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.

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.

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.

GeekGirlCon was set up to promote and celebrate the role of women in geek culture. In a perfect, equal world it would not be necessary– however, the world, especially the world of geeks, is neither perfect nor equal. I hate to say it, but there’s a lot of sexism in geek culture– just check out the latest brouhaha over DC Comics’ reboot of Starfire, in which women’s sexual liberation gets twisted into male wish fulfillment– probably because almost all of DC’s writers and artists are male.

On other fronts, Internet culture is horribly sexist, and often claims “irony” as an excuse to be not just blatantly sexist, but racist and homophobic– this is Not Okay. And things are arguably even worse in online games.

There are serious problems outside of pop culture, too: for example, women are still very underrepresented in STEM careers (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math). And even outside the geek realm, societal norms aren’t helping matters.

Given all this as context, yes, we need a GeekGirlCon.

I heard a fair amount of speculation prior to the con that the attendees would mostly consist of lonely guys trying to pick up geek girls (hey, more sexism!), but in actuality that was not the case. In fact, I’d say the guy-girl ratio was about 30-70, based on a few rough counts I did at panels. Admittedly, it was kind of a nice change from normal cons, where the ratio is sometimes almost reversed. The panelists were almost entirely female (again, a reversal of the norm) and the panels were some of the most interesting that I’ve attended in years: possibly because the topics and perspectives were ones that often don’t get discussed at cons.

I attended a couple of panels: one was on Writing Urban Fantasy, hosted by Yasmine Galenorn. It’s not exactly a new topic, but it was presented in a much more systematic way than I had ever seen before, complete with a handout describing the basic formulas that a lot of Urban Fantasy is characterized by, do’s and don’ts, cliches and tropes, and the interplay of reason and magic. And I walked away with some good ideas to work into my NaNoWriMo novel next month.

I also attended a panel on Geek Girls in Culture, talking about the role of geeky women in TV and movies and books, and the good and bad sides of their portrayal, and which ones have geniunely inspired the panelists over the course of their careers. By and large, the panels I attended were some of the most fun, informative and entertaining that I’ve seen– and I’m not just saying that because I want to suck up to the geek girls. I think we did get to see things presented from an angle that is often lacking or underrepresented in “mainstream” geek culture.

By and large the con was well-organized for a first year con. There were some hiccups– like long lines in the narrow hallways prior to the panels, which occasionally intermixed. There were also some quirks to the venue– the con was held in the Northwest Rooms of the Seattle Center, except for larger events, which were held at the EMP Museum about a five or ten minute walk away. The EMP is a big place, and things were sometimes difficult to find– notably the Masquerade line, which unlike almost everywhere else didn’t seem to have any volunteers around. Someone told me that it was the line for Masquerade participants, not spectators, which meant I ended up doing another lap around the building before I figured out that yes, it was the right line after all.

Speaking of the Masquerade, this is pretty much the only area of the con I had any actual complaints. It was held on a stage at the EMP, however, the lighting was the worst I’ve ever seen at a Masquerade. The spotlight overhead was dim and orange, which made photography a total pain and certainly didn’t flatter the costumes. And despite some quick instructions from the MCs, most of the participants simply walked up, did a quick turn, and back off the stage without so much as a pause. Again, tough for the audience to appreciate your costume (or photographers to take pics) if you don’t actually stop for a few seconds. That said, there were some great costumes, particularly in the kids’ division– it’s good to see such a promising next generation of geeks.

But all in all, it was an excellent con, particularly for its first year. It’s filling a unique and (unfortunately) needed niche, and it was definitely a hit with the community. Saturday-only tickets sold out before I got there, so I had to buy a two-day pass. I had hoped to make it back on Sunday, but didn’t– probably because I stayed up until 3 am writing, then slept in until 2 the next day. Hopefully it’ll be bigger and better next year. And hopefully it’ll give more girl geeks (and young geeks in general) a taste of the community beyond what they see online.

Full set of photos from the con here.

