Tag Archives: conventions

Not doing too badly

The last few weeks I have been waiting for word that could signal a major change in my writing trajectory. This has produced days of endless nervous tension and lots and lots of email checking.

While I have been waiting, and a little too nervous to write properly, I have had actually not too bad of a time. I have read two books. (The Martian by Andrew Weir a damn fine novel and Hide Me Among the Graves by Tim Powers a favorite author of mine.)

Last weekend was Condor 2015 a local SF convention. It’s on the small size but I had a terribly good time. So busy that I never too the time for a lunch on any day of the con. I was busy from the time I arrived to the time I left for home. (Because it is very local, just a few miles away we did not stay at the hotel.) I participated in three panels (Vampires and Zombies: Why do we keep writing about them, Emerging Epidemics, and What to do when you feel like quitting. All with great fellow panelists and lots of good interactions)

Tuesday a friend came into town for her book launch. My sweetie-wife and I took a half day off from our jobs and spent the afternoon having a lovely lunch, long discussion, and tasty coffee and tea.

I’m still a ball of nerves waiting for word from professionals back east, but I have to say I have also been quite happy the last few days.

My Report from the Southern California Writers Conference 2015

This past weekend I attended my very first writers’ conference. Now, over the years I have attended many many SF conventions and often there are writing program tracks and occasionally writing workshops, but this was a weekend dedicated to the craft and business of the writing.

If you have been to small SF conventions a lot of this looks familiar. The registration table, the meandering about in the hallways chatting with like inclined minds, books for sale, and conventions spaces that are over air-conditioned far too often.

However surface looks are deceptive.

The meeting rooms are not laid out with rows and rows of chairs, nor are their generally panels of people prognosticating from their perch. Here the rooms were set up with tables and the workshop facilitators sat or moved among the conferees. There aren’t as many tracks of programming, but the focus is much tighter. The workshops typically lasted 90 minutes with a ten minute separation between them.

In the evening, after the workshops, there are speakers, and after that ‘rogue’ workshops where people gathering informally to read their material and receive feedback. These nighttime read and critique sessions lasted as long as endurance allowed. I never lasted to the end of one and never made into my bed before two in the morning.

I had a grand time. I met loads of great people and made new friends. I received invaluable feedback on my writing from both professionals and my peers. While much more expensive in both money and sleep then what I would normally pay for a conventions, I regret nothing.

If you write, and if you can get to one of these workshops, do it.

Been quite the busy bee

Last weekend was Condor XXI, so now one of our local SF conventions is older enough to drink. I, of course, attended the convention as I have for quite a few years now.

Our guest of honor was steampunk author Gail Carriger. I’ve personally know Gail since before her fabulous writing career took off. I have thoroughly enjoyed watching her books sell lots of copes and gather up a fandom fairly unique in its nature. (She’s fond of saying her has the best fan I will not debate her wisodom here.)

Friday I was on no panels myself so I got to play around and be totally relaxed. I reconnected with a few friends I see mostly at conventions, and enjoyed the rarest of treats, sleeping in.

The secret masters of programming put me on all media panels this year, but since I ma huge media fan as well as a lit fan and aspiring author, I found not trouble with that.

We discussed the enduring popularity of Doctor Who, and I put forth the ideas that part of the popularity may rest on two aspects of the show. First, they are not tied to a particular kind of story. They can go dark one week, and silly comedic the next. This gives them a wide range of stories to tell and if you didn’t like what you saw this week, wait it will change. Second, the regenerations, first invented to replace an ailing actor, has created a unique possibility for the show. Each new actor playing the Doctor brings their own spin on it and so the Doctor slightly changes as the actors change. This allows the Doctor to always be a reflection of the times when it was produced, keep it fresh and connected to the audience.

On Sunday evening my sweetie-wife and I had dinner with Gail and her adorable boyfriend. It was a very pleasant time of good food, good company, and good conversation. The weekend was a rejuvenating experience for your humble host and improved my mood considerably.

