing houses. Nothings solid yet, but I’m very excited by the level of interest we’ve getting. I’ll post any updates as they come in.

Also, the page proofs for SPELLWRIGHT came through today, so I’ll be turning those around ASAP.

Also, I’ve recently held my breath, and made a down payment to get a professionally developed website. Both this blog and spellwright.com will be moving in the next month or so. I’ll be sure to point to the new destination and hopefully set up a forwarding…umm…thingy.

Behind the news website will be the Renaissance Man, Jeremy Tolbert—author, photographer, blogger, web-designer extraordinaire. Most recently, I’ve been obsessed with one of Jeremy’s posts about creative endeavors. If you do anything out of the mainstream, follow the link and read Jeremy’s commentary thereafter.

On the medical side of things, my USMLE step 1 scores came back. How exactly that’s changed me…is complicated. I’ll need a bit more time to mull it over. In fact, I think I was late posting here because I needed the time to even get this far with my understanding of it. Likely I’ll have something by tomorrow…

The audiobook is a success, though nothing to rave about. It does a good job of delivering the novel’s complexity and making it enjoyable. However, there was no sense of the audiobook adding more to the manuscript. This was not because of the recording quality, which was quite high. Nor because of the little production polish; really I can’t think of music or commentary that would go well with such a unique fantasy. Rather it was because John Lee does a solid but not exciting reading. Lee is a veteran of many audiobooks, and those who listen to many books will recognize his voice almost immediately. I’ve been very impressed by many of his readings. This one is not his strongest. His tone is fairly fixed, appropriate for the hard-boiled-detective note that China’s protagonist often hits. His handling of the imaginary languages that China invents is commendable. His range is good, with all characters sounding unique and believable. Lee’s accents, however, leaves much to be desired. All of the characters of China’s imaginary cities speak with a flat American accent that was sometimes colored by Lee’s native Irish accent. This is jarring, especially when North American characters speak. A Canadian character sounds just like those of the imaginary cities save for the occasionally prolonged vowel (e.g. ‘out and about’ becomes ‘oot an aboot’). Worse, the only American male character is given an accent that sounds like John Wayne humping Colonel Sanders. It sounded more like a European mocking a American accent than any real accent. Even though I found myself frowning at the accents, it did not subtract from my overall enjoyment of the story. Likely those who are not as obsessed with dialects of English, as I am, will be much less affected.

All and all, China’s wonderful story augmented a serviceable performance to produce an enjoyable audiobook.

All and all, the audiobook is a very nice package. It’s low on production polish. No music or introduction or author’s note at the end. I was sad about that last point. I’d be eager to hear Lynch talk about how the book came to be. Perhaps the weakest point of the audiobook is the recording quality, which is only fair. After listening to a high-quality audiobook, I was initially distracted by the tinny quality of the recording. However, after twenty minutes, I was completely absorbed in the book and no longer bothered. My absorption to a large part was thanks to Michael Page, who provides an outstanding performance of the reading. His range of tone is marvelous; all major character sound both unique and completely believable. His range of character, however, was not as wide. Many of the ancillary characters (guards, low profile villains) sounded similar to each other. What really pushes this audiobook over the top to become one of the most enjoyable I’ve encountered, is how well Page translates Lynch’s prose style into performance. The witticisms are delivered quickly and with perfect timing, and the many, incredibly filthy obscenities are enunciated with a gleeful emphasis that makes sound even filthier. I simply couldn’t stop laughing out loud and shaking my head in wonder. For a fantasy author, this is a really humbling and intimidating performance. Really a can’t miss performance if you love fantasy.

I’m flattered to be chosen. But consider three things: One, Spellwright is a book about the power of misspelling. Two, the former Sci-Fi Channel changed its name to “the Syfy channel” to avoid the negative connotations associated with the spelling “sci fi.” Three, as of now the brand on Spellwright’s cover reads “A Sci Fi Essential Book,” not “A Syfy Essential Book.”*

Taken together, I think these three events are almost-but-not-quite ironic. And, yes, I’ve emailed Alanis Morissette to see if she’d like to work this fact into that song entitled “Ironic,” which is ironically not about irony.

*I’m pretty happy about this last one given that if I a “syfy essential” sounds like something needed to write C++ or Ruby or Some-Computer-Language-about-which-I-know-nothing.