As usual, Dragon*Con had two sides: the daytime, full of panels and readings and costumes and the Dealer’s Room and the Art Show, and the night time, full of parties and dances and even more elaborate and/or skimpier costumes. So that’s how I’ll divide the report:

Daytime

I spent most of my mornings and afternoons being fairly straight-laced and normal, attending writing panels and readings. I got to see Howard Tayler read again, and I was also particularly happy to meet Laura Anne Gilman, who I’ve conversed with on Twitter a couple of times. I heard Mur Lafferty read, and I heard a number of different editors and publishers hold forth on their favorite books that will soon hit the shelves.

I enjoyed readings, and those sort of “what’s coming soon” panels, far more than I enjoyed the panels on the actual writing process. I feel like I’ve reached a point where I know most of what’s going to be said on the process panels. Intellectually, I know how to write, thanks to writing groups, podcasts, scattered classes and panels, and my own accumulating pool of experience. So as I listened to these panels, I began answering each question in my own head, and comparing them with what the panelists said, and came away reasonably sure that I could hold forth just as expertly on pretty much every panel I attended.

That’s not to say I know as much as published authors. But sitting in on one of these panels is like sitting in on a “Basics of Writing” class: it keeps things at a pretty trite and uncomplicated level (there’s only an hour, after all), and once you’ve moved beyond that level, the panels are kind of useless.

I felt the same way about the “How to Get Published” panels. I know how to get published, I just have to do it, and the biggest step to getting published is to write more publishable stuff. It’s a fact that most of these panels tend to gloss over, even though it’s probably what most of the audience needs to hear. It’s so easy to get caught up in how to get published, or the commercial vs. self-publishing debate, that it’s easy to lose track of the actual writing.

One panelist even commented that he’s met people like that: people who go to writing panels, attend classes and workshops, but when it comes to actual writing output, they write very little. They’re utterly fascinated by the business and process of writing but don’t actually practice it. And more practice is the main thing I need right now, far more than panels or advice.

Nighttime

Ah, the interesting part of Dragon*Con, and let’s be honest, the biggest reason to go. You can get panels and readings at any con, but only one con has earned the title “Nerdy Gras.”

This year, I was determined to cosplay. Not as any character in particular; I prefer making up my own characters, which I suppose comes from being a writer. I don’t cosplay to show off my outfit-making skills (of which I have none), but I like the aspecting of transforming into a different character for a few hours. And makeup & special effects are closet hobbies of mine, so I packed some interesting clothes, a variety of prosthetic ears/horns/teeth and bodypaint, and headed out.

I hit a stumbling block when the TSA confiscated my airbrush. Airbrushed bodypaint is longer-lasting, easier to wear, and faster to apply than regular bodypaint, and as a result it’s usually what I use when I’m costuming. It wasn’t the airbrush itself that the TSA had a problem with– it was a small electric air compressor, about the size of a volleyball, which the TSA classified as “dangerous goods.” Why, I have no idea. It plugs into a wall outlet, so it’s not like it going to turn on or explode, or, um, compress anything, in the middle of a flight.

When I got to Atlanta, I recovered my ransacked luggage and a generic form note from the TSA telling me I’m not allowed to take lighters on a plane. Makes me proud to be an American, I tell you.

After a bit of fruitless raging at no one in particular, I got over it and cosplayed anyway, using cotton pads bought from a mall pharmacy in lieu of airbrush (I’m the one on the left– my cosplay isn’t that good):

On Sunday night, I skipped the bodypaint and went with vampire instead of elf-demon. Technically, I was a time-traveling vampire from an alternate reality– or at least, that was what I told everyone at the Steampunk & Time Travelers Ball.

In a sense, I feel like Dragon*Con is a big social experiment for me. The people who attend represent, in a variety of ways, a community I want to be a part of: from the professional writers on the panels, to the cosplayers who head out every night and party– but most of all, all of us geeks who spend four awesome days reveling in our geekdom. As I’ve said before, there’s a special combination of passion and independent thought that, for me, is at the heart of being a geek, and every year at Dragon*Con, I’m thoroughly immersed in it.

But because I started going to conventions only recently (Dragon*Con 2009 was my first), I don’t have the network of friends in the community that most congoers seem to have. My first year at Dragon*Con, I didn’t talk to anybody except the two people from Raleigh who I already knew. The second year at Dragon*Con, I did better– I had dinner with some professional authors, and attended some parties, but still spent a large chunk of time feeling introverted and out of place. This third year, I still felt introverted and out of place– but I cosplayed, I attended the Steampunk Ball with a few of my roommates and their friends, and interacted a little more with the larger community. Each year has been a little step forward, a little bit of progress in this weird social experiment.

