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.

Back from the Nebulas

I had grand plans about staying on top of blogging while I was out of town, but in a rare move for me, I was barely in my room during waking hours. I only made it back to my room to drop stuff off or pick stuff up, then to change clothes, and then to sleep. Otherwise, I was out being reasonably social or going to events. I managed to tweet and Facebook a few things from my phone, but more detailed writing didn't happen.

It's hard to tell so soon just what kind of benefit I'll have received from this conference, but I'm glad I went. I learned a lot, got a lot of great ideas, made a few good contacts, and had fun. I don't know if I raised my profile at all, which was one of my hopes. I felt fairly invisible a lot of the time, and this may have been the first genre-fiction-related event I've been to in about a decade in which nobody I wasn't already friends with seemed to have the slightest idea who I was. One person mentioned having read my books. Otherwise, no one seemed to have heard of anything I'd written, and only a few people even asked me what I'd written. I was trying to ask others about their work or mention having read their work, but that tended to spur monologues about their work without any reciprocity. There were people I've been on convention panels with in the past who acted like they had no idea who I was.

But I was mostly there to learn and meet people, and I did meet some new people, so maybe at the next event it will be easier. I did have some pre-existing friends there with whom I had a really good time. The workshop sessions were pretty good. I have a notebook full of notes and ideas for things I might be able to try in my career, and I have a long to-do list of things I need to implement.

I did get in a bit of fangirling, as I ended up seated next to Naomi Novik at the awards banquet, and not only am I a fan of her books, but her husband was one of the writers involved with the series Haven, so I fangirled all over him (I think I shocked him at even recognizing who he was). They were lovely people and a lot of fun to talk to, and she won for best novel, which means that every time I've gone to the Nebula Awards, someone sitting at my table has won best novel. I should hire myself out as a lucky charm next year.

And since I went on at great length about the outfit I was making, here it is. I just made the bodice. I already had the skirt. You can see that I fit pretty well in the style of the hotel, as we see from the portrait of Bertha Palmer above the ornate fireplace. I had a lace capelet I'd knitted as a wrap, but I didn't get photos taken in it.

The Summer Schedule

I think I only wrote one entirely new scene yesterday. Then I revised a scene that I thought would require a lot of rewriting but that only required cutting a paragraph or two, writing a new paragraph or two, and changing some pronouns. Today I suspect will be another round of new writing, since the last scene I changed will have some major ripple effects on the next few scenes.

And I suspect I'm going to have to go through and change the chapter breaks and headers throughout the book because I've added and subtracted events.

Someday, I'll finish this book.

Meanwhile, I've been making travel arrangements for some of my summer events. I'll be racking up a lot of Hilton points in May and June. I'd learned that my events at Comicpalooza in Houston were starting earlier than I anticipated, so I had to adjust my travel plans. Rather than adding a night at the convention center hotel, since it's not quite that much earlier, I found a less expensive hotel on the way into the city, so I can make the road trip the day before, then have less than an hour of driving (in extreme traffic, much less if it's not bad) to get to the convention center on the day of the convention. That was a compromise between another convention hotel night and leaving at five in the morning. I've never done a big comic convention with celebrity guests and all that before, so this is an experiment. At the very least, I'll have been in the same building with the entire cast of Aliens, which is one of my all-time favorite movies. I'll just be doing the literary panels, though, so I doubt I'll run into them. Though there is a green room that I presume I'll have access to as a guest, so you never know. Actually, there's a lot I still don't know about this convention. They're not big on the communicating thing. I only found out about the earlier than expected panel I've apparently been assigned to when the moderator reached out to the panelists.

Here are the events I'm currently planning to do (yeah, I need to update the web site):
The weekend after next (22-24) I'll be a panelist at WhoFest DFW in Irving, TX
May 12-15 I'll be at the Nebula Awards conference in Chicago. There will be a booksigning open to the public on the evening of the 13th
June 17-19 I'll be at Comicpalooza in Houston
I'm planning to go to ArmadilloCon in Austin in July, but I haven't heard anything from them inviting me to be a participant (and if I don't, then I won't be going)
I'll be at MidAmericon2 (The World Science Fiction Convention) in Kansas City August 17-21
and I'll be at FenCon in Irving Sept. 23-25

That's what I know of now. I did say I was planning to dedicate this year to my career, and getting out there and meeting fans or potential fans is a big part of that. Somehow, I'll have to try to work in some writing, as well.

