Convention Wrap-Up and In Surreal Life

It's hard to believe it's only been a week since the Flights of Foundry convention - it feels simultaneously like it was forever ago and just yesterday. It was a marvelous convention, and I highly recommend it to anyone interested in a more literary-focused convention that's both international and online.

One of the biggest discoveries for me was the world of speculative poetry. The last few months, my writing has tended toward poetry, at least in part, and I have no idea why. If you had told me even five years ago that I would be regularly writing poetry, I would have thought you were nuts. High school and the need to analyze the bejeesus out of every word of every poem pretty well ruined any appreciation for poetry that I had for a long time, and it wasn't until I started realizing how much poetry is meant to be performed (thanks, Shakespeare, for a big part of that realization) that I started letting myself be interested again.

Speculative poetry is a space I hadn't really explored before, so when I saw that Flights of Foundry had a challenge to write a poem for each day of the convention, I figured I would give it a shot. I also managed to get into an intro to speculative poetry workshop run by Dawn Vogel, and a couple of co-working and open mic sessions (basically, everything on the poetry track of the convention). It was wonderful! Combining the speculative aspects of my fiction (sci fi, fantasy, etc.) with the lyrical language of poetry was a lot of fun and something I look forward to exploring further. Here's an example of what I came up with (be kind, it's a very first draft):

Light travels at speed, vanishing as quickly as it appears.
In a blink, the mystery of the dark drops away.
The unknown becomes known.

The flash reveals multitudes no one reckoned could exist.
What man thought was empty space was neither.
The abyss is strikingly full.

Millions of eyes (or eye-like structures) turn to the source of the light.
They had also assumed they were alone in the dark.
The sky now knows the others exist.

Since October 1st, I've been taking part in In Surreal Life, a poetry workshop/fellowship that has me working on a new poem every day, with a small group that I'm meeting with to go over critiques of a specific poem once a week. It is stretching my brain and my soul in ways I was NOT expecting, and putting me in a different kind of poetry community than I would have found on my own. I have no idea how I even found it, to be honest, but when I read up on the program and saw that there were scholarship spots available, I figured, "why not? Worst that can happen is I get rejected." Somehow, I got accepted! The mind, she boggles.

The community is wonderful, and I'm definitely learning a lot. I still hesitate to call myself a poet, but I've definitely written more poetry than prose over the last week and change, so there may be something to that. It isn't easy, and it's bringing up a lot of feelings that had been comfortably tucked away, so that's something to deal with. Still, I'm glad I'm doing it. (We'll see if I'm still saying that at the end of the month.)

In conclusion, the convention was wonderful, my presentation went over well, and I've finding a lot to love in poetry. Here, have a cat!

Wanna Hear Me Talk?

I mentioned in my last post, but now I'm doing the official promotional thing. I'm going to be doing a couple of presentations at the Flights of Foundry convention next weekend! Specifically, I'll be doing a game demo for Rolling Realms on Saturday, September 28 at 1pm Pacific. On Sunday, September 29 at 3pm Pacific, I'll be doing a panel presentation on copyright and public domain basics; finally, also on Sunday, September 29 at 5pm, I'll be on a panel sharing my handwork (specifically my crochet, cross stitch, and blackwork) with a few other fantastic people.

This is my first time doing this kind of presentation, and so I'm a wee bit nervous. Still, I'm super excited, and the fact that it's all online means that I'll at least be in my home, and the cats may or may not make an appearance on camera.

So! If you're interested in what's looking to be a fabulous online convention (that's FREE!), come join us next weekend!

Is This the Other Shoe?

 You know how we always talk about waiting for the other shoe to fall? Basically, when things are going well, we're waiting for the negative things to come and balance the scales, because it's not possible for things to go TOO well - something's going to bring us back down to Earth.

Well, lately things have been going pretty well. I've been asked to do a panel at the Flights of Foundry convention at the end of the month, talking about copyright and public domain basics. The convention is being put together using the things that the attendees say they can bring to the table, and so I had said that I could talk about copyright, and I could also demo a board game. They've asked me to do both! I can't say that I expected them to take me up on that offer, but here we are!

I'm also doing a workshop at GeekGirlCon in November, talking about how embroidery can help improve your mental health and teaching the basics of cross stitch and blackwork. In this case, I had suggested the panel and said that I wanted to do it, so it's not as much of a surprise, but I still wasn't expecting them to say yes.

