Back from WorldCon

I'm home from WorldCon and getting back into the swing of things. I had grand good intentions of blogging while I was there, but it just didn't happen. By the end of the day, I could barely string words together. There were about 4,000 people there in a large convention center. I was averaging about 3 panels or other events per day that I was on. Just about everything seemed to be standing room only except for a couple of events in very large, very remote rooms at the beginning or end of the day. So it was all-day crowds at a very high energy level. I made myself do at least some networking, so for dinner I went to the Science Fiction/Fantasy Writers of America suite, where I could get a meal and chat with people in a quieter environment. That seemed like a good compromise when my instinct was to get takeout and hide in my room. But that meant I was getting back to my room and getting in pajamas at around  eight or nine at night, barely catching up on e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, etc., and then collapsing.

But the reason it was so draining was that it was good. I went to a lot of panels, even ones I wasn't on, so there was no real "down" time during the day, and I have a notebook full of notes. One particularly interesting one was the director of the Vatican Observatory talking about living in an absolute monarchy. He's mostly at the convention to talk about science stuff, but he did this presentation for fantasy authors, since the Vatican is one of the remaining absolute monarchies that functions a lot like the realms in fantasy worlds. There was a great panel on "Nifty Narrative Tricks" that got the wheels turning in my head, as did the panel on playwriting techniques for novelists. I attended some sessions on business planning and author branding, though I'll have to look again at my notes to see if there's anything I can use there.

For the panels I was on, I got to sit next to David Gerrold on a Star Trek panel. There was a great discussion on steampunk at another panel, and a fun panel on adults reading young adult books. I'd been worried about the YA Beyond Borders panel, but it turned into a fascinating discussion that continued in the hallway. I moderated a panel on beta readers that I hope was useful for the attendees.

I did feel a little bit invisible at the convention. For someone who's been publishing in the field for eleven years, with 12 published fantasy books (that's not counting the years and books in romance), and with six Worldcons under my belt, I'm still kind of a nonentity, which can be frustrating when you see newer people with fewer books (and not necessarily bestsellers) more or less eclipsing you. None of my books were available in the dealers' room, not even the new Rebel Mechanics paperback. My autograph session would have been pretty much a bust if not for some of my friends and for some people from my Japanese publisher stopping by. And getting to sit next to William F. Nolan and chatting with him about Logan's Run. On the other hand, I did have an almost full table for my kaffeeklatsch and a decent crowd for my reading (and I didn't even know all of them).

I'm not really sure how to become more visible in that world. The hanging out in the SFWA suite may help. I'm trying to do more follow-up with people I met. I'm terrible at networking because I assume people won't remember me, so I hesitate to contact people, but it's easy enough to follow people on Twitter, and that's a start. I'm going to make more of an effort to participate in the SFWA message boards. I know there's been a lot of controversy lately about the Hugo awards, with a lot of resentment about ideology, and such, but I have to say that even apart from ideology, it does look like there's a "cool kids" club that feels entitled to the nominations, and even if some outsider group that was as perfectly inclusive and diverse as the cool kids club prides themselves on being showed up and managed to get a toehold in the process, there would still be a lot of resentment and outcry from the clique. There's a lot of talk about being inclusive and accepting, but there's a definite insider vs. outsider sense of cliquishness there that can't be fixed while it's not acknowledged. It really is the jocks and cheerleaders vs. the rest of the school, except I don't think even talent can break you in. The back handsprings won't get you on this cheerleading squad. Most of the time, I can ignore all this and just get on with my work. It's only at the big conventions that my invisibility field kicks in with people who should be my peers, but I get the feeling if I tried to join their group, they'd close ranks or get up and move.

I saw almost nothing of the city, but the downtown area was nice, and the famous library whose parking garage looks like a giant bookcase was a few blocks away. My travel went pretty well, aside from the bus breaking down on the trip to the airport (I was glad I planned for taking one bus earlier than I needed) and the thunderstorm that hit when I stepped off the train from the airport on the way home (at least the plane landed before the storm hit). I got to hang out with friends I see maybe once a year and reconnect with some fans who've been with me from the very beginning. I had some interesting conversations, and I'm motivated to get back to work. The one thing I can absolutely control is what I produce, and the only way to really increase visibility is to keep writing more and better books. I have to get Enchanted, Inc. book 8 (which needs a title) to the copyeditor in mid-September, so I have work to do.

WorldCon Report

When I went to choir last night, everyone acted like I'd been missing for ages and they talked about having thought about calling me. I missed one rehearsal and one Sunday. I guess it's nice to be missed. I'll more than make up for it this Sunday (though I did go to a church service at WorldCon, so it's not like I really missed a Sunday) because I'll be singing in three services. I'm in a small ensemble singing in the early service, then that ensemble got drafted into singing backup for the praise band at the contemporary service (new experiences are good for me, I guess), and then I'll be singing with the choir at the late service.

The choir director said if we were interested in singing the soprano solo for the "Pie Jesu" in the Rutter Requiem, we should talk to him. I'm pondering it. I suspect he'll end up going with one of the grad students, but if they want that ethereal "boys choir" sound like in the British version, my voice comes closer in the upper range. It goes pretty high, but I've sung a solo in that range before.

So, WorldCon … I'm still too lazy to go downstairs and find my phone to transfer pictures, and I didn't take too many pictures of anything actually at the convention. Most of my photos are of the river and waterfalls. After my last on-the-spot report, I went to the dance lessons and steampunk ball, which were held in a lovely ballroom in a historic hotel (photo on my phone). As usual, there was an extreme lack of men. Seriously, guys, step up. You get bonus points on your man card for being able to lead in ballroom dancing. After two hours of lessons, I was getting pretty tired, and when I was feeling wallflowery for the ball itself, I slipped out about midway through. Good thing, since I could barely walk the next morning. I didn't take a walk then.

I had a panel Friday morning on the Terry Pratchett books for younger readers, and one of the panelists was the editor. I learned a lot about writing for younger readers from hearing what she had to say and what she reported as Terry Pratchett's views on the subject, and now a lot of the editorial notes I got on my YA book make so much more sense. Retroactive apologies to my editor for all my grumbling. I had my kaffeeklatsch that afternoon, and while I didn't have a waiting list, like a lot of authors, I did have a fairly full table, and we had a nice discussion. I did a little hanging out and wandering through the dealers room after that, then headed back to my hotel to discover that we'd suddenly been transported to Mars.

As you've probably heard, there are a lot of wildfires in that region, and that day the winds brought all the smoke into Spokane. It was like being in a dense fog that smelled like a campfire. The sky was hazy and yellow, and you could barely see across the street. They were warning people to stay indoors. So I did. I hit the swimming pool and hot tub for a while, and then they served an awesome chicken and rice soup at the hotel's evening reception, so I didn't bother going out for dinner. I spent the evening going over my critiques for the writers workshop.

