CONvergence Report

[mmerriam]

The con was an extra day long this year, causing me to develop the oft repeated mantra of: "This is a marathon, not a sprint."



Thursday:

Getting into the room proved surprisingly easy, though registration held some minor challenges. Once ensconced in our room, we pulled out the highlighters and sat down with the programming books, planning our course of action for the next few days.

I attended the City as Character panel first thing. It started slowly, with the panelists mostly talking about cool cities in speculative fiction, and what makes them a cool city, but that was not what I had come to hear discussed, so asked, "Yes, but what makes a city act as a character in a story? What elements need to be present to cause the city to become as much a character as the protagonist?" One of the panelist replied that in truth a city, while it might have character, could never truly be a character, only an anthropomorphized idea, to which another panel member took exception, and they were off.

I had one panel to be on that day, Where Do You Start? There were some issues actually finding the panel, which was held in Krushenko's. The programming book listed the room in one cabana and the pocket grid in another. Still, we all (as in Joel Arnold, dmbaird, Garnet Gyre, and myself) found our way to the room. We talked a bit about how each of us starts, both creating the story, and the actual physical beginning of the work. As is to be expected, we all had different styles, some of us just starting at the beginning and writing, some using outlines, and others writing pieces of the story as the whim hit them and tying it all together later. Most of my panel mates agreed that they (typically) start with a character, which is something I don't always do. It was high energy and fun, with a good bit of Q&A interaction with the audience.

We ran up to the room and had a bite to eat, then went back downstairs for Opening Ceremonies. We did not stay for the entire ceremonies because the room was too packed and hot, but I do think it was one of the best openings to a convention I've ever been to, including a well produced and acted Austin Powers spoof (shot as a movie and played on the jumbo screen). There was also a video production used to introduce the 23 returning Guests of Honor, which was pretty funny and well made. We sat next to materia_indigo, though we did not realize it immediately.

We talked with ladysea, and mnfiddledragon and their wonderful children in the area near the Grand Ballroom for a good long time, which was fun. I'm always happy to see friendly faces. Once parted ways with them, careswen, greykev, and akillianna went around the hotel with me and we hung up fliers for my reading and book release party.

I stopped by Programming Ops to try and get a couple of clarification about where a couple of my panels were, since I was getting conflicting information. The person in the room was pretty useless, as is shrugged and said, "I don't know, I'm just a volunteer." Grr. I did run into mreauow who was coordinating the American Sign Language interpreters for the convention (which I thought was cool thing) and we chatted for a bit.

I went to one more panel that night, GBLT SF, which turned out to be a disappointment, as it was nothing more than a list of books with some GBLT characters or content. I was looking for a deeper discussion about the challenges and joys of writing GBLT characters.

After that I retreated to the room while the rest of my party ventured forth into the parties and games. I wrote on a couple of different projects, and then went to bed.

Friday:

Got up early and attended the Influence of Joseph Campbell panel, which was just lovely and brilliant and had some of the most knowledgeable panelists of any panel. The audience was good as well, posing excellent questions and making keen observations. There was deep talk about Heroes, and what makes a hero tragic, romantic, ironic, or comedic. It was one of the highlights of my con.

We hit the Dealers Room afterward, because I thought this would be the best time for me; early and before the crowds. I finally got to meet paraselenic in real life after having become friends with her online over the last year. I bought a couple of books that I've been searching for (in one case, for over 20 years) for a dollar each, and careswen found the Perfect Corset for $125. We talked to damncutekitty for like two minutes, but we were all on our way to other places. I meant to talk with her later, but I had forgotten how hard it can be to find people at this convention, and I didn't see her again. We walked out of the room happy, until careswen came down with her second migraine of the convention, the poor thing.

I stayed in the room with her and wrote some more, finally going up to dmbaird's reading while careswen slept. I enjoyed the reading a lot (as in, I'm going to move dmbaird's book up my list of to-read books). Once back in the room careswen was feeling better, so we gathered up greykev and made a run back to town, where greykev had left some things in his apartment and careswen and I stopped at our home to get her a costume for the evening LARP and allow me to take care of The Reverend Selena's needs. Then back to the convention we rushed.

While careswen, greykev, akillianna, glass_eye_01, and williamofoccam played in the Steampunk Live Action Role-Play (hence the need for a costume) I had two panels to be on.

The Twin Cities Speculative Fiction Writers Network Meeting was our annual event where we explain the function of the group, what events it holds, how many writing groups it sponsors, and other things we do, such as "Coffee and Conversation" with major local SF professionals. It was a good audience, and I think that hilarymoonmurph and I did a good job pitching the group.

