Of course, it’s not just soldiers who pay the cost of the war. It’s their families, and even their friends. And often it’s people who never asked or wanted to be involved– children, civilians, and folks just trying to live out their lives while the world falls apart around them.

There are no easy answers on Memorial Day. But I do want to thank all the people who take up arms for our country. And I fervently hope there comes a day when you don’t have to any more.

Here’s a song that’s been stuck in my head for the past day or so. It seems apropos. The lyrics are simple and the video’s lighthearted, but unless the message at its heart sinks in to the collective human race, there will always be a price to pay.

Find a bunch of baby goslings and their parents while wandering around South Lake Union Park.

Visit a street fair in the University District.

Take a walk on the seashore.

Go kayaking in Puget Sound. (Note: this is not me, but as far as ways to not write go, this seems as fine a method as any.)

For good measure, you can always read a couple of novels.

And acquire that kickass TV show you’ve been meaning to watch on DVD.

Bonus meta-procrastination: Compose a blog entry explaining in pictorial format why you haven’t been writing.

I’m sure I am not the only writer who failed at getting writing done this weekend, though for most people I suspect their reason rhymes with “Riablo Smee.”

In 2004, fresh out of college, I hiked the length of the Appalachian Trail. It was a 2,183-mile hike from Georgia to Maine, and it took from March 8th to August 12th. It is, to date, one of the crazier things I’ve ever done. When I tell people about it, they usually don’t comprehend the logistics at first. “Five months of hiking?” they’ll sometimes ask. “How did you stock up on food? Did you ever take a shower? Wash your clothes?”

And the answer is, yes, I did all three relatively easily… just less often than at home. Because the fact is, I didn’t go on a five month hike. Instead, I went on a long string of three-to-four day hikes, strung out in series over five months. Every few days, I’d hitchhike or walk to the nearest town, and buy food, take a break, eat at a restaurant– and almost always take a shower, wash my clothes, and spend the night somewhere marginally more comfortable than my tent. Then I’d hit the trail again, refreshed, rested, and restocked.

Explaining that probably makes it sound less impressive. But still, string 40 or so of those shorter hikes together, and suddenly you can say “I went on a 2,000-mile hike!” And that’s pretty cool to say, no matter how you slice the details.

Writing a novel has a lot in common with that sort of hike. It’s a long and arduous journey, usually over the course of months, and it takes a hell of a lot of willpower to finish the thing. In both cases, a lot of people say, “Someday, I want to do this” and then never get around to actually doing it, just because the size of the task is so intimidating.

Most of the advice you hear for novel writing is along the lines of Just barrel through the first draft. Keep writing. If you make mistakes, you can always fix them afterward. Various motivational tools, like National Novel Writing Month, are geared around this idea: shut off your internal editor, and sprint your way through the words. Just get that first draft out on paper.

Twice now, I’ve written novels by following that school of thought. In both cases, I haven’t been particularly pleased with the result.

But wait! I hear you say. It’s a first draft! It’s not supposed to be good! You’re supposed to take it and then write a better second draft!

Well, yes, but, in both cases I feel like the first draft sort of fell off the rails, and I find myself questioning whether it’s worth it to revise them, or set them aside and try to improve my craft by writing something new. And while I still plan to revise those novels into something better, in the meantime, I can’t help but wonder: Is there a better way of writing a first draft? If I had hiked the Appalachian Trail the way I wrote those first novels, then I would have just charged into the woods and kept running until I keeled over from exhaustion. It’s certainly a strategy, I’m just not sure it’s the best strategy.

When I went to the Rainforest Writers’ Village this year, I had hoped to come up with a few short stories, but instead I came up with an idea for another novel. And I thought, Hmmm… this is the perfect opportunity to try out a different way of writing.

This time, I’m not barreling through the first draft. Instead, I’m looking at the novel the same way I looked at the Appalachian Trail: don’t worry about getting to the very end. Just complete one piece at a time. In the case of the novel, each piece is a chapter. I’m working on one chapter at a time, working on getting it into good shape, then moving on to the next, almost as though each chapter is its own short story, complete with a little mini-arc (which, really, is how a chapter should be anyway).

But wait! I hear. How do you prevent yourself from getting bogged down by the editing? What’s to keep you from spending months nitpicking and perfecting every chapter?

