Luck Storm

“Walter, you have the weirdest damn luck.”

Maureen McHugh told me this toward the end of 2005, in reference to that year’s Luck Storm, which involved a couple of surgeries, co-writing the game Last Call Poker, a five-month infection, heavy (and necessary) use of narcotics, and ridiculous amounts of money falling from the sky into my bank account even though I hadn’t written or sold any fiction. (Contrast 2006, where I’ve been working hard all year, selling everything I’ve written, and haven’t yet been paid for a single word.)

2005 was an fanciful, unpredictable whirlwind of incredibly bad and stunningly good luck, all thrown together in a sundae glass with a cherry on top.

The Luck Storm of 2006 hit Monday of last week, and began with a break-in. Someone kicked in our back doors and took two laptops, a digital camera, a copy of GURPS 2nd Edition, some watches, and some of Kathy’s jewelry. Untouched were the TV, the sound system, and the contents of my home office. The thief walked past swords and firearms and took six Britains War of the Roses Swoppets I’ve had since I was a kid.

We were scheduled to leave for Austin and the World Fantasy Convention the next day, but dealing with police, insurance, and the installation of new, steel doors resulted in our leaving late. (We were making the journey by car so that we could visit a family friend en route.)

The next weird piece of luck took place during the drive to Texas, though my participation was handicapped by a lack of cell phone coverage on the Llano Estacado. We had to pull off the road so that I could stand under the cell phone tower in Clovis, NM, and talk with my agent in New York City, who informed me that I had just sold a big high-concept novel to Tim Holman of Orbit US, UK, and Australia, for simultaneous release on all three continents!

The book, the tentative title of which is When the Game Calls, is something that would have been science fiction had I written it ten years ago. Now it’s more of a contemporary thriller about technology, though as it’s being published by an SF line, I expect there will be more stfnal content than I’d originally planned.

So that makes two novels I’ve sold this year, including Implied Spaces to Night Shade.

At World Fantasy Con I met Tim Holman, who I’d never encountered before, and partied till the wee hours with Jason and Jeremy from Night Shade, and gratefully chowed down on a couple meals purchased by Diana Gill with Rupert Murdoch’s money, and gave an interview to Charles and Liza at Locus.

Along about in there somewhere, I found out that I would be collaborating on a novel with a couple of writers who are much more famous and successful than I am, which in addition to being a kind of pleasingly sentimental project for all of us, should serve to raise my profile nicely among the reading public. (And, by the way, this will be a true collaboration, not one of those “Walter does all the work and others just slap their names on.”)

In addition to all of this, the convention was simply a great convention. I got to see all sorts of people I hadn’t seen in ages, and ate some terrific meals, and got very little sleep but in a good way.

And because the convention had some freebies left over from the hotel, I got three of my room-nights comped.

I was feeling sufficiently lucky that before I left Texas I bought a bunch of lottery tickets, just in case the luck storm hadn’t totally faded.

No word yet on whether or not I’m a millionaire.