Saturday, I was back to walking. I did the "Stroll with the Stars" walk, which was shorter and slower than I would have gone on my own, but I did get to chat with people along the way. Though I must say that going on a suspension bridge with a large group of people isn't recommended if you have bridge issues. The bridge seemed to be swaying alarmingly. I actually attended a couple of panels that morning, and then I had the writers workshop in the afternoon. That was three hours of intense critiquing that made me really think about my own writing and that had me eager to write. But I came out of it at 7 p.m. utterly drained. I'd thought about going out to dinner, but once I got to my hotel to drop things off, I didn't want to go anywhere. The hotel offered sandwiches, etc., in the area where they served breakfast and the evening reception, so I ordered a French dip sandwich, and the waitress took one look at me and asked if I wanted it boxed up to go to my room. She fixed me a tray with my sandwich and some wine, and I ate while watching a Doctor Who marathon on TV, then collapsed early.

Sunday, I had my final panel and ended up being the moderator at the last minute because the moderator didn't show. I sat at the SFWA table for a shift, and after doing a final round for good-byes, I went back to the hotel to start packing. I went for a very early dinner (switching back to Central time) at a restaurant overlooking the falls and had regional rainbow trout. I seem to be making a tradition of a final night dinner by the water. And then I was up early the next morning for the long flight home.

I probably didn't network as much as I should have because I didn't do the party circuit. I was off on time zones and the party hotel was so far away from everything else. I did make some new friends among the Discworld fan group, and the person coordinating that was staying at my hotel, so we ended up having breakfast together. I'm going to try to connect with that group online. I know that a lot of my promo items were taken from the freebie table, so we'll see how that translates to sales. Whether or not the convention did me any good professionally, I had a good time and I feel like I learned some things.

Days Two and Three

I'm enjoying a little downtime between daytime activities and nighttime activities, so I suppose I should catch up on events.

Yesterday's panel was about Headology and Boffo in the Discworld, looking at the various characters who play mind games with others. The moderator asked me if I had any personal Boffo (you'll know what it is if you read the books), and I went blank, so I claimed I didn't want to give away my secrets. In truth, I'm all about the headology and Boffo. When I was working in PR, I was known as the Client Whisperer, or the Client Slayer, because I had a knack for figuring out what the client really needed, which usually wasn't what they said they wanted, and giving it to them in a way that they were convinced it was what they'd wanted all along.

And then there's Boffo -- the artifice to convey an image. I guess my entire convention persona is pure Boffo. That's why I dress up and put on the glam, and then there's the waist-length curly hair or the fancy hairstyle. I'm deliberately setting myself apart, mostly because even if I wore standard convention attire -- jeans and a nerdy t-shirt -- I still don't really look like I fit in this crowd. I get a lot of "What's she doing here? Did she get lost?" looks. So I go for the extreme in not fitting in, and then I can startle people with the level of sheer geekiness on panels.

There were opening-night festivities in the park yesterday evening, and it was a really pleasant night. Free ice cream, music, games, etc. And then I completely misread the time for the writers workshop reception in the SFWA suite. I'm going to blame my phone, or perhaps my learning curve for the phone, and the way it deals with time zones (it decided that all the events I entered when I was at home were taking place in the Central Time zone). So I thought the 9-11 p.m. event was 7-9 p.m. But I ended up just hanging out there until the event started, at which point it became so noisy and crowded that I escaped after about half an hour with fellow quiet introvert Robert J. Sawyer, and we talked business on the walk back to the convention center, where I ran into other people heading in the direction of my hotel. So I was escorted back to my hotel by Archchancellor Ridcully (my escort was in costume).

This morning I was up really early, but since my phone tells me I walked almost eight miles yesterday (and I was feeling it), I took a shorter walk (only about a mile and a half) and then went for a short swim, sat for a while in the spa, and then did some time in the steam room, which felt good in such a dry climate. Then I had my reading, and people came! There was a cookout in the park for lunch, then I was supposed to help facilitate a discussion about Terry Pratchett's books for kids as part of the children's programming, but the kids weren't really interested, so we bailed early. After that was my autographing, where I wasn't that lonely and pathetic, after all. There were people there! Who liked my books!

Tonight there's a session on social dances of the 19th century, followed by a steampunk ball. I'm definitely going to the learning/practice session, but we'll see how much steam I have left for the ball. It'll feel like it's almost my bedtime by the time it starts.

Fortunately, when my hotel gives us wine in the evening, they also give us appetizers, which includes some really nice soups. The first night, there was a lentil and orzo soup, and last night was a yummy minestrone. So I get something that somewhat qualifies as a vegetable. That might fortify me before I face the evening.

WorldCon Day One

I'm now in Spokane for WorldCon. It was a very long day of travel yesterday, but I did manage to get some rest and though I'm a little groggy, I think I'm ready to take on the convention. I'm just not going to be much of a night owl, I suspect. The time difference is hitting me. I managed to stay up until 10 last night and slept until 7, but by the time the convention will be opening the next few days, I'd already had breakfast and walked about 3.5 miles.

The walking is going to be great this week. My hotel is right on the walking path along the river, so I saw sights like this


on my morning walk. I went down to the upper falls this morning and will have to hit the real falls tomorrow. We'll see if I ever get the nerve to cross that suspension bridge over the falls. I'm not a huge fan of high bridges.


Going in the other direction, the river is a lot more peaceful.


There's even a part of the path that runs through some woods. Yeah, along a river while in the woods, so basically my idea of heaven.


I'm still figuring out the camera on my new phone.

I ended up at this hotel because it was the only one with rooms available for the dates I needed when I booked, but it's working out pretty well. It's across the river, and a rather pleasant walk, from the convention center. They give you free wine at night and free breakfast in the morning, and the breakfast room has English Breakfast tea instead of just regular tea bags. I have a refrigerator and a microwave in my room. Everyone's been very friendly, so it feels kind of like a family-run hotel. And they've done a rather clever thing with the toiletries. Instead of the tiny bottles you have to struggle to get stuff out of, and then you feel wasteful throwing them away when you've only used a little, they have built-in dispensers of shampoo, conditioner, and shower gel in the bathroom, so you just pump and get as much as you want, with no tiny bottles. They do have a tiny container of lotion, which is nice, because it's dry here and I will be carrying it around with me.

My programming starts this afternoon, and there's a reception this evening for the writers workshop. So more details on that later, or follow me on Twitter @ShannaSwendson, in case I remember to tweet.

WorldCon Prep

I just realized that I'm only about a week and a half away from WorldCon -- I checked the Spokane forecast and saw that they actually have a forecast for the first couple of days I'll be there. It looks like it will be refreshingly cool for me, and I'll need to bring a sweater. Highs in the upper 80s and lows in the upper 50s. I also have a lot to do between now and then, which will be even more fun because next week is Music and Art Camp at church, so I'll be tied up (depending on the kids I get, possibly literally) all morning Monday through Thursday.

I need to finish knitting a shawl, get some promo stuff prepared (final assembly will wait until arrival for easier transport), take care of shopping and preparation errands, do some FenCon PR work, critique the writers' workshop manuscripts, and maybe do some book research.

If you're going to be at WorldCon, or know someone who will be, I've been given a KaffeeKlatche session, which is an informal meet-and-greet around a table, presumably with beverages. You can sign up in advance for these, and so far I have one person signed up for mine. Sign up here so I won't feel sad and pathetic. I flounced enough about not getting recognized enough to get programming, so it would be really awful if I prove to be a nobody, after all.

