Sunday: A Con Report

By Sunday morning I'm starting to feel the con burnout, but there's still so much left to see and do! I drive in and park under the Prudential Center, having been ripped off by the guy at the John Hancock garage, who refused to believe in my discount tickets. I've been walking enough to feel some guilty pleasure at being so close to the con.

I meet up with another writer I know online and we hit a couple panels. The first, one on promoting your first novel with Keith R. A. DeCandido and Laura Anne Gilman, is a practical look-- and a practical demonstration, in a way-- of the trials and tribulations of promoting a first (original) novel. The second panel is technically on going beyond sex, with David B. Coe, George R. R. Martin, Victoria McManus, Laura Resnick, and Melinda Snodgrass, but a lot of what the panel addresses is still sex. Not beyond sex. Which makes for an entertaining panel indeed.

Afterwards, I head down to the dealer's room and then over to Trader Joe's to grab something to eat-- I can't face the food court again. At three I head over to the panel on Defending the Writing Life, with Jack Dann, Melanie Fletcher, Gavin Grant, Gay Haldeman, and David Marusek. The panel is an interesting look at how they or their loved ones defend their writing time, but as the panelists themselves note, writing is something each person has to worm their way into on their own, in their own way, and the tips on how to minimize distraction for one person won't work for other people. I suspect that the panels in general are driving home the infinite variety of writers to everyone. Arguably, this panel contains some of the best advice for new writers: don't spend the advance.

After that, I hit my literary beer (actually, a literary CiderJack) with Diane Duane, which is good, followed by my final panel of the day, the panel on rejection with Janna Silverstein, Charles Stross, Teresa Nielsen Hayden, and Jo Walton. It involves a lot of talk about rejection, naturally, and a lot of talk about slush-- those who missed the panel could find a lot of the information over on Teresa Nielsen Hayden's weblog under the highly addictive blog post and discussion Slushkiller.

I grab dinner and then go sit outside for a while. Feeling like I need a bit of a break from the convention, I call up a friend. "I've been reading the blog," he says. "Do people really call you General?" Yes, Jeffrey. Yes, they really do.

I then go snag myself a seat for the masquerade. About five minutes in, I realize that I really should have done some research and worked out the rules. Original? Self-made? Reproduction? Original reproduction? I'm lost. The costumes are incredible, and I'm lost on the rules. Before the adult division, the MC says she's going to explain the adult categories for the one person in the audience who doesn’t already know, and I hang my head in shame, knowing that I am that one person. Fortunately, I don't need to know the rules to know that the costumes are bloody incredible. (I'm really hoping someone else knows how to reliably turn off their camera flash and can post some pictures here, because descriptions aren't going to do them justice.) My final thought: a spotlight on Terry Prachett might have made determinations of when he was blushing easier.