But it’s a lot like my goal of being a professional writer– it’s about being patient, and playing the long game. In multiple senses of the word I’m remaking myself, redefining my identity, going through a stage that I feel like most people get past in their early 20′s. I didn’t like my first try at being an adult, so now I’m having a second try, this time as the person I want to be.

And yes, I realize that to some people, there’s an irony in dressing up in costumes and writing fantasy novels while talking about adulthood. If you’re one of those people, then conventions aren’t for you. And I kind of feel sorry for you, because you’ve let society define “adulthood” instead of doing it yourself.

Next year, Dragon*Con conflicts with the World Science Fiction Convention. It’s gonna be a tough call as to which one I go to, but Dragon*Con reminded me of one thing: among cons, it is unique. Every WorldCon is unique, too, but the business networking I can get at other cons. If WorldCon is a glass of fresh-squeezed, healthy vegetable juice, then Dragon*Con is an entire bar stocked with beer and mead and wine.

And rum, of course. Can’t forget the rum. (No worries, Captain Morgan is on it.)

My Dragon*Con Photos on Flickr

To be honest, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I knew that WorldCon has a higher-than-usual percentage of professionals, and there’s more of a focus on business and networking than at other cons. There’s a lot of fannish stuff going on as well, but WorldCon is one of the best cons for rubbing shoulders with professional writers and editors and talking one-on-one (or at least few-on-one) with the pros.

My own career is still in such early stages that I’m not sure how useful networking really is. I have a finished first draft of a novel that needs a lot of polishing before it has a prayer of getting anywhere, so I’m not really looking for an editor or an agent yet. And I don’t have professional short story sales under my belt, so it’s not like I can expect an anthology invite or anything. Instead, I’m playing the long game, hoping that contacts I make now might pay off in the months and years down the road. I’m also familiarizing myself with the names in the business, and the way the business works. And, above all, I’m hopefully making some friends along the way.

I’d say WorldCon was a rousing success in all those categories. I got to see some friends from previous cons, like Matt Rotundo and Mary Robinette Kowal (who won a Hugo Award for Best Short Story!), and I met plenty of new ones. I was particularly pleased to meet the Inkpunks, a collective of writers who I’ve followed on Twitter for a long time, and various friends of theirs, as well as Cassie Alexander, who deserves special mention for inviting me into the SFWA party. *ninja eyes* I also met several Seattle authors who I’d seen and heard at events back home, including Keffy Kehrli and Liz Argall.

So much happened, it’s tough to form a cohesive narrative, so I’ll hit a few high points:

Kaffeeklatsches. I hadn’t done kaffeeklatsches at previous cons, but these are small group discussions (usually limited to 9 people) with an author or editor, which last for an hour. It’s a way to have a more intimate conversation with industry professionals, or even your own personal heroes. At WorldCon, I had kaffeeklatsches with John Scalzi, Howard Tayler, Lev Grossman, and Jennifer Brozek– these were some of my favorite hours spent at the con.

World Jay Day. Jay Lake is an author who’s been fighting a multi-year battle with cancer, and right now is undergoing chemotherapy. Despite that, he came to WorldCon to host the Hugo Awards, and is all-around an awesome guy. Diana Sherman organized a bunch of people to gather in the Dealer’s Room on Friday wearing Hawaiian shirts, and give Jay a surprise show of support. It was pretty cool.

Meeting my heroes. I got to meet several of my personal literary heroes, most notably Howard Tayler, who writes and draws the webcomic Schlock Mercenary. I suppose it’s odd that a webcomic artist would be so influential on an aspiring author, but he is, for many reasons, not the least of which is that it was through Howard that I found Writing Excuses. When I finally had the chance to talk to him one-on-one for a few seconds, I told him, I’ve been reading Schlock Mercenary for nine years, listening to Writing Excuses for three, and I have a 175,000 word fantasy novel that probably would not exist if it weren’t for you guys. My life has led all sorts of interesting places because of you, and I just wanted to say ‘thanks.’