The answer is simple: Writers’ Group. My writers’ group meets every other week, and one of the rules I’m following is that I have to submit a new chapter for every meeting. This will, hopefully, help me keep the pace up.

So this is my Appalachian-Trail-inspired style of novel writing. Slow and steady. One chapter at a time. There will still, of course, be editing to do at the end of it, but I’m hoping the first draft this method produces will be a lot more satisfying, and that maybe I’ll be inspired, rather than intimidated, when it comes to writing a second draft.

I actually think my chapter-by-chapter method would work for both outliners and discovery writers. To go back to the Appalachian Trail analogy, there are two ways to resupply over the course of the five-month hike: one, you can buy food at stores in towns as you go, or two, you can actually plan ahead of time what you’ll need, and mail boxes of supplies to post offices along the way. The first method is nicely analogous to discovery writing, and the second method to outlining. It boils down to a simple question: How much do you plan ahead?

If you’re an outliner, then when you’re ready to start a new chapter, you pull the next piece from your outline and keep going. If you’re a discovery writing, you keep brainstorming your way down the trail. I always resupplied by buying food along the way, making up my menu as I went– I suspect this is why I’m also more of a discovery writer. I have a difficult time keeping to outlines; I’d rather make things up as I go. And while it’s nice to have a final destination (i.e. an ending) in mind, you have to have fun in the journey, too.

Of course, all this works for me, but I don’t necessarily expect it to work for anybody else. And to be honest, I don’t know even know for sure that it works for me yet– I’ve only written a few chapters, but I’m on schedule, and it’s feeling good so far. I’ll let you know how things go.

The few days leading up to Norwescon were a little stressful, as my hotel room got cancelled without notice (my roommate’s fault, not the hotel’s) and I had to scramble a bit. Luckily I found a room with my old roommate from last year, and after some last-minute rushing to get cosplay stuff together, I arrived on Thursday only a little later than planned. And Thursday night kicked off quite well, with Fairwood Press hosting a small press publishing party in the Presidential Suite.

Friday was my day for going nuts with cosplay, so I painted myself solid black and went as a drow, i.e. dark elf. (As seen below with fellow Wordslinger Andrew Rosenberg.) I had wanted to wear this costume at Dragon*Con last year, but the TSA tried to steal my airbrush.

Speaking of which, airbrushes are kind of a pain to lug to cons. If you forget a part (which I did), you’re screwed, unless you can jury-rig it (which I did). The airbrush makeup is comfortable, doesn’t rub off much, and goes on fast, but next time I may try sponge makeup.

I haven’t done much cosplaying until now, but this was the most complete costume I’ve ever done, as well as my favorite. I even picked up a hat and a cane in the dealers’ room to go along with it.

I’m not sure exactly what appeals to me about cosplay. Partly I think it’s the just fun to spend a little while as someone, or something, else. It’s also a bit of a personal challenge– I usually like to blend in with the crowd, but when you’re cosplaying, you’re inherently calling attention to yourself. Admittedly, cosplaying at a convention is not exactly out of the norm, but this costume would blend in more at, say, Dragon*Con, than Norwescon, where most costumes tend to lean toward goth or steampunk.

So it was fun, and I plan to do it again. At the risk of losing several Man Points, I’ll admit that I like putting outfits, makeup effects, and characters together. Maybe I’ll even use one as the inspiration for a story– which I estimate would earn about 200 Nerd Points, redeemable for luggage or a Doctor Who prize pack.

Saturday was Serious Writer Day for me, although I did keep the hat and the cane, because they were awesome. I had my lunch with my writing group, the Cloud City Wordslingers, and that afternoon I had a short story critiqued at the Fairwood Writers Workshop. This was a round-robin session where several pro authors, including one of my personal writing heroes, Jay Lake, gave me feedback on a short story. It was a really useful and fun exercise– this is the second writing workshop I’ve done at a con, and I plan to keep doing them.

As it turns out, two of the pros really liked my story and the third tore it apart. But that’s how these things go– taste and advice are often subjective, even among writers who know what they’re doing.

The other cool part about the Writers Workshop was the Saturday afternoon social, in which we got to mingle and chat with the other workshop participants. It was great for meeting folks, making friends, and comparing notes.