Convention Inspiration

I've made it through a convention weekend, and in spite of having a "normal" Sunday, I'm still having a typical post-convention Monday in which I'm inspired and motivated to write but utterly lacking in energy. It helped, though, that I didn't have yoga today because of the holiday, so I may have a bit more oomph by this afternoon. I've also taken care of the morning grocery errands (with bonus cheap post-Valentine's chocolate!).

Most of my panels this weekend were on various aspects of history, which of course ended up generating a lot of ideas in my crazy brain.

Current fictional universes/story ideas developing themselves in my brain count: 8

I had one of my more interesting reading sessions at a convention. I was paired up in a slot with Stephen Sanders, a steampunk poet. He writes Victorian-style narrative adventure poetry and performs it, which matches my performance reading style and my subject matter. Since his pieces were rather short, we went back and forth, trading off. I think that made things interesting for the audience rather than listening to one person drone on and on.

I should probably come up with more performance aspects for my readings. I incorporate singing into some of my Rebel Mechanics-related readings because of that Yankee Doodle song, but maybe I should come up with more. I actually have the song that's pivotal to the Fairy Tale series plot written and could sing that. I have the voice, so I may as well use it.

For now, though, it's all about the writing. I have my work plans for the next few months, and I need to get busy. Fortunately, I have a mostly free (aside from some extra music stuff) weekend ahead, and it may even be cloudy/rainy. That means a good chance of a writing marathon.

Convention Schedule and the No-Whining Season

It's a convention week, so I seem to be getting very little done other than preparing. Today I need to work out my reading and bake some cookies for the FenCon party. In case you're in the north Texas area and are planning to come to ConDFW, here's where you'll find me:

On Friday:
4 p.m. -- World Building in Steampunk
6 p.m. -- 2016 Movie Forecast for the Geek Nation

On Saturday:
11 a.m. -- Unlikely Heroes, Worlds, and Wars
1 p.m. -- Reading (I'm probably going to preview the Rebel Mechanics sequel, and there might be cookies)
3 p.m. -- Autographing (copies of A Kind of Magic will be available, either through me or one of the dealers -- I haven't worked that out yet)
6 p.m. -- Choose Your Destiny: Researching Alternate History

I don't have any Sunday programming, so I probably won't be at the convention on Sunday. There's nothing on the grid that really grips me to attend, and the con hotel is charging for parking. It'll be kind of nice to spend part of the weekend at a convention, then get a real rest and recovery day before I dive into a new week in which I have a lot of stuff I want to get done. I had a chat with my agent yesterday and now have a list of projects to work on. No announcements yet until I see where they go, but I need to start developing.

Meanwhile, I've decided what to give up for Lent: griping. I'm classifying that as unproductive complaining. You could probably also call that whining. Constructive criticism to someone who can do something about it is allowed, as is critique of entertainment stuff. I'm talking more about that "woe is me, my career is hard" kind of stuff. I think I can manage not to do that "out loud," either to people in person or on social media. The real trick will be stopping it in my head. When I catch myself doing it, I need to make myself do something positive that could change things because just complaining isn't helping.

And now I'm positive I need to figure out what to make for lunch.