And if you want to know what else I'll be doing, here's the rest of my programming.

I'm currently frantically re-reading/reading a lot of Terry Pratchett books in preparation for all the Discworld items. I imagine I'll have a slightly controversial take on the most dangerous person in Discworld, but I think I have textual evidence.

In other linky news, here's that blog post I had a flake attack about yesterday. I had it written in my head, which was a good thing considering I mixed up the due date with the posting date. This is what happens when I mix promo time and writing time.

Incidentally, I'm still open to doing guest posts or blog interviews, so if you are a book blogger or know one, give me a shout. Goodness knows, I need all the help I can get.

Post WorldCon Wrap Up

First, a little business: There's a survey being done to get a measurement of who science fiction fans really are, outside the demographics usually seen at conventions, and what their interests are. You can go here to take the survey and help provide a better picture.

Now, for the WorldCon wrap-up, or at least part of it. I think each panel I was on gave me fodder for multiple blog posts, so the true wrap-up may take a while as I visit each of those topics over time (and hopefully before I forget everything). I'm not going to dwell on the journey itself, other than to say that I've learned a few things about myself and road trips. One big thing is that I really need to stop and take a break every couple of hours. I haven't done a lot of really long trips before. Mostly, I drive to my parents' house, which is about two hours away. I've done some trips to Austin and Houston, which are about four hours, and there's usually a lunch/gas/bathroom stop about halfway. Most of the way to San Antonio is my route to Austin, and I stopped at about the usual halfway point for the Austin trip. Then two hours after that, I got really twitchy. When I drive in familiar territory and have been going too long, I get the road zombie thing, where all I see is the road and I'm not aware of where I am. But I've only driven to San Antonio once, and that was six years ago, so I reached a point where I got weirdly paranoid because I had no sense of how much farther I had to go and I started imagining that something was wrong with my car, mostly because of reflections off the dashboard that made me imagine seeing the "we're all going to die!" warning lights out of the corner of my eye. When I found a nice-looking gas station/convenience store with a big old oak tree in front of it, I stopped for gas even though I didn't really need to, just to walk around for a while. On the way back, I made a point of taking breaks, and it went much better.

I recovered from the drive by picking up take-out at the food court in the mall on the Riverwalk and eating in my room while watching an NCIS rerun. Then I made use of the hotel's rooftop pool and swam a few laps and just floated for a while to work the kinks out. There was a nice deck by the pool overlooking downtown, and I sat out there and watched the sun set and the city lights come on. I did the Thursday-morning Stroll with the Stars and saw a part of the downtown area I'd never explored, the dam and spillway at the end of the flood control channel behind the Riverwalk. I like water, and rushing, roaring water is even better. I spent the next couple of days sitting at the FenCon table in the exhibit hall, aside from the hour I spent at an autograph table. I didn't have a line of fans, but I did have a steady stream of people, and not just the "sign my program book" people or friends. In between autographs, I worked on my knitting, which brought a few people over to chat. I'll have to remember that for future autograph sessions. Knitting gives me something to do other than sit there and look pathetic and lonely, and it gives people a reason to come talk to me and then learn about my books. The same thing happened at the FenCon table.

Friday night, I got another new experience because the Random Penguin (okay, technically I think they're calling themselves Penguin Random House, but Random Penguin is much catchier) party was in the Tower of the Americas, which has an amazing view of the city. I kept forgetting to socialize because I was too busy staring out the windows. Then I had a number of geek moments in which I'd be chatting with a group of people, then belated introductions would be made and I'd discover exactly who I was chatting with.

Saturday and Sunday were my busy paneling days. I had a lot of fun (and a big crowd in the really big room) with the future of Star Wars panel, and had the rather surreal experience of having David Brin plugging my books during introductions. I wouldn't have thought he'd have any idea who I was. The geeky knitting panel was also a lot of fun. Since I was the closest to "local," I was the one able to bring visual aids. The TARDIS shawl got a lot of attention, as did some of my lace knitting and, of course, the lightsaber knitting needles. The Sunday morning panel on books being made into movies and television was educational for me and I did a lot more listening than talking. Charlaine Harris really is a hoot and a real sweetheart.

I'm afraid I skipped the Hugo awards ceremony. I don't have a lot of patience for award ceremonies in general, and I was dead on my feet. I went to dinner with some of the FenCon gang, then went back to my room, read a while, and was in bed with the lights out probably before the ceremony ended. I was one of the "stars" for the Monday Stroll with the Stars, so I had to be up early for that. I was getting really tired of the convention center by that point, so for my lunch break between panels, I went to the street festival at the nearby old church that I'd noticed them setting up while on the stroll, and I was fed by the nice church ladies and had an interesting conversation with one of the people working at the festival. It was a good break before the final panel.

I think I've started a tradition for the end of WorldCons. Last year, on the last night after the con ended, I had dinner at a cafe on the river in Chicago. This year, I had dinner at Casa Rio, the old Mexican place on the Riverwalk. If I go to London, I'll have to find some waterside dining, but probably more in the vicinity of Little Venice than on the Thames itself. There's something about just sitting on the bank of a river that's very relaxing and that helps me wind down.

My initial goal for this con was to improve my networking, and I'm not sure how well I succeeded there. I probably ought to get more involved on the SFWA forums to stay more in touch with the people I was chatting with at the party. I didn't exchange business cards with people, or anything like that. On the other hand, I ran into some friends from college, someone I worked with 15 years ago and someone from a book club I used to be in.

Now, I'm going to have a little resting/hibernation time. I had ballet the night I got home, then children's choir started last night and I had choir rehearsal. Today, now that I've already obtained groceries, I can just relax for a while. As I get older, my body seems to be less flexible about changes to routine, and a week of changed sleeping schedules, irregular mealtimes, different kinds of food, probably not enough water and lots of social interaction has utterly drained me. I have a few business-related tasks to take care of, but otherwise I can catch up on the TV I missed while I was gone and maybe start a season 3 of Haven marathon if my DVDs arrive as scheduled today.

Semi-Famous Geeky Knitting

Door Watch continues. No news to report. They'll probably want to come work on it this afternoon, when I have an eye exam.

I got to play "author" last night as a guest at a book group. I think of my job as having two different modes. There's "writer" mode where I sit at home in sweatpants or shorts and write, and there's "author" mode where I glam up, go out and pretend to be semi-famous. This book group is one I've met with before. The hostess is a friend of a former client, and the former client suggested they have me visit the book group. They've had me back a few times since then, and then they started inviting me to their other social gatherings. You've got to love a book group meeting that also involves a demonstration of a stun gun. No, they didn't demonstrate on me or on each other, but they were admiring one lady's cute pink flashlight with bonus stun gun feature and then placing a bulk order from the company's web site.

I had another distraction day, but this time with nothing to show for it. I just couldn't seem to focus. I got most of a scene written, about 1,000 words worth, but I fizzled and never managed to get back into it before I had to get ready for the book club.