Also, on Saturday, they announced the nominees for this year’s Hugo and Campbell Awards– congratulations to everyone on the list! Later that night, at the DAW Books Party, I was able to congratulate several of the nominees in person, including Stina Leicht (Campbell Award) and Mary Robinette Kowal (Best Novella; Best Related Work).

As the DAW Party wound down, a few of us made our way back over to the far wing of the hotel, where several room parties were in full swing, many complete with open bars and dance floors. I still had half a bottle of Scotch left over from the Rainforest Writers Village, and with the help of a few friends, we drank the rest of it, and danced, chatted, and generally had an awesome time until the wee hours of the morning.

For thirty years, I have avoided having a hangover. Partly by not going to a lot of parties, but partly also by being smart and drinking lots of water on the few-and-far-between occasions when I have gotten plastered. Not so this time. I woke up on Sunday morning feeling pretty horrific. Nevertheless, I dragged myself out of bed and stumbled my way to a string of Sunday morning panels and readings, the highlight of which (and the last thing on my agenda) was a reading by local author Amy Thomson. (Amy Thomson is the author of “The Color of Distance,” which is possibly my favorite science fiction novel ever– and that’s saying a lot.) She read from a story called Buddha Nature, which will be appearing in Analog in a few months. Keep an eye out for it.

So all in all, a completely awesome con. I’ll close it off with a quick list of positives and negatives (or to use Norwescon terminology, roses and onions):

Rose: Photography. This year I knew about the Masquerade Photo Area, and took advantage of it. I spent about three hours on Saturday evening taking pictures of cosplayers. Fun times. To anyone I offended while muttering obscenities at my camera for recharging the flash too slowly, I apologize. Full set of Norwescon pics here.

Onion: Name Badges. The names on the con badges were too small to read from further than about two feet away, which meant you pretty much had to lean forward and squint to read anybody’s. Kind of defeats the purpose (namely, so you don’t have to admit that you’ve forgotten someone’s name thirty seconds after they introduce themselves).

Rose: Dealer’s Room. Norwescon has my favorite dealer’s room of any con, including Dragon*Con. Maybe it’s because I can buy cosplaying stuff for males beyond just steampunk garb. Or maybe it’s the general diversity of the dealers, or how friendly and willing to chat they are. But I like the dealer’s room.

Onion: Panels. This is a personal one for me: I didn’t attend many panels. Partly because Norwescon was more of a social con for me this year (which was awesome), but I was also a little reluctant to hit up the writing panels. I’ve mentioned this before, but once you go to enough cons, the panels start getting repetitive. You reach a point where you know it all (in theory, if not practice).

Maybe soon I’ll make a few more sales and can sit on the other side of the table. Or maybe I should branch out on the panels– Norwescon has some fantastic science panels, touching on everything from space to biology to nanotech, which I think could serve as fertile grounds for story ideas. I just didn’t get a chance. Ah, well. There’s always next year.

Rose: Meeting So Many Awesome People. Again, kind of a personal one. But until now, I haven’t had much luck meeting new people at cons– partly due to my own shyness, partly because geeks tend to be clique-ish by nature. This year was different: Emily, Steve, Josh, y’all are awesome. As are the folks I met (or re-met) at the Writers’ Workshop: Mae, Tinnara, Jeff, Rebecca, and I know I’m leaving some folks out– my apologies. Thanks, everyone, for an amazing con.

Onion: SakuraCon. It’s an old gripe, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t say it. It’s a ten-minute walk from my apartment, and I’d love to check it out one year. But as long as it and Norwescon are the same weekend, Norwescon will win every time.

Rose: Room Parties with Open Bars. Enough said. And thanks, party-hosting-folks, for helping make Norwescon what it is.

Rose: Room Parties with Burlesque Dances. Oh, did that break my alternating rose/onion pattern? Whoops.

Onion: Room Parties with Jabba the Hutt. He kicked us out. Come on, the door was open. How were we supposed to know it was private?

At least we didn’t get fed to the rancor.

Rose: Single Malt Scotch. That is some pretty awesome stuff.

Onion: Single Malt Scotch. But holy shit, it will f**k you up in the morning.

