Author’s Preface to Introduction to Travel Diary
To anticipate the critics, yes, I am aware that it’s self-indulgent to print one of my trip reports in this collection, especially as many, if not most, of the readers will probably find it quite dull. However, since this may well be the only opportunity that will come up during my lifetime to get one of my trip reports into print, I figured that I’d allow myself to be self-indulgent for once, and take it. After all, there’s still plenty of fiction here as well, so I hope that the readers will feel as if they’re getting their money’s worth, even with a certain number of pages devoted to the trip report rather than to stories.
If there are any publishers out there who are feeling suicidal enough to consider a collection of trip reports, as George R.R. Martin suggests, I have about 100,000-words worth of this piffle in my files.
Gardner Dozois