I got my preliminary program assignments for WorldCon, and that will have to be adjusted somewhat, as they put me on a panel on the history of atheism. Really? Me? I said I wanted to talk about faith in fiction, and that doesn't really say that I know anything about atheism. I responded to say that I didn't belong on that panel. I resisted the urge to tell them that if I remained on the panel, I'd know the room would be full of potential converts, that for once I wouldn't be preaching to the choir, so I'd be bringing my Bible and a hymnal. I did actually type that into the response, but then I deleted it before sending. However, I did get put on a geeky knitting panel. I'll have to bring the TARDIS shawl. I actually think that all knitting is kind of geeky because it's about geometry. That's one more argument for driving instead of bus. I can throw more knitting examples in the car. And a cool panel will be on having books adapted for TV or film, with Charlaine Harris on the panel. I'll be the baby on that one because I've only been in the beginning stages, but I can talk about when it gets stalled out.

So, yeah, it likely will be a worthwhile trip. I'm starting to get excited, and it's about six weeks away. I've even started to think about going shopping because all my clothes are rather out-of-date. I haven't really gone shopping in years. Now, though, I need to get back to the book because I want my first draft done before this trip.

There's No Place Like Home

I have now safely and successfully returned from my travels, and it may take me a few days to recover, mostly because I kind of overdid it on my last day in Chicago and because Chicago doesn't seem to believe in signs. I slacked off on my last couple of days worth of posts because I hit the critical conjunction of busy and tired.

Saturday was my busy panel day, and things were standing-room only, with people turned away. That seemed to be a problem in every panel I attended after my first one on Thursday afternoon. I don't know if they didn't have enough programming items per hour or if they somehow had rooms too small for the panels I happened to choose or be programmed for, but after that first day when people hadn't arrived yet and that had a cavernous space, I didn't see a panel where everyone who wanted to attend managed to. The TV panels were in rooms about the size of my living room, and we went far beyond the fire marshal's limit posted on the wall, and yet people were still turned away.

But that kind of crowd does mean a lot of energy, so the panels were fun. I may do some posts of the "what I thought about saying later" variety because the ultimate panel comment usually comes at about three in the morning the day after the panel.

Saturday night, FenCon hosted our first WorldCon party, and since there weren't that many of us present, it meant I kept busy the whole night working the door and later serving beer, and then I didn't get to bed until 3:30 in the morning. I somehow zombied my way through my Sunday panel, but the late night completely messed up my sleep schedule, so that I missed the Hugo Awards ceremony because I fell asleep (and apparently that was standing-room only, too), and then I woke in the middle of the night and had to read a while to get back to sleep, which then meant I had to go in search of an airplane book in the dealers room on Monday.

After the con ended on Monday, I turned tourist and headed over to Navy Pier to see a stained glass exhibit Connie Willis had told me about. It was definitely worth seeing, but I may have overwalked myself. It would help if I'd let myself slow down and not act like I'm on a mission. I came back via the river and stopped for dinner at a little cafe in a garden on the edge of the water, where I waved back to the kids on the tour bouts who waved at people on the shore. That was a nice ending for my trip.

But I think the real reason my knees and hips currently hate me is the weird Chicago signage. For one thing, the street signs seem directed only to drivers, not pedestrians, so if you're walking the wrong direction on a one-way street, you have to stop at each intersection and turn around to find out what the cross street is. Then there was the subway station. The El stations are obvious, but the station I needed was underground, and it turned out to be in the basement of an office building. There was a sign on the sidewalk giving the name of the station, but no indication of where, exactly, the station was, with no obvious sign on the building itself letting you know to go in that door. In New York, when there's a station in a building, there's a sign over the door to the building. I walked all the way around the block trying to find the station. Then I found the secondary entrance, which required a fare card but didn't sell fare cards, and the sign there said the main entrance was a block and a half east. By that time, I wasn't sure which way was which, and it still didn't say where that entrance was. It would have helped if it had said something like "on the lower level of the XYZ building at XYZ Whatever Street." So I got a brisk half-half hour tour of downtown Chicago while hauling luggage. And now my knees and hips are suffering.

For more fun, children's choir starts tonight. I have kindergarten this year, which means the same kids I had last year, and I have a new partner. She used to do music for the church preschool, so I think she'll be the one doing the heavy lifting and I won't be totally in charge. I don't know because I haven't discussed this with her yet, but I've worked with her on other things before and I think we'll make a good team. I just may need to hit the hot tub today so I can actually move by tonight. I skipped dance last night and will try taking the beginner class tomorrow night.

And now to continue my catching up from my week-long absence.

WorldCon Day 3

The "three-hour tour" last night turned out to be divine. I've done the river/lake cruise in Chicago before, on my first trip, but that was in daylight. This was after dark, and it was gorgeous seeing the city that way (with themes from science fiction movies playing on the sound system). Plus there was wine, food and good company. I did have the initial moment of social awkwardness when I didn't really recognize anyone in the dim light, and the people I did recognize didn't seem to recognize me. I had my hair up because I had a feeling wind would be an issue on the boat, and I've found that people who've met me once when I had my hair down don't recognize me when they see me again with my hair up, probably because my hair is the thing people notice, and then they don't recognize me when I'm no longer "the one with all the masses of ringlets." Like, I think it was driving Robert J. Sawyer crazy all night. He kept giving me funny "I know her from somewhere" looks.

So, as I was standing there feeling awkward, a man who'd also been standing around awkwardly came over to me and commented on how hard it was to recognize people in that light, then stuck out his hand and said, "I'm Alan Foster." I introduced myself and mentioned that we'd met before, and then he remembered who I was. So, not only did Alan Dean Foster get me into science fiction when I was a kid, but he rescued me from a massive wallflower attack because soon other people joined our cluster, and then the clusters broke off, and I made a new friend or two. I ended up spending a lot of the evening with Nancy Fulda, who has a short story nominated for the Hugo (it was about a dancer, so there was a bond) and with Connie Willis's husband. Then Connie joined us, and soon we had George R.R. Martin in our group, and it turns out that I wasn't the only one thinking Gilligan's Island about this event. We started figuring out who was whom. George was the Skipper because he had the hat, and Connie's husband was the Professor because he is one, and George said Connie was Mrs. Powell and I was Mary Ann. And then we got started talking about conspiracies because George thought it was fishy that the Professor could make a radio out of coconuts, but he couldn't fix the boat. I said he had a reason he wanted to stay on that island, so we were brainstorming reasons. It was also fishy that some of the passengers had brought multiple changes of clothing and lots of supplies for a three-hour sightseeing tour, so they must have known in advance that something would happen.

So, yes, I got into a conversation with George R.R. Martin, and what do I talk about? Gilligan's Island conspiracy theories. Welcome to my life. I don't plan this sort of thing. It just seems to happen. I'm also a little nervous that he saw me as Mary Ann, even though I was about as Gingered-up as I can get, because bad things seem to happen to "Mary Ann" type people in his books.

It was funny when the crew of the boat realized who was on board and they all then wanted their pictures taken with him. I didn't take any pictures because it was dark and the boat was moving, and I wasn't really in the mood for playing fangirl and getting my picture taken with the famous authors. I was having silly conversations with them instead.

I had my reading this morning, and there were actually people there! In fact, that may have been the biggest crowd I've had so far at a reading. My voice is fading, but I made it through that. Now I have two panels today, then a dinner and then a party, so it's a busy day. I'm taking some time to relax before I head into the really crazy time.