Where I'll Be at FenCon

I spent much of yesterday editing video and now have a rough cut. I just need to do some precision trimming on the cuts and mix in the good audio. Our production is a little makeshift, since the camera records audio but doesn't have a microphone jack, so the audio isn't that good. So we use a separate audio recorder with a good boom microphone, and then I match the sound with the video in editing. That's actually pretty easy on the computer because it shows the waveform of the camera sound and the separate sound, and I just have to match them up, then mute the camera sound. And then I need to apply these skills to doing more book-related videos. But that will have to come after the convention this weekend. There's so much to do! If you're in the North Texas area (or are open to traveling on a whim), come to FenCon this weekend. Here's what I'll be doing. At my reading, I'll be debuting a brand-new story. There will also be cookies (probably my infamous Exploding Cookies). The story is long enough that there won't be time for discussion during that session, but the discussion can continue to my autographing session immediately afterward. This is a story that could end up being taken in some different directions, so I'll be doing a bit of focus grouping. I don't know if this is something I can just let stand alone as a complete short story, if it's the beginning of a full novel, or if the middle of it can be fleshed out a bit for it to be a novella. Of course, any work on this story will have to wait until I get a book proposal written, but that will happen after the convention.

Becoming Moderately Famous

I have survived yet another convention. These are really draining for me because they involve being around people, having to be witty and friendly while being around people, having to have clever things to say in front of an audience, and having that ongoing "am I where I'm supposed to be at the time I'm supposed to be?" worry. It's fun work and beats any business trip I've ever taken in my old job, but it's still work. This one had added "fun" with some transportation drama that required changes of plans.

As a result, I'm kind of a brain-dead zombie today. I've talked to my parents on the phone, but otherwise will likely avoid all human contact, even if that requires foraging in the freezer to find something to eat for dinner. I'd love to spend the day sleeping, but I now have a lot of work to do to get ready for the new book release.

Oh, I was asked for pictures of The Precious. Here's a snapshot I took when I got it:


I've got blog tours booked, so I need to get going on the guest posts and interviews. And somewhere in all this, I need to revise the book I've been working on.

Still, it was kind of fun spending the weekend being moderately famous. A lot of my books sold in the dealers room, so I didn't feel useless during my autograph session (I got almost no knitting done!). Someone said I was mentioned in a panel I wasn't on, which is a nice measure of fame, if your works are being cited as examples even when you're not present. I'm assuming it was a positive reference. I was one of the mentors for the writers' workshop, and I think I was able to provide good feedback (that made me want to take another look at my own work). So, all in all, a good convention. I just need a teleporter. I've decided that if I'm ever making JK Rowling levels of stupid amounts of money, I'll start traveling via private jet -- my own little pod that gets me places quickly without dealing with people. Then I'll have the mental/emotional energy to deal with people in the parts that matter.

The Traveler Returns

I am now home from my adventures and tempted to embark on my second nap of the day, but I may just sit and read and then go to bed early. I was up at 3:15 Eastern, which is 2:15 my time, to catch the 4 a.m. airport shuttle for a 6:20 flight. I would have been home by nine, but the choke point in the journey is the fact that the bus from the train station to my neighborhood runs only once an hour, and my train came in about five minutes too late, so I spent most of the hour sitting at the station and reading. The bus was really full, so maybe ridership will spur them to increase the number of trips. As it was, I was home about 9:45, in time to eat some breakfast and then take a nap. I was going to force myself to work today, and then I decided that I'd planned it as a travel day, and if a more favorable flight had been available, I'd have spent most of the day in transit. As it is, I just have more time to rest between the travel and going back to "normal." And I'm enough of a zombie that I don't think trying to edit would be a great idea.

I had a good convention, on the whole. I managed to do some fun stuff in addition to my "obligation" stuff. One of those things was attending a demonstration on Western European sword fighting that turned out to involve audience participation. With live steel that had a very sharp blade. The guy running the demo figured out that I was a former fencer and let me do some minor sparring. I'd never handled a broadsword before, and this was a left-handed sword, which was different, but it was a very cool feeling.

I also went to a filk singalong, where I finally got to hear some of the songs I hear talked about a lot. Since I don't play an instrument I can accompany myself with, don't know any of the songs and still have a bit of stage fright, a filk circle is kind of scary, but they did a session where they just had everyone sing along, campfire style, and that was fun. Business-wise, I got some good networking done and may have come up with a solution to the problem book cover.