These are things that involve a lot of work, but they're things that make me excited (and nervous) and happy. It's an overall upswing, and I want to say I'm waiting for the downswing. But...maybe this is the upswing that's making up for the earlier downswing for this year? We've had a rough couple of months, so maybe this time, the other shoe dropping isn't a bad thing.

I'm working to maintaining my optimism, but there's still that little bit that's waiting...

Worldcon Post

This year I went to my second-ever Worldcon, taking place in Kansas City, Missouri. In general, I'm coming to realize that conventions for science fiction and fantasy fans tend to be more my speed than gaming conventions. If nothing else, the attendance tends to be much, much smaller, meaning it doesn't feel quite so crowded and full.

The convention center itself was gigantic - I'm pretty sure it was at least a city block long, and may have been a block wide as well. This was good and bad - good, in that there were plenty of wide hallways and areas for people to sit and recharge (either themselves or their phones) without feeling like they're block traffic; bad in that everything was a decent distance away from everything else. On a good day, this isn't a problem; however, I was using my cane the entire convention, and I was feeling the extra distance every time I walked around.

The panels themselves were, by and large, fantastic. I went to a couple of readings for authors I truly enjoy, and loved being able to hear stories from them about how they've gone about writing their works (or re-writing, in some cases). I also got to be called Mark Oshiro's favorite - when he got to the Q&A portion of his reading, my first question was "So, you mention that the main character dropped his bus card. When did he pick it back up? Because he leaves the terminal..." and got a "...God dammit, let me write that down" in response. (I later called him a terrible human being, and he thanked me. Good times were had by all!)

Several of the panels left me with lists of book recommendations, which is always a bonus. It's wonderful hearing about different writing styles from multiple points of view, and realizing once again that there isn't really a "right" way to write. It was also lovely to hear an editor manage to articulate her issues with J.K. Rowling's North American wizarding school, and not have it come across as simply bashing the author. (Her point was that, throughout the Harry Potter books, the world is a monolith - the only part of Great Britain that we see is London, and the countryside where Hogwarts is, which is not near any real city. Having one school for all of North America, and having it somehow lump all of the cultures that make up the countries of this continent shoved together, is in keeping with her already problematic writing style.)

It isn't to say that it was all wine and roses. As I mentioned previously, I personally had a little trouble with loneliness, and the first couple of days I felt as though I were being judged for using my cane and thus taking up more space than I "should". Rightly or wrongly, that was the impression I got. I was fortunate enough to (literally) stumble upon the Accessibility table on my third day, and received a badge ribbon that made things a little easier.

The demographics of the convention attendees still skewed pretty heavily toward Caucasian, though there were significantly more PoC than I've seen in the first few Norwescons I went to, for example. However, the demographics of the panelists didn't really reflect the diversity of the attendees. It can be really hard to get excited about a community that doesn't allow you to see yourself in a position of authority.

On the other hand, the Hugos were a thing of beauty. It wasn't a complete Sad/Rabid Puppy shut-out, and I didn't believe it would be - this year, they hedged their bets by including works on their slate that had a wide range of appeal. Still, we had three of the four prose categories won by people of color (including one translation, which included the translator as a part of the award, which I think is awesome), several of the award winners who couldn't make it in person used their chance to provide a written acceptance speech to call out the BS of the Puppies and how important diversity in fandom and fiction is, and two of the awards were accepted by astronauts. It's hard to beat that.

Overall, I'm very glad I went. Next year's Worldcon will be in Finland, which means I will probably not be attending, but I still plan to get a supporting membership and have the opportunity to nominate and vote for the Hugo awards. What about you? Will you make the trek to Helsinki, or watch the livestream with many of the rest of us as we see how the Hugos turn out next year?

Lightning and loneliness

I'm at WorldCon in Kansas City, MO this weekend, and it's been an adventure thus far. I'm realizing that I've grown complacent in my convention attendance - I'm used to going to conventions where I know a decent number of people, so I'm likely to run into familiar faces who will stop and chat, even for a moment between panels.

That is not so much the case here. The panels themselves have been wonderful, and I've been glad to go to all of the ones I've been to thus far, but between sessions has been more difficult than I had anticipated. I find myself feeling down, and it makes it harder to convince myself to stick around, rather than going back to the hotel room to mope. I've been fighting the urge, but it's not easy.