WorldCon Day 2

I think it's day two of the convention. I've got my days all mixed up, so I have to keep double-checking what day it is.

My first panel yesterday seemed to have gone reasonably well. When people have recognized me later from being on the panel, they haven't pelted me with rocks or rotten vegetables, and I take that to be a good sign. The opening reception was at the planetarium last night, and they had telescopes set up. I got to see Saturn, with the rings visible. That was really cool. Then I got to look at the moon through the big telescope in the observatory. I also had a nice chat with someone I met at last year's convention. I made a brief pass through the party suites, but the parties here are taxing my ability to be around crowds and noise.

Today's been my "easy" day, business-wise. I lounged around most of the morning, then met a couple of local friends for lunch, upping my Chicago pizza count (I may turn into a pizza by the time I'm done, but that's fine, since pizza is one of nature's perfect foods). I attended one panel and found myself drifting off a bit (though not as badly as the guy behind me, who snored so loudly that the panelists noticed). The panel was on steampunk, and I found it interesting that the steampunk book I currently have on submission contained all the elements that the panelists said they wanted to see in a steampunk novel, including some that they were saying they wished more authors would do because they haven't seen it. So, basically, my book is the book the steampunk fans seem to have special-ordered. Hear that, editors?

Now I think I'm going to take a nap before tonight's publisher party, the infamous Three-Hour Tour. My emergency plan for this cruise is that if it looks like the boat's going to sink and we're all going to die, I'm going to find George R.R. Martin and make him tell me how A Song of Ice and Fire ends before we all die.

If I survive, then I have to do a reading in the morning and two panels in the afternoon, and then I'm part of a group hosting a party, so I guess I have to deal with the party crowds. I'll be the one hiding under a table.

Live from Chicago

The convention hasn't really started yet, but I've already run into friends, had some Chicago-style pizza and gone to a party. The programming starts this afternoon, and then I'll start being busy. This morning I'm taking it sort of easy. I did a lot of walking yesterday and my legs are tired, but I think I may take a leisurely stroll this morning to keep my muscles from getting too stiff. My hotel is right on the river and very near a park, so there are lots of places to walk.

I do find that Chicago baffles my usually quite good sense of direction, and it doesn't help that taking the train from the airport means arriving downtown on a subway, which also messes with my sense of direction. As a result, I came out of the subway station and headed in the opposite direction from the hotel, then realized the mistake when I was running into streets I knew I wasn't supposed to hit. I was checking the map below an El station when a guy from the Salvation Army (in uniform, with ID, which he made sure to show me) took pity on me and got me turned in the right direction. That meant I did a lot more walking than I planned, and then I took a long walk along the river after dinner because I had to work off some of that pizza. I suspect there will be a lot of pizza this week. I am not complaining.

On today's agenda: I'm moderating a panel this afternoon, and then there's an opening reception at the planetarium. Tomorrow I'm meeting some Chicago friends for lunch, and then that evening is the publisher's party. Saturday's my busy day, with a reading, two panels and then dinner with my agent's associate and some other clients from the agency. I don't know how often I'll manage to update because getting Internet access means going down to the convention area. I don't think I'd use it enough in my room to make it worthwhile to pay for it, and I'm hoping to trick myself into getting some writing done, which might not happen if I could get online and goof around. Though the Weather Channel is kind of addictive at the moment.

Oh, and I've been recognized already by someone who reads my books, so I've had my moment of fame.

Conventions and Creeps

I think I worked my way past my roadblock yesterday, with great effort. Today I plan a serious marathon of work. Really. Plus I need to proof the e-book files for book 6 and write a couple of guest blogs. It's a good thing I don't have anything scheduled for this weekend.

As I've mentioned, I'll be at WorldCon in Chicago next week. Normally I don't post my convention schedule because I figure if you're there, you know how to find me, and if you're not, you don't care, but WorldCon is huge and the way they post the schedule on their web site is wonky, so here's what I'll be doing:

Thursday, 4:30-6, Faith in Fiction panel
This approaches the use of faith in world building. I'm moderating, which means I need to come up with some discussion questions.

Saturday, 9:30-10 a.m., my reading
What I read will depend on what happens between now and then, who shows up, what of my works they've read, what they've heard me read, etc. At 9:30 on a Saturday morning, I may be reading to myself. Depending on what I read, there may also be singing. Maybe even dancing. Who knows? Come and find out. Please!

Saturday, 1:30-3, Panel on what's on TV in the general genre space
I'm moderating, so I imagine this will go a lot like the SyFy Smackdown we do at FenCon, in which I play the Oprah of geekery and turn it into a talk show panel kind of thing. I already seem to have a problem panelist who started e-mailing the rest of the panel to try to dictate what the panel would cover. When I realized I was the moderator, the power went to my head and I told everyone to chill. I will do everything in my power to make this fun and funny, even if I have to smite someone with my Invisible Lightsaber of Moderation to do so. My experiences dealing with children may come in handy here.

Saturday, 4:30-6, the Warehouse 13 vs. Eureka Smackdown
We have to come up with which character from which show would win various challenges. Should be good for a lot of laughs. I anticipate at least one epic giggle fit.

Sunday, 3-4:30, panel on the artifacts of Warehouse 13
This one should also be fun as we get to talk about what's really in the Warehouse.

I'm not sure how I ended up on all the Warehouse 13 panels other than I said I was willing to do them. There was a lot of other stuff I was also willing to do that I didn't get.

Speaking of conventions, this summer there's been a lot of talk about harassment policies, safety, etc., and probably about time. When you think about it, conventions are kind of a recipe for disaster in that area. We've got a lot of people with not necessarily the best social skills getting together, it's traditionally a male-dominated environment and not everyone seems to be comfortable with the way that's changing, and the depiction of women in a lot of the works traditionally popular in that crowd doesn't necessarily lend itself to equality and respect (in fact, women are far too frequently depicted as objects to be won). So you get the "creepers" who can't (or refuse to) tell the difference between "cool, we like the same stuff" interaction and "I want you." And then you get the nasty situations when they refuse to believe that it really, truly isn't "I want you." Strangely, I haven't actually run into anything majorly awkward with the fanboys. I've had to deal with a couple of uncomfortable situations with fellow professional authors, and that brings me to my bit of advice for men at conventions:

If you offer to escort a woman to her hotel room and she declines, back off, totally and immediately. Don't attempt to talk her into it, don't try to bargain ("How about just to the elevator?") and above all, don't follow her. Even if you're going back to your own room and you need to take the same elevator, take a lap around the lobby and let her go on her own before you go. Because if you do any of these things, you've just made yourself more potentially threatening than any hypothetical stranger she might encounter, since you're demonstrating that "no" doesn't mean "no" to you and you don't care about her wishes or her comfort. After having to use the ugly voice to remove a guy from my room doorway after I told him I didn't need an escort to my room, I now make a lap through the lobby instead of returning to my room after an offer has been made and declined, and then I'll stop and talk to friends. If I don't find friends, I'll probably lead my would-be Galahad straight to the convention operations office.