I broke my streak of eating along a river at the end of a convention because the riverside restaurant was really pricey and wasn't actually on the river. It was across the street from the river. Instead, I decided to see at least a little bit of Detroit and took the People Mover to Greektown and had some Greek food.

Now this week I need to get back into copyedits, and then I leave town on Friday for ArmadilloCon.

Day One

I'm gearing myself up (and trying to get my hair to dry) before my second day of Detcon. Yesterday I had a reading, and there were even people I don't know in the room! Then there was the children's session, which I ended up winging because the kids were tired and cranky and not really up to organized activities. I put on music and everyone just danced around. I also learned a new version of musical chairs that I may want to use with my choir kids in the fall. Today, I'm a bit sore and creaky from an hour of dancing, but it was probably good for me, considering the way I've been eating. Today I will make it my mission to find a salad or some kind of vegetable.

Today I've got a panel and my first kaffeeklatsch session at a con this big. I've only done one before at a smaller local con. I know some friends are coming, so I won't feel entirely like the nerdy kid in the cafeteria whom no one wants to sit with. I seem to have lots of opportunities to gain new readers here because I don't seem to be too well-known here. It's an entirely new world to conquer!

I actually made it almost to midnight at parties last night, then managed to sleep late, thanks to figuring out how to completely close my curtains. My windows face almost directly east, so I really get the morning sun, and yesterday I didn't have the curtains set right.

There's a mass autographing tonight that's supposedly a rather loose thing -- not necessarily sit behind a table, but move around and snag the authors you want to find. I don't necessarily function well in that kind of environment, so we'll see how that goes.

Otherwise, there are sessions I want to attend where I hope to learn things.

This Year's Schedule

I should finish my read-through today so I can send the book and some related material off tomorrow. And then it's back to other work because I've got to get through the copy edits on the next book to be published, since Audible already wants to do it as an audio book, and then I've got to finish the sequel. And work on covers. And get stuff done for foreign releases of the Enchanted, Inc. series. And hope I can get all this done before I get copy edits for the steampunk book and have to drop everything again.

I've pretty much firmed up my summer convention schedule, so here's where I'll be:
ApolloCon in Houston, June 27-29
DetCon 1 in Detroit, July 17-20 (I haven't had official confirmation of being a program participant there, but I'm getting e-mails for program participants, and I'm friends with the programming person, so I guess I'll be speaking in some capacity)
ArmadilloCon in Austin, July 25-27
FenCon in Dallas, September 26-28

I may see about adding another in the fall, depending on how things are going and what comes up. If you're involved in a con where you think I might be a good fit and get to meet a lot of fans, let me know. I'm not even angling for a guest of honor type invitation where my travel is paid for. I just rationalized that I could hit multiple US cons where I could meet existing fans and make new ones for the cost of going to WorldCon in London, so I might have the budget to make one more out-of-area trip this year, and it could be fun to expand my horizons beyond my usual stomping grounds. Of course, I'm totally open to guest of honor or toastmaster type invitations, as well. If you're willing to pay my travel expenses, I won't argue.

Now I have to get ready for my final night of children's choir (aside from two more events of attempting to get the kids to sing in public). And finish the book. And keep my voice in some kind of reasonable singing condition. I'm planning a quiet weekend to mix some work and some relaxation before a very stressful Sunday morning.

Avoiding the Debate

The Monday after a convention is always a bit of a challenge because while there's a part of my brain that's revved up and inspired, it tends to get shouted out by my body and the rest of my brain, which just want to rest. But this is going to have to be a busy week as I try to come up with ways to start revving up the marketing machine for next week's big push. And then there's that pesky book I need to be writing.

Nothing really earthshattering came out of the convention. It was a pretty small, quiet con, which meant it was mostly good for hanging out with my friends. We're so busy running things at our own con that it's nice to hang out at one without having real responsibilities. We dubbed it "sofa con" as we spent most of the time sitting around on sofas in the hotel lobby and chatting as people passed by or joined us.