However, I will give Kansas City this - they throw one heck of a thunderstorm. Currently, I'm hearing thunder and seeing flashes of lightning fairly regularly from the hotel room, and can hear the rain coming down against the window. I don't know if I've mentioned it before, but I am a sucker for rainstorms, particularly with lightning and thunder. (There's a reason why I moved to the Pacific Northwest, after all.) It always makes me feel just a little closer to my dad, who was a storm worshipper and taught me the beauty of a good, soaking rain.

Somehow, it makes me feel a little better. Even if I don't know specific people, I am among my people, and that's still a pretty great place to be.

Prepping for Camp Nanowrimo

It's getting close to that time again! Camp Nanowrimo will be starting April 1st, and I'm hoping that my goal this year is realistic enough to make winning something feasible. I know my current goal is to have a complete draft of Paranormal Investigations Inc book 2 finished by the end of this month, but I realized that I had a bigger gap that needed to be filled in with the end of book 1, and that's what I've been working on. My goal for Camp Nanowrimo is to finish filling the book 1 gap, and get to the big climax of book 2. After that, we'll see if there's still enough material for a third book, or if I'm really just writing one volume - either is a possibility at this point.

In the meantime, I'll be heading to Norwescon this weekend (meaning Wednesday) for a weekend of reading and being around my people. I'm looking forward to it - it'll be nice to get away from the stresses of the day to day for a little bit, and I'm hoping I'll be able to focus on writing while I'm there. If nothing else, I should be able to get some progress made on the projects for my Ravelry swaps - I have one due at the end of this month (the theme is Mythology), and one due at the end of next month (theme: Stationary). I feel pretty good about what I have so far, but it'll be great to get everything finished and taken care of.

That's all the news that's fit to print from my end. How are you guys doing? Any interesting writing or reading?

Some (Belated) Thoughts on Worldcon

I realize it's been a week since Worldcon ended, but it took me some time to organize my thoughts.  It was the first Worldcon I'd ever been to, and going so soon after GenCon was a little bit of a culture shock in some ways.

This year's Worldcon was held at Sasquan in Spokane, Washington.  My husband and I spent a large portion of Wednesday driving the 5+ hours to Spokane, and realized that the sky was getting more and more smoky as we went.  By the time we got to the hotel, the smell of smoke permeated everything.  Turns out, the winds from the wild fires had turned in just the right direction to blanket Spokane with smoke.  The entire city smelled like a barbecue.

The convention center was kind of spread out, which was nice - it never really felt like there were a ton of people crammed into one place, even in areas like the Dealers' Hall, and that's always been one of my biggest issues with conventions.  It helped that the convention attendance was quite small (at least, compared to GenCon), at around 6,000 attendees and 11,300 memberships sold.

The best thing about Worldcon in general was the fact that it was focused on books.  The Dealers' Hall was dominated by tables from bookstores and publishers, which meant that there were so many books everywhere you looked.  It was very dangerous to my pocketbook, to say the least.

There were several panels that I enjoyed, particularly since there was a North American Discworld Convention track.  Something about meeting with other Discworld fans and mourning the loss of Sir Terry Pratchett made the entire convention seem that much more comfortable.

The moment that sticks out the most to me from the convention happened during one of the Discworld panels, one on how Discworld changed our lives.  Eric went with me, even though he didn't want to say anything.  There was a woman there who, after a few of us had shared our stories, shared hers.  She mentioned that she had had some problems with addiction in the past, and that watching Sam Vimes battle those same demons had done her a great deal of good.  Then she said that she had reached a point where she was contemplating suicide, but what had kept her from taking action was thinking that she wouldn't get to read the next book.  She laughed to herself and said that she figured it was crazy, and I just told her that she wasn't alone.  The look on her face when I said that just stuck with me - it was like she never realized that there were others like her out there, who had fought fights similar to hers and had come out a bit worse for the wear, but still fighting.

Making that kind of connection is what going to conventions is about for me.  It means meeting my people, the ones who will understand when I say that I'm terrified to read the last Discworld book, because I know it's the LAST Discworld book.  It means spending time with people who don't mind if all I want or can do is sit in the corner and read, and will happily sit and read with me.  It means finding the family I didn't know I had.

Now that I've gotten the sappiness out of the way...I've been poking away at the book for a bit, and hope to get a little more done this weekend.  It may have to wait, depending on how things go with one of our cats.