In general, I tried to stay professional throughout the con. I didn’t geek out when I passed George R.R. Martin or Patrick Rothfuss in the hall; I didn’t squee with joy when I held Mary Robinette Kowal’s Hugo Award or frantically try to get someone take a picture of me with it. Meeting Howard was the closest I came to having a “fanboy moment”, and as I walked away, I definitely teared up.

Parties. Each night I spent a few hours surfing through the various room parties, clustered on the 15th and 16th floors of the Atlantis Hotel. Some parties were put on by fans, others by groups bidding for future WorldCons, and some by publishers. There was also a semi-exclusive lounge hosted by SFWA, which, as mentioned earlier, I got into thanks to awesome friends. My next career goal is to be able to get in to the SFWA suite at cons without help.

I won’t deny it: parties stress me out, especially when (as was frequently the case) I walk into a party without knowing anyone. My inner introvert goes into total brain-lockdown mode, and a very strong part of me just wants to find a corner and hide. But the evening parties provided some of my favorite moments of the con, including meeting and hanging out with the Inkpunks (okay, technically, that was at the bar, but it still counts); hanging out with Lev Grossman on Saturday night after he won the Campbell Award for Best New Writer; meeting Amy Sundberg, Patrick Swenson, and holy cow I could list names forever and still forget someone. Suffice it to say that everyone was totally, absolutely awesome.

The Masquerade. Costumes were not as prevalent at WorldCon as they are at many cons, but what costumes were there were extremely well done. Someday, at some con, I’ll get tired of Masquerades and stop attending them, but it was not this con.

I was seated well back, but the people immediately in front of me were short, and I was able to get some relatively good pictures without having to worry too much about people’s heads being in the way. The best-in-show winner was Torrey Stenmark, for her Avatar costume, which also won at Norwescon earlier this year.

The Hugo Awards. On Saturday night came the biggest event of WorldCon: The Hugo Awards. Given each year for the best works in the field, they’re sort of like the Oscars of Science Fiction. In every category in which I actually predicted a winner, I was right, however, my votes usually did not correspond with my predictions, and in the categories where I strongly supported one of the choices, pretty much none of them won. I don’t begrudge any of the winners their awards; they all deserved them, and nothing happened that I would decry as a travesty of literature or good taste. Too often, science fiction itself is decried as a travesty of literature and good taste– so forget that noise. Fandom is far more diverse than my particular corner of it, and I’m okay with that.

I suppose if I have one regret about WorldCon, it’s that everyone was so dang busy. There were so many people who I’d have to loved to chill with at the bar and shoot the breeze, but the con as a whole was far too crowded and busy for that. Plus, the two hotels of the con were far enough apart that travelling between them was not easy, and even each hotel on its own was so big that it was hard to find people. What the con really needed was a con bar, but alas, despite the presence of numerous bars amongst the two host hotel/casinos, a favorite never materialized.

Speaking of casinos, I managed to go through the whole con without so much as sticking a quarter in a slot machine. All the temptation for me was in the Dealer’s Room: I came home with far more books than I have room for, and I’m now having to improvise bookshelves out of every available surface in my tiny apartment. I haven’t actually had to stack books in the sink yet, but if I live here much longer, who knows what measures might need to be taken.

Now I have less than a week until Dragon*Con, and all the craziness starts all over again. Except even crazier, because well, it’s Dragon*Con.

It’s gonna be fun.

It’s gonna be great.

In related news, my main goal prior to WorldCon was to finish the first draft of my novel In a Land of Wind and Sky, and today I did so. The draft is 176,902 words long, and it stretches across 642 pages in Microsoft Word. Since the time I wrote the first word of it (November 1, 2009), it’s been 653 days.

But to be honest, it feels a bit anticlimatic. There’s still a lot of work to do, and the line between where the first draft ends and the second draft starts is kind of arbitrary. For my own purposes, “first draft” means that I’ve built all the plot lines and character arcs from beginning to end. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re consistent. Sometimes the character’s voice changes from scene to scene as I experiment with different styles, or setting details are added midway through the story. Major plot elements are introduced and disappear as I try to decide what should be important and what isn’t, or change my mind about exactly what’s needed in order for different aspects of the story to be resolved.