But what if you really do feel like it's a safety issue and it's bad for her to go alone? Well, for one thing, there's a totally different vibe, voice inflection and body language between "I'm concerned for your safety" and "If I get as far as her hotel room door, I'm totally going to score." For another, I've never had one of the creepy offers come in a situation where safety was genuinely an issue. Those offers always seem to be made from the lobby bar/restaurant to my room on the last day of the con, after I've made the trip safely on my own dozens of times. These guys are nowhere to be seen when I need to get from the party hotel to my hotel through a deserted downtown area in the middle of the night.

If you think a woman needs an escort for safety's sake and you want to make sure she doesn't decline you because you're scarier than the unknown, put together a group. Find a group of people, both men and women, who already know and trust you, and then invite the woman you don't know as well to join that group. Then follow her wishes. If she only wants you to escort her to the hotel entrance, stop at the entrance. If she wants company farther than that, allow her to make the request. Keep a respectful physical distance from her the entire time and allow her to initiate contact like farewell hugs. If she needs an escort to her door, stay back to where you can see that she's safely getting through the doorway but you aren't close enough to be looming over her as she unlocks the door, then leave once she waves to let you know she's okay.

And, seriously, guys, when you gallantly offer to escort me from the hotel lobby to my room on the last day of the convention, I know exactly what you're up to and it's a total turn-off. I actually kind of liked the first guy who pulled that on me, and him doing that totally blew any chances he might have had because he was so cheesy about it and because he disregarded everything I said and followed me to my room even though I told him not to. If I want you in my room, I'll invite you.

A Few More Thoughts

A few more random and scattered thoughts about the past week:

I had a nice view of the mountains from my hotel room window, and there was snow on the top of some of the mountains. I could sit on my bed and see snow, and it was lovely. It was warm during the daytime where I was, but that was low 90s and dry, so compared to home, it was delightfully cool. There was whimpering when I stepped off the plane in Dallas and got hit with the sauna.

The other thing I could see from my room was fire. One evening, I was sitting on my bed, either surfing the Net or reading, when out of the corner of my eye I saw flames shooting into the sky. I rushed to the window to see what building was burning down. It turned out to be something to do with the hotel/casino. One of the bars was in a skybridge crossing the street, and since the hotel was the Atlantis, they had these quasi-Grecian pillars on either end of the bridge. On top of these pillars were cauldrons, like the Olympic torch, and at night every so often these cauldrons would light up, sending flames shooting into the sky. I guess it's a lower-key version of some of the casino shows you get in Vegas, like the Mirage volcano or the pirate battle at Treasure Island. Once I knew what it was and realized the city wasn't burning to the ground in a fiery holocaust, it was kind of cool to look out the window at the flames.

I learned that a slim-fitting pencil skirt may look nice when I'm standing in front of a mirror, but it's not ideal attire when I have to walk long distances (the hotel may have been "adjacent" to the convention center via a skybridge, but someone said they measured it as nearly half a mile from the elevators to the meeting rooms). My usual marching band instilled 60-inch stride at 120 beats a minute didn't work in a skirt that only allowed me to move my legs below my knees, and I now understand where Marilyn Monroe got that walk. To make matters more interesting, the waistband actually hit around my hips. If it had really hit at the indentation of the waist, it could have stayed anchored, but instead it kept trying to climb to my waist, twisting as it went. That meant walking while holding my skirt in place. I thought this was going to be my basic khaki skirt, but I think it will have to be held for more static occasions, and I'll get a utilitarian school uniform skirt to be my basic khaki skirt. I bet this one will look awesome with stiletto heels, though.

My basil plant appears to have been a casualty of the trip. I worried it would dry out, but the soil was still damp when I got home, and yet all the leaves had fallen. I suppose I drowned it while trying to give it enough water to last the week. I left it outside all day yesterday, and the soil is still damp. I may just give up on it and get a new plant. Considering the price of fresh basil, I more than got my money's worth from this plant, and not having basil handy to snip cramps my cooking style. I felt strangely compelled to cook last night, and basil would have helped the dish I made.

One of the intangibles I got from the convention was a sense of what's missing from the current book that I think it needs. The magic isn't quite magical enough. In this book I'm not spoofing the software industry, the way I am with the Enchanted, Inc. books, so the magic needs to instill a sense of awe and wonder, and the way the characters respond to magic needs to say something about them. The main character's arc has to get her from being too rational about it to accepting that it works and that there aren't explanations for it. For some other characters, it's like an initiation into a reality they previously didn't know, and this will forever change the way they see the world. Pulling this off will require getting into a particular head space. I think this is why I haven't been able to find the ending for this book. I can resolve the main conflict, but I can't get a good conclusion. Oh, and I think I just figured something out so I'd better go write it down before I lose my tenuous grasp on it.

And then I need to go grocery shopping because my emergency post-trip supplies have run out. And then I have to do the medical school work I put off the last couple of days because I was really tired.

WorldCon Benefits

I'm home now, safe and sound. It was a reasonably good trip back, and even though the time difference theoretically shortened my day, it still felt very long. My timing did seem to work out perfectly -- being checked out just in time to catch the airport shuttle that got me to the airport in plenty of time to make my flight but without a lot of time to kill, then back in Dallas the shuttle to the remote lot where the city bus stops came very soon after I got to the waiting area, and then the city bus was there when I got to the stop. Things went so smoothly that I caught one bus earlier than I had expected, so I was home half an hour earlier. I think I've finally worked out all the kinks for taking the city bus to/from the airport, aside from the minor detail that the bus to the airport doesn't run on weekends (I would go on a rant about the silliness of no public transportation to the airport on the busiest travel days, but I always seem to be the only person on the bus going all the way to or from the airport, so there's apparently not much demand for the service, or else no one knows about it). I am eagerly awaiting the opening of the light rail line to the airport because then I'll be able to take the bus from my house to the rail station, and that should shorten the travel time plus make it possible to do on weekends.

It's very difficult for me to quantify the benefit of going to this convention. There was no truly concrete outcome, like an editor asking me to write a short story for an anthology, or anything like that. I did a lot of non-networking, which mostly means hanging out with people who might possibly be beneficial to me in some way, but doing so without thinking about how they might be beneficial. I may never even use any of these contacts, and I think that's part of why I have them because I know that some of these people get frustrated with how many people seem to be trying to leverage something with them. And I would still hang out with these people even if they weren't prominent because I just happen to like them as people. Besides, it's always fun to be surrounded by men who are talking about how beautiful I am. That's not something that happens to me in real life. In real life, I'm invisible. At a convention, I'm a sex symbol. I suppose I should prefer that they talk about what a great writer I am and build up some kind of feminist ire, but in that crowd I'm not sure I count as a "great" writer, and at least one of them has talked about me being smarter than he is (even wrote that when autographing a book for me), so I'm not going to get my panties in a twist about being considered the pretty one.

I gave away a fair number of bookmarks and met lots of people, and I did fun things. Even though this was a "work" trip, it did have the elements of that relaxing vacation I keep talking about taking. The time difference meant I never had to set an alarm to get up in the morning, and my mornings actually felt pretty leisurely (usually when I'm staying at a nice hotel, I don't have time to linger in bed and have to get up early and rush off to events). I had enough time to just hang out and enjoy the nice hotel room. I did a lot of reading and hit the swimming pool/hot tub most days. I'm not even that tired, other than the general travel tiredness and some possible time zone adjustment. I did wake up in the middle of the night feeling disoriented when the arrangement of the room felt wrong, and it took me a while to realize I was at home and not in the hotel room.