The Star Trek vs. Star Wars debate turned out to be not so much a debate as a discussion of the two franchises, their influences and their influence. The panel wasn't really set up to be a debate, with "moderators" for each team instead of a moderator throwing out questions to the two teams, and many of us on the panel could argue either way. I've never been big on the "vs." mentality that's so common in fandom, where you have to pick a side, and anything said in favor of the "enemy" is taken as a personal insult. I'm just generally keen on things with "star" in the title and spaceships, and I get different enjoyment from each of those franchises. I wouldn't want to give up either one, and both of them were big influences on me or inspirations at different times in my life. Kevin J. Anderson was the Star Wars team moderator, and I was the Star Trek team moderator, and we decided between us to just make it a discussion.

I will say that one possible factor in me agreeing to this was the fact that there were a couple of fully armored Stormtroopers in the audience. That wasn't exactly an incentive to argue against Star Wars.

Since FenCon has some prominent guests from the worlds of both Star Wars and Star Trek this year, I think I'm going to propose that we do have a proper debate with a moderator posing questions, and maybe even a time limit on responses and a formal rebuttal opportunity, like in a high school or political debate.

Planning the Year

It would be easier to get over the cough/cold/sniffles if the weather would pick a climate and stick to it for more than one day. The constant roller coaster of temperatures and the constant shift in wind direction is not helping. Today's a "warm" day after yesterday's "chilly" day and before tomorrow's "cold" day. I was well enough yesterday to get through about seven chapters. I want to do as much today, but I have choir this evening. I'll do the children's choir because that's an obligation, but then I may not manage the adult choir rehearsal because singing isn't my strong suit at the moment. It tends to set off the coughing, especially as it gets later into the evening.

If I'm really good, I'll finish this round of revisions this week. I'm re-reading without the editor's notes so that I don't know what was her suggestion and what was my change, and then I'm polishing to make sure it all still flows and that the wording isn't awkward. Then next week I may do one more read-through. And then I can get back to the book I was working on in the fall. After that, I have a number of possible options to play with and I'll have to decide which project to tackle first. A lot may happen between now and then that will determine that.

One thing I also need to think about is my convention schedule for the year. I'm still wavering on WorldCon in London. I want to go to London, but I'm not sure I want to go there at the peak (and most expensive) travel season and then spend most of the time I'm there sitting in a convention center. It might be better to do several domestic conventions instead, and then I can travel to England on my own. I have several things to research there, if I'm at that point in my writing. I like being in England in October, and it's much less expensive and less crowded then.

So I'm thinking of going to the Nebula awards weekend for networking purposes, since most of the attendees are published writers and editors. The World Fantasy Convention is near Washington, DC, this year, and that's one of my favorite places, which I haven't visited in forever. That's also a good networking event where I may or may not be able to get on the program. Since WorldCon is abroad, there's a North American convention instead, which is in Detroit this year. That may or may not be something I do. I haven't decided on any regional conventions outside my close radius that allows me to stay at home instead of in a hotel. It seems like all the conventions in the general area draw the same people, more or less, so there's not a lot of advantage to going to Austin or Houston in addition to the Dallas events. I have a release next year, so I need to start building some buzz, but I haven't yet decided if doing a lot of travel in the summer will help toward that, since people may forget by the time the book is out.

I guess I should throw this out there. What events do you know of where I'm likely to meet lots of cool people who will then want to buy my books, where there will either be existing fans or people likely to become fans? Where do you go to meet authors or learn about books you want to read? Bonus if you're on a convention committee and can make sure I'd be able to get on the program. I'm generally fairly amusing on panels, and I do pretty good readings.

Of course, a lot of this depends on the budget for the year, and a lot of that depends on some decisions in the next couple of months that will be made by me and by other people.

Convention Recovery

Today is recovery day from FenCon. I was going to try to go over and help with the final clean-up, but I apparently overdid the work I did tearing down last night because my bad knee is non-functioning this morning. Walking is a slow and painful process. It may loosen up throughout the day with rest and gentle movement, but by then it will be too late for me to be able to help.