In the second draft, my task is going to be to go through and make things consistent– support what needs to be supported, emphasize what needs to be emphasized, and take out what needs to be taken out. After the second draft, I think it’ll be ready for alpha readers.

But for now, I can head off to WorldCon, secure in the knowledge that if anyone asks if I’ve written a novel, I can say, “Yes.”

My flight leaves in less than 12 hours. Hmm… I should probably start packing.

Major anti-props, however, for having to pick between Norwescon and Sakura-Con. Seattle’s largest sci-fi convention and its largest anime convention on the exact same weekend? Does nobody actually communicate about these things? I know holiday weekends are rare, but really. This one isn’t exactly Norwescon’s fault (Sakura-Con is newer), and for me, there was no hesitation about which to go to. Sakura-Con is only half a mile from my apartment, and I would have loved to visit for a day and check it out, but I wasn’t about to miss out on a day of panels, friends, hobnobbing with local authors and room parties in order to pay my respects to the anime geeks. As long as I have to pick, Norwescon will win every time.

Because I was introduced to conventions through Dragon*Con, I inevitably end up comparing it to every other con I attend. This is somewhat unfair, since Dragon*Con spans four gigantic hotels and plays host to 50,000 people. But nevertheless the chaos of the crowds, creative costumes wherever you look, and the large and diverse selection of panels are inseparably linked up with cons in my mind, and I can’t help but feel somewhat disappointed if a con fails to deliver. Norwescon, I am pleased to say, did not disappoint in any of these areas: there were a wide assortment of great panels, excellent panelists, and an endless stream of cheerful chaos making its way through the halls.

Norwescon is a dense con: 3,600 people in one hotel. Admittedly, the SeaTac Doubletree is as large and sprawly a hotel as they come– 900 rooms in seven wings that branch out and snake their way around the huge property. But the beating heart of the con, in the ballrooms and the conference rooms, was fairly small. There was no place to stop and take pictures without blocking traffic, and just finding somewhere to sit down and take a breather was not always easy, especially at mealtimes when the hotel bar was packed. But all in all, I enjoyed the chaos of it.

Cons have two sides for me: the “social” side, and the “writing” side. The social side is, essentially, entirely about having fun: hanging out with friends, admiring costumes, seeing the occasional celebrity, and just generally wallowing in the crazy, awesome atmosphere of a con. But the “writing” side is my biggest justification for going: to see professional authors and editors talk, ask them questions, and hopefully even network a bit. It’s still fun, and ideally it still involves hanging out with friends, but there’s also a more serious motivation behind it.

From a social perspective, Norwescon was awesome. This was my first con where I knew more than just a couple of people– for starters, a good portion of my writing group was there. And indeed, right after I got there on Thursday afternoon, I met up with a few people at a writing panel and eventually we headed out to dinner across the street. Thursday night involved some good conversation and a long game of Agricola with new friends that kept me awake until about 4 am. Friday and Saturday evenings were mostly spent surfing room parties, and relying on Andrew Rosenberg’s connections to get the bartender at the Speakeasy to break out the good Scotch. I hung out with “old” friends (not that I really have any old friends in Seattle, having lived here for less than six months), but made plenty of new friends as well.

If my impossible-to-reach gold standard of social cons is Dragon*Con, then my impossible-to-reach gold standard of writing cons will always be last year’s NASFIC. That was where I met and made friends with Mary Robinette Kowal, Matt Rotundo, James Maxey, and even ate with Edmund Schubert (of Orson Scott Card’s Intergalactic Medicine Show) and several other professional editors and authors. It’s unfair of me (not to mention hard on myself) to feel disappointed if a con doesn’t reach that level of awesomeness, but nevertheless I do.

In that respect, Norwescon was pretty much a big fat letdown. This isn’t the con’s fault at all– it’s mine, if it’s anyone’s. While Mary Robinette Kowal was there (and I even got a chance to chat with her briefly a couple of times), by and large I felt like a socially awkward galoot through most of the con. For example, on Saturday night Pyr Books hosted a big party, where I briefly got to meet Jay Lake, Lou Anders, and a few other big-name authors and editors. But by and large, all I managed was a brief hello, and all the while a major part of my own brain was yelling at me, “You’re just some random fan and wannabe author who hasn’t even finished his first novel. Why would the professionals possibly want to talk to you?”