Flush Fiction is for sale at Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and Powell’s, and hopefully your local indie bookstores as well.

This was the second year in a row I spent a day at ECCC, and I have to say, this year was way more fun than last year. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it’s because I wasn’t fighting a cold this year. Or perhaps it’s that this year was way more chaotic and crowded.

That’s right, you heard me. I like chaos at cons. I like crowds. The energy is fantastic, and I have never once had a problem with stereotypical smelly B.O. Let’s face it, folks, we’re well beyond the days of the basement-dwelling nerd. Geeks have self-respect these days.

In all seriousness, though, this year did feel much different. Just for comparison, here’s a shot of the main exhibition hall on Saturday afternoon at last year’s con. Busy, but not really crowded:

Here’s a shot of the exhibition hall on Saturday afternoon this year:

I rest my case. Not only were there more people, there seemed to be a lot more energy in the crowd. (Although again, that may be because I was healthy this year.) I got the same vibe from ECCC this year that I get from Dragon*Con: mad delightful chaos, with plenty of energy, enthusiasm, and of course, lots of kickass costumes everywhere you look.

ECCC also had a fantastic guest list this year: George Takei, Wil Wheaton, Summer Glau, Adam Baldwin, and Edward James Olmos, to name a few. The lines to get into the guest panels were incredibly long (I saw on Twitter that people waited for an hour and still didn’t get into the George Takei panel), but luckily for me, I wasn’t that interested in the special guest panels. Instead, I walked around, took pictures, toured the exhibition hall, and attended a Star Trek vs. Star Wars Dance-Off put on by members of the fantastic Portico Dance Company (see right).

In other words, I soaked up the atmosphere and just had fun. I’d love to see a George Takei or a Wil Wheaton panel sometime, but I’m not going wait in line for hours to do it, especially when I’m only there for one afternoon.

There are two types of conventions I go to: media cons, and literary cons. Media cons, like ECCC, I attend for the crowds and the costumes and the energy. Literary cons I attend to meet authors, sit on panels, and learn stuff that I didn’t know before. Admittedly, most cons have a little bit of both (and Dragon*Con is as close to a fusion of the two as I’ve found), but ECCC was a pure media con. Fun, crowds, costumes, merchandise, spiffy art.

Next week is Norwescon, and that’ll be more the literary side of things: hang out with writers (including, hopefully, many of the awesome folks I met at the Rainforest Writers Village), attend panels, do the writer’s workshop. I’m really looking forward to it, but mostly for different reasons.

What literary cons and media cons have in common, though, is getting to hang out with passionate, creative people. At literary cons, it’s the writers I get that vibe from. At media cons, it’s the cosplayers. There were some amazing costumes, most of which took a lot of work and dedication to put together. Cosplaying well takes skill (and sometimes guts), and like writing, it’s essentially a creative art– a completely different one, perhaps, but still, it’s a manifestation of that same fusion of creativity, passion and energy that I sense in writers, and indeed, in all pursuers of the geeky creative arts.

Speaking of creative arts, there was some damn fine art of the drawn and painted variety there too, of course. I went to the ECCC Art Auction in the evening, and bought a cool piece by Lar DeSouza. (All the proceeds went to the Seattle Children’s Hospital, so I blew my budget for a good cause.) My favorite find of the day, though, was a print from DPI Studios. Jaysin is a nice guy and a fantastic artist, and I bought a limited edition print of the picture that is currently featured on DPI Studios’ homepage. I snagged the last one, too, which makes it all the sweeter.

There was creativity of another kind as well, in the form of a preview for BrickCon, a Lego exhibition that will be at the Seattle Center in October. There was a lego Batcave, a lego Stargate, a bunch of lego Star Wars vehicles (including a very nice Lego Super Star Destroyer), and perhaps my favorite, a Lego Space Needle.

Next year I think I’m gonna have to carve out time in my schedule to go for all three days of ECCC. Maybe get a VIP pass, too. I mean, it’s only a ten-minute walk from my apartment. Since I have free lodging, I don’t have to feel guilty about shelling out the extra cash, right? As well as the extra cash for cool art? Right? (The correct answer is: no, I should not.)

Full slideshow of pics from the con is here.