Afterward I had to rush through the evening crowds to the other side of the hotel to be on Getting Published 101 with Jerrod Balzer, Cynthia Booth, Roy C. Booth, Garnet Gyre, and Philip Kaveny. We did some of the basic 101 stuff (manuscript presentation, cover letters, that sort of thing) but then ventured into more 202 things, like contracts, and agents, and rights, and how publication works, and copy edits, and not being a pinhead, and other more advanced things.

I went back to my room to recover for a little while, then I ventured back out, taking a swing through the room parties before encountering pezwitch and finding a seat at one of the tables in the area near the cabanas. The Steampunk larpers popped in and out as they moved from party room to party room, collecting clues to the mystery, and bedside_trauma stopped and chatted with us for a bit as well. Afterward I went back to the room and, after watching a fireworks display from my seventh floor window, crashed.

Somewhere in the day (actually, a few times in the day) we ran into various dragonseptarts folks, but I can’t remember exactly when. At one point a friend leaned over my shoulder while we were hanging out around the tables by the cabanas and, nodding to careswen all decked out in her corset and costume, said to me, "Your wife is hot."

Oh yeah, I know!

Also, sold my first two books of the convention!

Saturday:

I arose from bed before everyone else in the hotel room, showered, and walked down to the store to buy doughnuts and soda for the book release party later in the day. I found out the cashier in the little store had been at the convention the night before and was planning to go that afternoon to see Peter Mayhew (Chewbacca) at a presentation. He told me he was a big fantasy reader, so I invited him to my reading. He didn't come, but I made the offer.

The first thing in the day was careswen's panel, Living with a Writer. One of the panelists couldn't make the con, but she still had Cynthia Booth with her, and they drafted dmbaird's Significant Other, Eric to sit with them. It was a good panel, well attended and with thoughtful commentary about the care and feeding of the spouse who writes. careswen only had to threaten to put duct tape over my mouth once. A panel that could have easily turned into a bitchfest with the wrong people, instead it was an honest look at the joys and trials of living with someone whose job isn’t 9 to 5, has erratic income, and has to suffer all the things writer's suffer, like rejections, deadlines, moments of loss of confidence, bad reviews, and other challenges. There was some very good discussion about balancing work and family. The audience was once again excellent, asking great questions and providing good comments.

Once that was over, I had to zip to Writing Business: Cover Letters, Manuscripts, and Rejections with Roy C. Booth, kellymccullough, hatfield13 and materia_indigo. There was one hitch, as some guides had the panel listed to be in Krushenko's and others in the Literary Lounge.

Fortunately careswen and greykev went up to the lit lounge to set up for the book release party, so they were able to tell everyone who had gone to the wrong place to head down to Krushenko's. careswen sent me a text message warning me that a dozen people were on the way down, so we held off starting until they arrived. This one was a high-energy Q&A with a very large audience. We covered at lot of the same ground as the 101 panel, but we also covered things not talked about, like how to hunt down an agent, and other realities of the business. There were also process questions, and "life-of-a-writer" questions. It was a damned fine panel.

Then I charged upstairs for my reading and the official release of Shimmers & Shadows. We had a good sized crowd of people, about 24 or so attending, which just goes to show the power of free doughnuts and soda. I read "Cindy," a short poem, "Rainfall," the story featured on the cover of the collection, and then to lighten the mood a bit (since "Rainfall" made people cry) I read "Protect and Serve."

I sold more books afterward. One of the weirdest things for me was signing books. I've never really had to do it before, except in a couple of anthologies I appeared in that I had given to family members. I quickly grasped the trick of glancing at people's con badges for the correct spelling of their names. I actually had someone I did not know buy my book, and I signed it. Dude, it felt good, but weird. And it still feels a little odd, because while I have always known on an intellectual level that total strangers are reading my stories (I've gotten emails from strangers who've read my short stories) to actually hand my book of fiction to a perfect stranger and know they are going to read it… like I said, it felt good, but also weird, like I'm a Real Writer or something.

After the reading we dropped off the rest of the books and other heavy objects and headed over to DQ for hot food. I ordered a double cheeseburger and onion rings. They brought me a double burger with no cheese and french fries. I should have sent it back, but by then I was exhausted and starving and coming down from being wound up and nervous and just wanted some damned food before I tipped over, so I stoically ate it. The burgers were flamed-broiled (burnt) hockey pucks. DQ is made of fail.

careswen and I ran off before the others in our group were done eating in order to make it to hatfield13's performance in the Harmonic Convergence Lounge. We caught the last couple of songs in Scott Keever's set as well, which was a nice bonus. It was hatfield13's usual excellent show. I was boggled at how big his children are now. Time flies.