Feina is about 15, and she's starting to feel her age.  She hasn't been eating all that much lately, and she's dropped some weight.  We'll be taking her to the vet tomorrow, so think happy thoughts for us, will you?

Post-Convention and Back in the Saddle

Well, Camp Nano didn't quite go as planned, but I'm still noodling with the ideas I came up with for it.  I think I'm going to keep going with it, writing it long-hand for the first draft - it's working well for getting the discovery writing juices flowing.

I survived GenCon, though this year's strain of Con Crud seems particularly strong.  Our booth was bigger than ever, and we were a highly sought-after destination.  It is awfully nice to be wanted.

Anyway, I'm hoping to get back into a "normal" routine again.  Of course, the week after next is WorldCon, being held at Sasquan in Spokane this year.  At least I'm not working this convention, so I'll have the opportunity to go to panels and possibly, just maybe, relax.

Movement and people watching

Lo these many moons ago, I studied acting.  I took some classes at an academy in London for a semester in college, and one of them was called "Modern Physicality".  No, I don't know why that was the name - just go with it.

A few weeks into the semester, we did an exercise in that class where we each walked around the room and eventually paired up.  Each person had to try to imitate their partner's walk, and in the end we had to perform this by walking around in a circle, while the rest of the class watched.  One person would walk normally, and the other would imitate their walk behind them.  The class would call out suggestions for improvement, and finally the original person would be pulled aside while their mimic would continue the imitation.

I was paired with a woman who was fairly confident, and walked with a swing in her hips and her head up to face the world.  It took me a few tries to get the walk, because I had to fight my natural tendencies, but I got it down eventually.  Then it was her turn to imitate me.  At the time, I had been fighting with undiagnosed depression.  I hadn't been so far away from my family for this long a time before, and this happened to have been right after 9/11 - as in, my first day of classes in this program was September 11, 2001.  In other words, I was not in a good place.

I started walked around the circle, with my mimic behind me, and the first thing I heard was someone saying "Awww!" from among my classmates.  A second later, my teacher asked, "Is that really your walk, love?"  It wasn't until I was pulled back and watched my imitator's walk that I saw what they did.  Her head was down, eyes focused on the ground.  Her arms hardly swung at her sides, and she continually reached as though she were trying to put her hands in pockets that weren't there.  She moved slowly, so slowly, and her back was bowed as though under a great weight.  I could hardly believe it - this was what everyone else saw when they watched me walk down the street.

I'm in an airport right now, waiting for my flight home.  Remember the lessons from that class, I find myself fascinated by the body language of the people around me.  Some are walking slowly, casually, as if they really didn't care if they got to where they needed to be.  Several are walking quickly, looking around constantly - they're probably trying to find their connection.  There are a few who appear determined to get this over with - sitting upright, a look of boredom on their face as they poke at their phones.  And some are giving me the seeds of an idea - a man receiving a phone call and responding, loudly, by saying "No way!" repeatedly, for instance.  Watching people watch others is entertaining, too - as this is the closest major airport to GenCon, the convention we just left, there are some folks with different colored hair, funny t-shirts, and (in one case) carrying a stuff sheep waiting for their flights home.  Seeing how others react to these blips on the radar tells me a lot about both the observer and the observed.

Me?  I'm just trying not to get caught staring at people, and waiting to take the first leg of the journey home.

Conventions

By this time on Thursday, I'll be at Norwescon, a local science fiction and fantasy convention with some gaming and alternative lifestyle panels thrown in.  I haven't been to this convention in a long time, and this will be the first I'll be going and focusing on my writing.

I'm still working my way through Camp Nanowrimo, though it's going slower than I had hoped.  Some new characters appeared out of nowhere, and for some reason I decided to write it in first-person present tense.  For the most part it's working, but I still have a feeling that it's something that'll have to be fixed in post.  I'm hoping that I'll be able to spend some time in the writing panels at the convention, and get some inspiration (or at least, some tips on what not to do) while I'm there.

There's also just something so beautiful about going away from home and away from the day-to-day obligations.  I won't get as much written as I want to, because I always go into these kinds of situations with these grand and glorious plans of writing all day and into the night.  Then I get distracted by a six-hour-long Mah Jongg marathon, and there went that plan.  Still, it's a chance to see friends, to put time aside to at least think about writing, and hopefully get a boost on my word count.

Do you go to conventions?  If so, what are your favorites?  Do you find yourself more productive or less when away from home and surrounded by like-minded folks?