For my own part, I was actually doing more brainstorming than writing. In this (relatively) distraction-free headspace, I felt like I was more able to to follow ideas where they led, to flesh out various characters and worlds, and search for the potential plots and stories within them. And without day-to-day life constantly pulling me out of that headspace, I felt like the ideas came much easier.

That’s not to say that the Rainforest Writers Village was entirely distraction-free. A couple times a day, some of the more established pros among us would host workshops. So we got to listen to Jennifer Brozek talk about the intricacies of writing and editing anthologies, and Mary Robinette Kowal, who is also a professional puppeteer, talk about how to read out loud an audience. But because the workshops were about writing, I feel like I never really lost the creative vibe, even when I occasionally took breaks from staring at the computer screen.

Another side effect of being in a place with thirty-seven creative, awesome people is that you inevitably want to talk to them. So there was plenty of socializing, and long chats over meals, as well as a few “after hours” workshops on the intricacies of certain Scottish malt beverages. Many of my writing role models and heroes were there– Mary, the Inkpunks, and plenty of other awesome folks.

Side Note: You know what’s great about being a writer? Once you get involved in the community, there develops a large and ever-growing overlap between your role models and your friends.

Side Note 2: Social anxiety still sucks, and I get it worse among writers than most. I think it’s because even though you’re not supposed to care what other people think about you, the fact is, I do care, very much. I love the writing community, and the vibe I get from hanging out with creative people is addictive, even if I’m just standing to the side of the conversation and listening. I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t one of things that keeps me working at this.

The other big distraction from writing was the rainforest itself. On Thursday the Sun came out, which meant that the hiking trails proved too tempting to resist, and I spent plenty of time traipsing through the woods. I hadn’t done any hiking in the woods since going to Yellowstone in September, so this was definitely overdue. And in the evening, when the sun set on the far side of the lake– magnifique.

On Friday, the clouds and rain came back with a vengeance. This place gets over 130 inches of rain a year, so needless to say, sunny days are rare, especially outside of the summer dry season. And yet, for all the rain, the place was not actually any less beautiful. The forest glistened, and the creeks running through the woods seemed revitalized, and each morning, when the clouds lifted off the hills of the far side of the lake, it was every bit as cool as a sunset.

So, the setting was distracting, but eventually I turned it to my advantage and wrote a piece of flash fiction that took place on the very trail I had been hiking on. The idea might work for a longer piece, as well, so I’m happy. Even if the starting point did happen to be “were-faeries.” (Don’t ask.)

To those folks who were there: It was great meeting everyone! Look me up on Twitter, and if you’re a local Seattleite, hopefully I’ll see you at Norwescon. If not, hopefully I’ll see you at another con in the future, or barring all else, at next year’s Rainforest. Thanks for a great weekend.

(Pic below: Mark and Keffy, on Sunday morning at about 10:30, engaged in the final heated word count showdown. Keffy won with 42,087, but it was a close thing. I lagged slightly behind them at 5,636, but I’ll content myself with the brainstorming I brought home.)

But all in all, I feel like I’ve been spinning my wheels. I’ve done a lot of critiquing of other people’s stories, and a lot of reading and editing of my own, as well as blogging, and tweeting, and planning, but as far as actual word count goes, I pretty much haven’t written anything new since New Year’s. And it’s starting to wear on me, especially since I still have a truckload of editing work to do. Don’t get me wrong, the revision work is still important, but the core of being a writer is that you write stuff, and I haven’t been doing much of that lately.

Luckily, I have a chance: tomorrow I leave for the Rainforest Writers’ Village, a writers’ retreat in which I get to spend five days surrounded by nature, hanging out with writer types, and writing.

I realized the other day that it’s been a while since I’ve just written for fun, without worrying about whether it will sell or what critiquers will think of it or any of countless other considerations that, even though they’re important, can also bog you down.

Starting tomorrow, through Sunday, my goal is to take some of the half-formed short story ideas I’ve collected over the past couple years and just write, for the sheer fun of creating something. It’s too easy for writing to become work; my goal, at the Rainforest retreat, is not to worry about word count or marketing or anything else. It’s to hang out with other writers, have fun, and write.

Other authors in the anthology include Joe R. Lansdale, award-winning author of numerous novels and screenplays, as well as my friend and fellow Wordslinger Folly Blaine. I can’t wait to get my contributor’s copy so I can read everyone else’s stories, too.