I also finished the draft for my current novel in progress. I landed at 116,000 words and I have begun the process of cleaning up the copy before turning it over to afore mentioned sweetie-wife for her eagle eyed proofing.

In addition to all that I have been back working my overtime hours at the day job, and getting a submission ready for rejection at Writers of the Future. It has been a busy busy week, but a good one.

A writing and appearance update

My current WIP novel is nearing completion. I have started drafting the final chapter, having passed 111,000 words and I expect to land somewhere in the area of 115,000.

Then there will be polishing, and proofing. After that I will need beta readers to tell me how and how badly it sucks.

This weekend in San Diego is Condor 21, one of our local SF/Fantasy conventions. The Guest of Honor this year is the incomparable Gail Carriger a very talented writer of steampunk. (And a dear friend.)

I will be participating as a panelist, stop by and see our local wildlife. J

Here are the panels I will be on:

Saturday 11:00 AM – The Enduring Popularity of Dr Who.

Saturday 2:00 PM – Big Bang Theory: Love it or Hate it?

Saturday 5:00 PM – The Evolution of Zombies on Screen, and in literature and comics.

Sunday 10:00 AM – Buffy: 10 Years later.

Should be a fun weekend.

For Sale: Two(2) memberships to LoneStarCon3 The World Science-Fiction Convention of 2013

Due that sudden unemployment of mine, my wife and I have two membership for this years WorldCon that we are not going to be able opt use.
We are willing to sell them for the price we paid for them $180 each. (Currently these memberships are priced at $240 per membership at the convention website.)

Leave me a reply or drop me an email if you are interested.

Not the best week ever, but then agin not the worst

So on Thursday I became one of the unemployed. This is course a stressful time for and my sweetie-wife. However I look around at the finances and I do not see any disaster on the horizon.

I have already filed for unemployment, updated my resume and performed a basic job search. I See plenty of possibilities and currently I remained in a guarded optimistic state.

This does kill plans for worldcon this year as even if I find a new job quickly it will be highly unlikely that I would have the paid time off for the convention.

To console myself I submitted two short stories to markets on Friday and monday, in addition to resumes, I plan to start sending query letter for my novel to agents and editors.

Seen at LosCon 39

JPL Engineer

This is the Convention that Was.

So the past weekend was Conjecture, the autumn SF convention here is sunnySan Diego. As my earlier post had indicated, this time I was participating on a number of panels, 1 on Friday, 3 on Saturday, and 2 on Sunday making this the heaviest lifting I had ever done as a panelist. What was my feeling on this after such a busy time?

I loved it.

No doubt in great part because I shared my panels with a dazzlingly bright array of fans and pro, who had smart, intelligent, and polite points of views to share. My gods, even the panel on ideology in fiction did not break down into squabbling over political events. We had a good spirited, but always courteous discussion on ideology in fiction. I did not spend the evening hours at the convention, being that we live just a couple of miles from the hotel, my wife and I retired back to our home for board and card games each night. I can honestly say though this was the most fun I have ever had at a small convention.

The only down side was that there were presentations I was forced to miss and I really wanted to see those, including new presentations from my friend Bridget at JPL about the Mars and asteroid missions.

However, I did get to see some things and what I saw I enjoyed, including a 15 minute fan film from 1940s that was a travelogue through the dead cities of Mars. It looked surprisingly good, both in terms what they two brothers achieved and the state of the film after so many years.

I look forward to doing more of this at local conventions.

My convention schedule for Conjecture 2012

Friday

4 pm- Energy Futures (Eaton)
Fusion power has been ten years away for half a century. Renewable energy creates problems as well as solving them—for example, raising the price of corn and causing global hunger—and renewable energy projects such as wind farms now often face legal opposition from environmentalists (http://www.hoover.org/publications/policy-review/article/123656). Natural gas from oil sands and shale has a lower carbon output per megawatt than coal—but its low cost encourages us to use more energy. Where are the technology, economics, and politics of energy going in the 21st century? Robert Mitchell Evans, James H. Hay, Lynn Maudlin, Bob Mogg

(Sadly I will miss the 4pm due to day job commitments.)