I think most of my benefits were intangible. I picked up some bits and pieces of info that will likely make it into my career or my writing. I've got a better sense of what I need to do with this problem child book. I have some new promotional ideas. I'm more motivated because I've had the reasons I do what I do reinforced. I want to create great books that inspire fans. If I can carry that forward, then it will have been worthwhile.

Maxed out on Fun

I pretty much ran out of steam Saturday evening. It was about the time I needed to get dressed for the Hugo award ceremony, and I found myself thinking that I wasn't up for an award, and while I had friends up for awards, it wasn't as though I'd get anywhere near them at the ceremony. And then there's the fact that I kind of hate ceremonies like that. So I decided to skip the ceremony. I spent a pleasant evening in my room, listening to music and reading while drinking tea, and every so often I'd look online to see who'd won the various awards. When they announced the last award, I got dressed and went to the post-ceremony parties.

On that final night, I stayed up until 1:30, but some of that was reading because I was right at the part where Our Heroes were in the impossible situation they couldn't get out of, and I didn't want to try to sleep until I knew how they got out of it. I was still up early enough this morning to go to the morning church service and went to a panel. Then I had a nice chat over lunch with an Australian fan before I decided I was done and went back to my room. I spent some time in the pool and hot tub, then had dinner with a friend and then called it a night. They've been showing the recent Les Miserables concert on PBS (pledge drive), and that's been good background noise for packing, aside from the sad times when that poor Jonas brother is trying to keep up with the rest of that cast.

I must say that I'm more than ready to be home. This has been fun, but I may have reached the limits of my capacity for fun. I'm also eager to get back to work. I may be physically tired, but that may have something to do with being mentally energized. I've got a long day ahead of me, though, as the time difference means I'll be traveling all day, getting home just in time for dinner after leaving shortly after breakfast.

I'll do more detailed posts about the content of what I saw and heard at the convention later in the week.

Being Arty

Yesterday was a more typical convention day for me. I guess I went more "arty" than I usually do, as I visited the art show and went to an artist presentation. I had a fun surreal moment in the art show. I was getting a close-up look at the sketches for the A Song of Ice and Fire calendar when I noticed a gentleman standing next to me, looking at the same sketches. I stepped out of the way so he could get closer, then realized it was George R.R. Martin. It was kind of cool to be looking at that art with him. The artist, John Picacio, is a friend (and the main reason I keep ending up with the Cool Kids at cons), and he got a kick out of the story. He was the artist whose presentation I went to. I'm not a very visually oriented person, and I thought it might be interesting to hear the artist talk about the process behind the art. I ended up playing tech support when the projector wasn't working. I knew what to do on his Mac to make it work with the projector, so I was able to figure out that the problem was with the projector, and sure enough, when they brought a new projector it worked fine.

Then I managed to stay at parties until after midnight. As a result, I'm barely awake today. I made it through a few panels and now will need a big nap before the Hugo Awards.

The Texas bid won for WorldCon in 2013, so that year I'll just have to go down to San Antonio. That means I'll be able to save some money for going to London in 2014 (assuming their bid wins).

It looks like other than forgetting the camera cable, my packing was on target. I'll have used or worn everything I brought, except for maybe a couple of pairs of socks. That's how I judge my packing effectiveness. I haven't brought unnecessary stuff if I use everything I brought. Now I'm trying to decide if I want to use one of the swimsuits or take my nap now.

Dangerous Dancing

Yesterday's "I haven't done this at a con" adventure involved dancing. They had a session teaching the Victorian rotary waltz, which got my brain all tangled up because it's the opposite of the Viennese waltz I know. Then there was a "tea dance" afterward, where I seemed to be much in demand as a dancing partner. That meant three hours of pretty vigorous dancing (the waltz is not for wimps). It was a ton of fun, but I'm paying for it today. That hip flexor muscle I pulled in jazz class last week is now objecting loudly to what I put it through yesterday. I'm barely mobile today.

I think today may be a more typical convention day, as there are panels I want to attend. And then there may be hot tub time so that maybe I'll be able to walk again without pain.

On the up side, there was more cello music at the dance, and I bought the musician's CD because it was really lovely stuff and I think it will be good writing music because it fits the mood of something I've been thinking about/working on.

Last night after a post-waltz nap I hit the party circuit briefly. I had two people I didn't know see my nametag and mention loving my books, so I felt like a minor celebrity. I had some brief conversations shouted in passing with friends, but those parties get very loud and very crowded, and someone who doesn't deal well with noise or crowds (like me) can't deal with that for long. I may be back to hanging out in the lobby bar with my friends tonight. There's more space and it's a little quieter.

I did discover that in all my efficient packing, I forgot one thing: the USB cable for my camera. So I'll have to wait until I get home to post pictures. I haven't taken many, but there is one that is rather fun.

One of the Cool Kids

I survived day one of WorldCon. After a long nap, I finally got dressed and headed out at about the time things opened. They were short-staffed at the SFWA table, so I volunteered to sit there for the first hour, which was a good place to see familiar faces drift by and to meet new people as they came by the table. During a later wander through the dealers' room I ran into still more people, ranging from a college friend to writers I only run into at cons.

Since I don't have a real schedule at this convention, I decided I want to do stuff that's different from what I normally do. For instance, although I like music, I almost never go to concerts at conventions. Well, they had the musical guests (Tricky Pixie) perform a number at the opening ceremonies, and the band included a cello for the "bass" part. I love the cello sound, and they were very good musicians, so I decided to go to their concert (I guess you could say they had me at cello). I'm even considering getting their CD.

Then there was a brief run through a few of the parties and finally meeting up with some friends in the lobby outside the bar. Thanks to the friends of my friends, that was a rather august gathering. If I mentioned who I was hanging out with, it would sound like I was indulging in egregious namedropping. I got to hear some great stories of conventions from way back, including tales of some of the great Grand Masters (from someone who qualifies as a Grand Master, himself). There was a minor debate/discussion about generation gaps among fandom and a general discussion about fans freaking out about meeting favorite authors -- and authors who still freak out a little about meeting their favorites.

I don't know what it says about me that I usually end up in the middle of a group of men like that -- all married, and while there are some compliments, there's no real flirtation or anything that would upset a wife. I once read a book where a character was described as the kind of woman the boss's wife would hire to be her husband's secretary, and I think I fall into that category, not so much because of being unattractive, but because of some personality thing. I guess I come across as someone who wouldn't be receptive to anything untoward and maybe also as a little remote, like someone you look at and interact with but don't touch. I don't mind because I like hanging out with men like that, but it is interesting that at almost any gathering, I'll be surrounded by admiring men who aren't hitting on me in any way.

I made it until about 11 before I started collapsing, then was up not long after 6 this morning. I did a shift helping out in the SFWA suite, and now I guess I need to get ready for the one official event I plan to do today -- which is another thing I never do at conventions (I'll report on it tomorrow). After that, there will probably be napping before another round of parties and hanging out with the cool kids again tonight.