In spite of today's physical pain, I think this may have been my favorite FenCon so far. Part of it may have been the later than usual date, which meant my ragweed allergies weren't in full force, so I was able to actually enjoy the convention. I wasn't sick, like last year. Thanks to a video I did for the opening ceremonies, I was more famous and recognized than I've ever been (nearly a decade of novels and I get mildly recognized, one four-minute video and I got fannish adoration from famous people). They kept me very busy on panels, so that I always had something going on during the day, and when I wasn't working, I was helping the tech crew or the staff lounge. I also seemed to interact more with the guests of honor, which I often don't get the chance to do. I had a really nice lunch chat with Teresa Nielsen Hayden. She was very active on a Usenet writing forum I used to frequent, and though she understandably didn't remember me (I don't know if I ever got up the nerve to post), the fact that I remembered her got the conversational ball rolling. I spent a fair amount of time with Charles Vess, helping him with a computer issue, and he gave me chocolate, so I think I'm now a forever fan. I'm not a very visual person, so art isn't a big thing for me, but I did buy a copy of the print of artwork he did for the convention because something about it spoke to me and I think it will need to find a place on my office wall. Or maybe my bedroom wall. Anyway, it will need to go somewhere once I finish whatever redecorating I decide to do.

In spite of being a music person, I've never managed to hear much of the musical programming at the convention, but I made a point of hearing Heather Dale after listening to her sound check. Just checking the microphones, she had a lovely voice and excellent pitch (I have pitch issues), so I had to hear her actually perform. And then I had to buy a CD. We chatted for a while, and she guided me to one that actually fits perfectly with what I'm currently writing because it's all songs inspired by folklore about fairies -- and not the cute kind. I have a feeling I will end up getting more of her music and becoming a raging fangirl.

Meanwhile, I now have a celebrity endorsement for my chocolate chip cookies, as I fed Amber Benson after a panel we had together. We also geeked out over Harry Potter together on the panel, agreeing that we kind of want to crawl inside the books.

I ended up having a lot of fun with the Whose Line is it Anyway game, although I'm still not great at improv. I was the one playing the "hostess"  in the party guests game, and I did manage to guess them all. I saw cameras in the audience, so there will likely be photos surfacing.

I got lots and lots of blog fodder ideas from the various panels I was on, so you can look forward to that over the coming weeks.

Here's a nice photo essay the local newspaper did about the convention (My PR coup). You may have to go through a screen offering you a subscription, but just click on the "free version" button. The Doctor Who panel I moderated is included. I was the crazy person who decided to include the Dalek on the panel (he didn't say much). I'm the one in the red top toward the middle of the panel.

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.

CoughCon Aftermath

I survived FenCon. I did have a good time, though it wasn't the typical convention experience at all. I mostly helped with the staff lounge, emerging when I had programming. That meant that my trying to rest and take it easy was actually useful. We had a few bursts of activity when we had to put together sack lunches for the staff members who couldn't leave their posts, but otherwise I just needed to sit in there to keep the room open or I monitored the radio in case we got calls from elsewhere.

So, what it boiled down to was hanging out with my friends and occasionally emerging to talk about geeky stuff, which isn't a bad way to spend a weekend. I just know that there are friends I only see at conventions that I didn't get a chance to catch up with, and that's sad, but I definitely wasn't at my best. As I kept saying to people expressing concern, this actually was dramatically better than I was a week earlier. The fever was gone and the infection was gone. The cough was more throat-clearing than lung-clearing. But now I'm very, very tired and I think I'm going to spend today resting. I have this idea in my head that if I could manage to get the right amount of the right kind of sleep, I'd wake up feeling entirely well. So far, that kind of sleep has eluded me, but I will keep trying.

One thing I do need to do today is rewatch the season premiere of Haven. I watched it, but the antihistamines were kicking in, so at this point I'm not sure what was really in the episode and what I dreamed was in it after watching it. I did watch Doctor Who, and I'm already sad that we have only one more episode with Amy and Rory. There seems to be so much untapped story potential with those characters. I think I'd be less sad about them leaving if they'd really used all the potential. Adding Rory's dad near the end doesn't help because now I also love him and want to see more of him and his sort of support staff role. And I want to know just how much he really knows now that he's in on the secret. Does he know the whole story? Does he know that his son has 2,000 years worth of memories or that he has a granddaughter who's a time-traveling archaeologist?