6pm-Believable Evil (Garden Salon 2)
What makes a good villain? How do you go about creating a believable evil character? Authors will discuss their favorite evil characters from their and other works and discuss what makes them work. Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff, Lise Breakey, Robert Mitchell Evans, M Todd Gallowglas, Nancy Holder, Robert Pritchard

Saturday

11am-Political SF: When Ideology is a Character (Garden Salon 1)
When political philosophy permeates a work of SF, it can be as much of a character as the people (or AIs, or aliens) in the narrative arguing over its merits and carrying out its precepts. When does it work and when does it just get in the way of the plot? Who does it particularly well? Consider recent books by Dani and Eytan Kollin, Charles Stross, and Cory Doctorow, and other winners of the Libertarian Futurist Society’s Prometheus Award. On the other end of the spectrum, there is China Mieville and his list of Fifty Fantasy & Science Fiction Works That Socialists Should Read, which includes books by Ken MacLeod, Iain M. Banks, Kim Stanley Robinson, and Michael Swanwick. David Brin, Robert Mitchell Evans, Dani Kollin, Eytan Kollin

12pm-Cold Sleep & Generation Ships: Interstellar Travel Without FTL (Garden Salon 2)
If you don’t have faster-than-light travel, your options for getting to the stars are a) suspended animation (Niven, Pournelle and Barnes’ The Legacy of Heorot) and b) dying of old age en route, but raising children to continue the mission (Heinlein’s Orphans of the Sky). Both options create interesting directions for narrative. With option B, the crew tends to lose sight of the original mission… Robert Mitchell Evans, Dani Kollin, Eytan Kollin, Gary Westfahl

2pm-SF and Horror Musicals from Rocky to Dr. Horrible (Garden Salon 1)
What makes a genre musical work? Some become cult classics — The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Little Shop of Horrors, Repo: The Genetic Opera, Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog. Both Lord of the Rings and Star Wars have been done as musical theater. Then there are fan projects: the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society’s Shoggoth on the Roof (published and recorded, but never performed in public); the MIT “Star Wars Trilogy: Musical Edition” (entirely composed of filked Broadway songs); and the HMS Trek-a-Star of 1960s fame. Marc Biagi, Brian Bielawski, Robert Mitchell Evans, Andy Lowe

Sunday

12 pm-Fantasy (and SF) of Manners: When Culture is a Character (Garden Salon 2)
Long before Pride and Prejudice and Zombies was a twinkle in Grahame-Smith’s eye, writers were marrying the tropes and styles of comedy of manners with science fictional and fantasy worlds and cultures. Consider Alexei Panshin’s Villiers books, Walter Jon Williams’ Drake Maijstral novels, Lois McMaster Bujold’s Vorkosigan series, Ellen Kushner and Delia Sherman’s Riverside books, and Patricia C. Wrede’s Lyra series. While fantasy often treats the setting as a character, and SF often treats technology as a character, literature of manners treats culture as a character. Robert Mitchell Evans, M Todd Gallowglas, Dru Pagliassotti, Patricia C. Wrede

1pm-Do the Old Doctors Need a Facelift? (Garden Salon 1)
New audiences brought into Doctor Who fandom by the 9th, 10th, and 11th Doctors, who had decent production values, simply can’t get past the horrible SFX and colorization of what many consider to be classic Doctor Who episodes. Should we upgrade them for new audiences or leave them intact? Marc Biagi, Robert Mitchell Evans, Patrick Harris, Dani Kollin, Eytan Kollin

Chicon 7 – Day 2

So day two of the convention started with the now typical backache, but on the plus side my sweetie-wife and I had a very pleasant breakfast with a person whom I had only known as an on line poster.

There is a forum for people writing and submitting to the Writers of the Future contest and quite a few of us were attending Chicon 7. I had hoped to breakfast with two of them, but we failed to make the connection with one and so it was just three of us at the breakfast buffet. Still, it was very nice to put a face and voice to the posts and we had a lovely conversation before the start of another busy day. Continue reading →