Off to greykev's panel The Good, The Bad, and The Shush! about how librarians are portrayed in popular culture, though it ended up being as much about the day-to-day business of being a librarian as it was about pop culture librarian tropes.

Once that was over, I retreated to the room for rest and food. greykev and I had come up with an idea for hot food in the room involving seasoned instant potato flakes (made with hot water from the coffee maker), diced ham (we brought a mini-fridge for cold food) and shredded cheese. It was made of total win! I then sent everyone off to do their own things while I rested.

I bought internet access for one day and worked on Dark Water Blues and "Steadfast" while alone in the room. One thing that struck me was: I am actually improving as a writer. I had read "Rainfall" earlier in the day, and while I still love that story and still think it is a good piece of work, I wrote it in 2004. Earlier in the week I had re-read "Out Among the Singing Void" in preparation of possibly reading it aloud at the con. I wrote that one in 2006, and I could tell that I had improved as a writer between those stories. While in the room I reread what I had written for "Steadfast" which is still in the first draft, and realized how much I had improved since 2006. It felt good to suddenly understand that I am moving forward in ability.

I went back downstairs for the Speculative Fiction and Sexuality panel, where I talked to Doug Texter (and congrats on finishing grad school, Dr. Texter) and Mike Schoenberg. My conversation with them wound down just as aedifica arrived, so I was able to talk with her for a few minutes before the panel started and again after it ended. It was nice getting to know her a little more and I enjoyed her company and conversation. Yeah for new friends!

The panel itself was pretty good, with several of my TCSFWN friends on the panel. I think we are going to get a challenge to our group to write an alien sex-scene, with no humans, a non-human POV, and with non-human sexual organs, and see what happens. I'll probably pass, since I'm a fade-to-black writer, but I expect some of the others will give it a shot.

I hung around the room chatting with aedifica and careswen until I had to be on my last panel of the convention, Urban Fantasy. I was on the panel with princeofcairo, kellymccullough, Juanita Nesbitt, and dewey921. There was a wonderful moment when we were all in hats, and then we got down to business. This was another good panel. We talked about current Urban Fantasy, recommended some writers we all liked, and then we talked about what makes a story an urban fantasy, as opposed to urban horror, or a college fantasy, or even a modern pastoral fantasy. It was good and smart, and I wish I had been more awake, but I got through it and didn't embarrass myself or anything. I think I might have even contributed a little. And I sold some more books.

After that I went upstairs and climbed into bed while the rest of my friends hit the room parties and took part in gaming.

Sunday:

We got up and packed the room up. Then it took an hour to get from the seventh floor to the ground floor with our stuff. The elevators were packed, and we couldn't even get a single person on, much less our luggage. Finally, I used the house phone in the hallway to call the front desk and asked them just what I was supposed to do. They said to go ahead and use the freight elevators, which was a blessing. Next year, we are starting with the freight elevators.

Other members of my group decided to hit the Dealers Room one last time, so I went around and gathered up all the fliers for my reading and packed them in my shoulder bag. Chatted with mnfiddledragon, ladysea, and their children. Ran into mreauow again and said hi to songwind as we passed each other in the hallway.

And then we were done. Too tired and worn to continue, we packed up and met with some friends for the traditional post-convention trip to the Vampyric Perkins for greasy food and post-con analysis. Then home and taking care of The Reverend's needs and lugging in the luggage. We played a hand of Magic to wind down, and watched the second half of LotR:FotR, then off to sleep in my own bed.

It was a really good convention this year, even if it did wear me out. We also came home with a nice stack of free books, thanks to careswen and greykev raiding the giveaway books on the 22nd floor.

I got to meet new people, connect with familiar friends, build new bonds with people I'm just getting to know, and generally enjoyed myself. Even better, I thought I might be getting sick, but I think all I needed was hot food and to re-hydrate. I'm feeling pretty much normal today.

I was also pleased that the literary programming track was so much stronger this year. I can point to that as something I took part in creating, since I'm the Convention Programming Coordinator for TCSFWN and most of the lit track (and some of hot dish and gaming) were direct results of ideas the TCSFWN group came up with and I was able to convince CONvergence to schedule. Not that it was hard. I gave them a list with descriptions and possible people to be on the panels, and they said, "Great! Thanks!"

Well, that covers it. We now return to your regularly scheduled Live Journal.