Time Lagged

It turns out that my concerns about the time difference in Reno were well-founded. I managed to stay up until 10 local time last night, but the last half hour was a struggle. Then I was wide awake and starving at 6 this morning. Fortunately, there's one 24-hour restaurant in this hotel, so I was able to have breakfast (the other places didn't seem to open until after 7). I was surprised that there were people in the casino at that time of morning. It wasn't exactly rocking, but it wasn't dead. I did notice that instead of the cocktail waitresses working their way around the casino, they had a coffee and donut cart. I also saw them disinfecting the slot machines. A casino at 6 in the morning is kind of pathetic. I don't buy into the glamour at the best of times, but this removed any last shreds there might have been.

I had a pretty good trip yesterday. I took the bus to the airport and decided to get off at one of the stops that transfers from my neighborhood bus to the airport bus instead of riding all the way to the transit center while fretting that I'd miss the connection (because the bus from my neighborhood is always late). That meant standing outside for a while, but it wasn't too bad. Then my plane was full of Vietnam veterans on their way to a convention in Reno. The one sitting by me reminded me a bit of my dad, and I'd bet he was a retired officer (with my upbringing, that's something I've learned to recognize). When he saw me tear through the American Way crossword puzzle in just a few minutes, he offered me the puzzle in his New York Times, and then at the end of the flight he got my bag down from the overhead bin, then asked every other lady nearby if she needed her bag. Otherwise, he read his book and I read mine and we didn't feel obligated to chat, so he was pretty much the perfect traveling companion. This plane had in-flight entertainment, so I plugged in my phone's headset and listened to classical music, except for when they showed an episode of Parks and Recreation.

Once I got into my room, got checked into the convention and got something to eat (great discovery: the appetizers and drinks in the Italian restaurant bar are half-price during the late afternoon when my body is craving food -- I inhaled a pizza and then was surprised when I got the bill and saw it was half-price), I made a quick Walgreens run to pick up some toiletries (cheaper than paying to check a bag) and snacks, then hit the indoor swimming pool to loosen up my muscles.

Nothing starts at the convention until about noon today, so I will likely end up taking a nap soon. I may have been awake at 6, but I'm still sleepy, and tea isn't helping.

WorldCon: The Firefly Panel

I knew it was too good to last. Our false fall is over, and we're back to summer, though, mercifully, a "normal" summer and not the 100+ temperatures we had earlier. Meanwhile, taking a ballet class with a bad case of Book Brain is, well ... interesting. I'd get a random idea or thought and completely forget the entire combination I was supposed to be doing while I was busily writing in my head. Today, I think I'm going to disconnect from the Internet for the whole afternoon, without even taking e-mail breaks (since e-mail breaks tend to stretch out into other things) and really dig into the book. The publishing world shuts down on Friday afternoons in the summer, so I don't have to worry about any urgent notes from anyone.

I'm going to start doing some rundowns/summaries from WorldCon panels. I think I'll start with the ones I moderated, since I wasn't able to take notes and am therefore more likely to forget what was discussed (if I haven't entirely already). And since it's Friday and I don't want to think too hard, I'll talk about the Firefly panel. The official title was "Firefly: What Would the 2nd Season Have Been Like?" and the panelists were me, Dani Kollin and Rebecca Moesta. I was drafted at the last second to moderate, but as I've put just the teensiest bit of thought into the subject, that wasn't exactly a challenge for me. I think this panel may have been the most fun I had in the whole convention. It was a highly energized hour and fifteen minutes with the audience really into it, and I suspect we could have gone on for quite a bit longer.

These recollections are pretty stream-of-consciousness and may focus the most on what I said because that's what I remember. I did start off trying to get us talking about how we think the series might have continued if Fox hadn't cancelled it, and that transitioned into talking about what might happen if some miracle occurred and they decided to start another Firefly series picking up after the movie, and from there we talked about the rumored possibility that the movie was kind of what was originally planned to be the second season arc, just compressed into a movie. I'd thought about how that might have played out over time. My theory is that the Operative would have been introduced as the season one finale cliffhanger. The pattern on both Buffy and Angel with season-ending cliffhangers was never with the characters all in immediate jeopardy so that the next season picked up right away. The seasons tended to end with the characters defeating the Big Bad and feeling pretty good about things, and then at the very end we'd see something new pop up that the characters might not even be aware of (think Darla in a box). So I suspected that at the end of season one, Our Big Damn Heroes would have had some moment of triumph, and then the very last scene of the season would involve the Operative being introduced, so that we'd know they were going to be in huge trouble, and it would be midway through the next season before they became aware that he was chasing them. Apparently, there is a fan project that has written "scripts" for a season two that does break down the events in the movie into a season, so maybe I'll have to check that out.

Storylines people wanted to see picked up or dealt with included Book's past (Dani thought that seeing the Operative in the movie was seeing a mirror of Book's backstory), what decision Inara would make after the movie (stay or go back to the House), the crappy town where Wash is a hero, and what Jayne's mother would be like. Dani had a fun scenario worked out for that: Jayne would be frantically gathering all his weapons out of his quarters and then dump them on Simon in the infirmary, telling him that they were all his. Then this teeny, tiny woman would come on board and greet Jayne, and our big, tough guy would be utterly terrified of her. She'd notice the stockpile of weapons, Jayne would insist they were Simon's, and then she'd whisper to Jayne, "I don't want you associating with him." There was some discussion as to whether or not the tiny-but-tough mother was a cliche, and I pondered the idea of a more Jayne-sized woman, but I have to admit that this scenario is entertaining to ponder. I didn't seem to get a lot of support for my assertion that the "If I ever kill you, you'll be awake, armed and facing me" line in the pilot from Mal to Simon was foreshadowing. Not that I expected Mal to ever actually kill Simon, but I did imagine that at some point they were going to get into a showdown.

For more speculation, I brought up the fact that Joss's shows tend to have massive cast expansion as they progress, as they keep adding more and more characters. How would that have worked if Firefly had continued to five or more seasons? There's a finite amount of space on the ship, which limits the number of regular characters (unless they start setting up cots in the cargo bay), so perhaps we'd just have a larger cast of recurring characters they run into on a regular basis, with familiar faces at any places they visit regularly. Dani mentioned that the other pattern was turning a de-fanged (mostly) enemy into part of the gang, so one of the new people would probably be something like a vegetarian Reaver -- one who didn't fit in or was an outcast from his people. That sparked some brainstorming, so I suggested that Simon would come up with some kind of chemical or drug that would help the vegetarian Reaver stay somewhat sane (since the vegetarianism only rules out cannibalism) and safe to be around, and there would have to then be a situation where the Reaver crew member was cut off from being able to get his medicine, with time running out before he started going nuts again and became a threat.

We pondered whether there was room to do a musical episode. My suggestion was that it would take place in River's head (I guess this would have to have gone before the movie or disregarding the movie, since she seems to be more or less well now). We'd see the crew going about their business in a normal way, but then we'd see it from River's point of view, and she'd see it all as a big musical.

There was so much going on in that panel, with suggestions flying fast and furious from the audience and panelists, that I can't begin to capture it all. If you were there and want to chime in with something I missed, be my guest!