*does a happy dance*

That said, it was a fun weekend. As I make more friends and get to know people in the Seattle genre writing scene, faces are becoming more familiar, and local cons are becoming less intimidating from a social anxiety perspective. Fellow writing group members Folly Blaine and Mark Edwards were there, and I met a lot of folks at the Writing Workshop, which was probably the highlight of the weekend.

This was my first time attending a writing workshop at a con, and I’m glad I did. There was a little rockiness in the planning stages– apparently Potlatch didn’t expect more than a few people to sign up, because only one author, David Levine, was lined up to lead it. But eleven people signed up, which means they had to get a second session going. Luckily, author and Nebula-nominee Vylar Kaftan stepped up to help, and the workshop was able to proceed (although three sessions probably would have been even better than two).

I was in Vylar’s session, along with Mark, Brian LeBlanc, Caszie Schroeder, and Kelly Horn. Over the course of two hours, we did a Clarion-style critique session, in which we took turns giving feedback on each person’s story. It’s always interesting to do a critique session with new people, both to read different styles of stories and to hear how other people approach giving critiques. (Note to self: do a separate blog post about critiques sometime.) Vylar also had some great feedback on each story, and the overall discussion was really fun– the only downside was that we had to rush to get through it all in two hours.

As far as sci-fi conventions go, Potlatch is a bit unusual in that anyone can sign up to be on panels– you don’t necessarily need to have a bunch of short stories under your belt or be the most experienced in order to join a panel on a given subject. And this was not a detriment– in fact, I’d say that having less experienced authors added an interesting voice to some of the panels that you don’t usually hear. Maybe I’ll sign up for a panel myself next year, if I can force back my anxiety long enough to contemplate it in anything more than the abstract.

Potlatch is closely tied to Clarion West, and on Saturday night there was an auction to raise money for scholarships. (For those who don’t know, Clarion West is a six week writers’ workshop held at University of Washington each year for science fiction and fantasy writers– but it’s expensive, at about $3,000 per person.) It was the first time I’ve ever bid in an auction, and it was pretty fun. I walked away with some old science fiction magazines, and signed books by Jack Skillingstead and Octavia Butler. Good times. I later heard that they raised at least enough for one full scholarship, which is awesome.

The crowd at Potlatch did skew a bit older than at most cons, which isn’t a bad thing, although it did mean that some of the panel discussions tended to focus on older rather than newer stories. In the panel on “Collapse Fiction”, about post-apocalyptic worlds in science fiction and fantasy, most of the examples cited were fairly dated– again, not a bad thing per se. Robert Heinlein and Philip K. Dick are awesome authors who should absolutely be read by anyone who loves the genre. But for new and aspiring authors, wanting to learn about current trends, it’s more useful to look at authors in the past few years– Scott Westerfeld or Suzanne Collins, for example– to get a sense of where the genre is and where it’s going. It took a question from a younger audience member to move the discussion toward present day.

The generation gap was also evident in the Friday night trivia contest, which focused on the history of Potlatch and Clarion West, and mostly asked questions which would only ever be known by people who had been immersed in the local community for decades. Which is all well and good if you’ve been attending Potlatch for twenty years, but for those of us who haven’t (aka my entire team), it was a beatdown. We consoled ourselves by seeing how silly we could make our answers, but by the end, our team name (“The Redshirts”) felt unfortunately apropos.

But all in all, it was a fun weekend. Lots of good conversations, some great panels, and once again I walked away with more books than will actually fit in my apartment (thanks largely to the table where they were selling paperbacks for a dollar each). Despite my kvetching about social anxiety, conventions are fun, and if I go for a few months without one, I really start to miss the energy and creativity I feel from simply being in the vicinity of dozens of other writers. In that sense, Potlatch was a rousing success.

Hopefully next year I won’t have to pull an all-nighter for work on Saturday night. That made for an interesting mental state on Sunday, but the sleep deprivation was totally worth it.

———

One sad note: we got word during the con that a local author and longtime member of the community, Mark Bourne, passed away on Saturday. Unfortunately, I never got to meet Mark, but I just wanted to pass along my condolences to his family and friends, many of whom were at Potlatch this weekend.