I have some blog post fodder from some of my panels, and let's hope that I get that magical healing sleep today so I can think clearly enough to write those posts.

Preparing for CoughCon

My crazy con weekend is about to begin. I'll be at FenCon all weekend, though I suspect this will be a low-key convention for me because I still don't have a lot of stamina. The cough isn't nearly as bad, and I finish the antibiotics tonight (thank goodness, because the weird metallic taste they cause is driving me nuts), but I'm definitely not my usual perky self, and I may not be around much when I'm not on programming.

Right now, I'm listening to the marathon of season 2 of Haven while doing my usual morning work stuff. I'll either watch the season premiere when I get home tonight or when I get up in the morning. And then I won't be able to talk about it all weekend because no one else I'm around will have seen it. I'll be torn between wanting to tell all and wanting to sing out, "Spoilers!" like River Song on Doctor Who.

This weekend's panels will include one on TV shows that were cancelled too soon, Doctor Who, fairy tale themes in current entertainment, and Phineas & Ferb. I'll also be doing a reading, probably an excerpt from Much Ado. My reading is Sunday morning, and by then, I hope the cough will be gone enough that I can read. Then again, I can seldom do good readings at FenCon because it tends to be RagweedCon for me. Coughing is only slightly different from sneezing when it comes to enhancing a performance. Someday, I'll be healthy and well-rested before this convention. I think I started a bad trend when I went through my first FenCon sleep-deprived after my whirlwind trip to the Serenity premiere. I'm amazed that they wanted me back.

And now I think I need a mid-morning nap to recharge myself for this afternoon and evening.

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.

Unexpected Panels

I survived my busy weekend and now am getting ready to get back to work. I had some good panels that I now vaguely remember doing (the weekend is something of a blur) and got to spend some time with friends. I didn't end up using my reading piece because the only people in the room were the three readers, one of my friends and then the friend of another reader who mostly just wanted to go get a drink. So I called it a walk. Now I can use that piece at FenCon, and maybe it will be to promote a book that by then I'll actually know will be published.

I didn't end up having to sing in the small group on Sunday. The person I was on stand-by for wasn't there at first, so I did one run-through with the group, but when we started the second run-through, she showed up, and I was never so glad to see someone because I was choking. I swear, my house must be magical because anything I sing here sounds wonderful, but I lose my ability to sing the same things when I'm somewhere else. I should rent out my house as a concert venue. Or maybe it's only magic for me. Anyway, I gladly surrendered my part and went off to deal with the kids, who were their usual adorable selves.

I may have done a convention first in my Sunday panel. I had a jar of jam I couldn't open. I'd tried all the usual jar-opening tricks, and none worked. It's times like that when I can see the usefulness of having a man around the house. And then I remembered that I was going to be at a convention, and surely someone there would be able to open my jar for me. Plus, I was going to be on a panel on writing humor, and you can pretty much guarantee that someone will mention that a lot of humor comes from the unexpected, so I figured that pulling a jar of jam out of my bag and asking for a volunteer to open it would count as "unexpected." And that's just what I did. How many panels involve a panelist asking for help opening a jar?

Incidentally, Paul Cornell, comics, Doctor Who and assorted other stuff writer (and a friend of mine) has generated a lot of Internet buzz about wanting gender parity on panels, so that if he's on a panel that's mostly men, he's going to step down and invite a woman to be on the panel. I don't know what conventions he's going to, but at most conventions I go to there's usually just a token man on the panel, and I'm not always just on the "girly" topics. For instance, this weekend there was one man on the panel about steampunk aviation. It was a bunch of women talking about the specifics of airships, both in terms of history and physics. I guess at bigger conventions like WorldCon that's more of an issue (I have been the token "girl" on a WorldCon panel), but at the smaller cons, the panelists seem to be mostly female. Maybe I should stalk Paul at WorldCon so he has to put me in his place on panels.

Fun with FenCon

I survived the convention weekend. Well, better than survived, but at the moment, "survive" is the word that keeps coming to mind. I wasn't at my most social and was in a state where noise and crowds were extremely overwhelming, so there were a lot of people I never got to see or interact with. I may as well rename FenCon "Ragweed Con" for me because it always seems to fall at the height of allergy season. This year, the worst held off until Sunday, so I wasn't either sniffling or in a drugged stupor for the whole weekend, and when I was in public mode I was able to be my usual self. It just took a lot of hiding and down time in between public mode times in order to sustain my usual public mode personality. I barely made it to any of the room parties Saturday night because I ran completely out of steam.

This was my first year to be on the convention staff in addition to being a program participant. Not that it changed all that much for me, since the staff are the people I hang out with the rest of the year and I've usually jumped in and done things as needed. It's just this year I had "staff" on my badge and my name in the convention credits. My main job mostly happens before the con, so at the event I do whatever's needed. That meant I spent most of Friday afternoon setting up and then working in the staff lounge, and then when the registration desk got slammed in the early evening I worked registration. I was in "program participant" mode on Saturday and most of Sunday and did my panels, reading, etc., then on Sunday evening I switched to jeans, a t-shirt and sneakers to be on the teardown crew. Apologies to those who were disappointed by not getting to watch me carry huge metal poles down the stairs while wearing a skirt and heels again this year. But I couldn't have crawled under the stage to get cables or climbed the ladder to cut down the networking cables from the ceiling if I'd stayed in my convention clothes, so I was more useful if less decorative.

I think my most fun panel was the Phineas & Ferb panel that included our convention's youngest ever panelist, a six-year-old (who was dressed in his Perry the Platypus costume). I figured that if we were talking about the multigenerational appeal of the show, we needed another generation represented. That was a bit of a test of my moderation skills to keep conversation flowing among both adults and a small child, but I think it worked. We had a very high-energy Doctor Who panel and I was on a couple of writing panels where I hope the audience got something out of them because I know I picked up a thing or two, including a potential story idea. The big giggle fit for the con happened on Sunday afternoon in a panel, but I think it had something to do with the Benadryl kicking in by that point, and I don't remember what it was about, just that I was shaking from trying not to laugh out loud over something that was only funny to me because of the vivid mental image it conjured up in my warped brain.

I was in charge of public relations this year, and I don't think I can take credit for our highest attendance ever, but at least I can't be considered a devastating failure at my job if we had our highest attendance ever. But now there are expectations for next year …

And in the meantime, even though I prefer to go into vegetable mode on the day after a convention, I have a deadline and work to do (with the allergies really in high gear), so I have to work today. At least I have absolute quiet and solitude and lots and lots of tea.

What Will Be, Will Be

It's convention weekend, and I'm so not ready, but I've reached the zen state of deciding that what will be, will be, and one of the things adding to the stress of the week was also one of those things that puts everything else in perspective and reminds me that in the grand scheme of things, so many of the things we stress over really aren't all that important, especially if we let them distract us from what is important.

Like cookies. Instead of working yesterday, I baked. I knew nothing would get done with squirrel brain and baking would help calm the squirrels, and then I can make other people happy with yummy cookies. I can always rewrite the rest of the book after the con, which will also be when the cable gets dealt with.

Fortunately, I'm commuting from home, so I don't have to make decisions for the weekend or pack ahead of time. I have clothes picked out and ironed, but I can change my mind if necessary, and I can get home easily if I need to. Plus, I'll have my own bed at night, which always helps.

Fun things I get to do:
Moderate the con's first Phineas & Ferb panel
Moderate the annual Doctor Who panel
Moderate our traditional Sunday-morning SyFy Smackdown -- this can be worth getting up for. We hash out what's wrong with the network that's supposed to be aimed at people like us. Last year, we created the concept for a new reality show: Ghost Hoarders. This year, I have a foam broadsword.
Plus, I get to spend the weekend hanging out with my friends and consider it "work."