Yes, I’m just venting my own insecurities now. But by and large, what had come naturally to me at NASFIC did not come naturally at all while I was at Norwescon. I would hang out on the periphery of a group of people, debating whether to interrupt and introduce myself, or interject some comment into a conversation I wasn’t a part of, or just wait until someone drew me into the conversation themselves– which never did happen. At one point, I started chatting with an editor, asking him about his current projects, but got cut off when another panelist stepped smoothly between the two of us, his back to me, and started his own conversation with said editor. (That was when Mr. Cellophane started running through my head.)

It was such a different experience from NASFIC, or even last year’s Dragon*Con, where I really felt like my people skills and my networking abilities were progressing nicely. At Norwescon, my resolve as far as being anything but a socially inept introvert absolutely, totally failed. Oh, well. Chalk it up to a learning experience, I guess. Maybe the reason I did so much better at NASFIC is that I was far more clueless about what I was doing. It’s easier to not be intimidated when you’re clueless.

But outside of those situations, it was a different story. I made friends, partied into wee hours, and learned that it’s actually pretty hard to down a Jell-O shot when the cup is tightly wedged in a woman’s corset-enhanced bosom. As long as I focus on the good times, and not my own raging insecurities, Norwescon was a most excellent con.

A few other random notes:

-The writing panels at Norwescon were some of the best I’ve been to, and all the panelists deserve major props.

-On the flip side, I’ve reached a point where I’ve heard enough writing advice that, intellectually, I know most of it already. At this point, I really just need to do one major thing: WRITE MORE.

-From now on, I’m attending more author readings at cons. Cat Rambo’s and Jay Lake’s in particular were excellent.

-I took another step into cosplay beyond the simple horns and face-painting I did at Dragon*Con, and bought the first couple parts of what will hopefully be a pretty decent outfit by the time I’m done. My plan is to create an original character; maybe I’ll even write a story about him at some point (role-playing! gasp!). Unfortunately, my next con isn’t until WorldCon, which means I won’t be able to debut the whole thing for a few months.

-The photography at Norwescon was all right but not great, because as mentioned earlier, there was really no good place to stop people and take pictures. That said, I did get a few, and was lucky in that I snuck out of the Masquerade midway through and accidentally found the designated photography area. Why does the photography area get set up and used during the Masquerade, rather than before or after? I guess it’s because they’re afraid of crowds, but it still kind of sucks.

-The full set of photos, such as they are, is posted on Flickr here.

But I still wanted to check out Emerald City Comicon. In part, it was only a ten-minute walk from my apartment. In another part, I hadn’t been to a comic convention before (except insofar as Dragon*Con has everything there), and I wanted to see how it compared. In a third part, it was an opportunity for cosplay photography.

Unfortunately, counterbalanced against all of those was the fact that for the past week I’ve been fighting the worst cold I’ve had in years. By Saturday I was feeling better, but I was still congested. So I set myself some ground rules (don’t shake hands with anyone… try not to breathe too close to anyone… be very careful about where you cough) and headed down to the Washington State Convention Center.

Despite my earlier comments, one type of comics that I do spend a lot of time reading is webcomics. So when I got there, my first stop was the Webcomics Weekly panel, starring Dave Kellett, Scott Kurtz, Kris Straub, and Brad Guigar. They’re an awesome group of guys, and their comics rock.

After that I walked around a bit. There were several artists in the exhibition area who I would have liked to have met, but I didn’t want to risk giving any of them my cold. So I mainly stuck with walking around, checking out some of the art on display, and taking pictures of costumes. The Washington State Convention Center is actually sort of a challenging place for photography– lots of different lighting conditions, running the gamut from darkened hallways to a variety of atrium-like settings, mean that you need to be fast with adjusting camera settings or you’re going to get a lot of photos that don’t come out. But there were plenty of good costumes that needed takin’ pictures of, so I gave it my best shot (no pun intended). The photos aren’t my greatest ever, but you can see the set here: Link

I had planned to stick around for the actual Masquerade, but after only a couple of hours, I was already starting to feel tired, so I headed out. All in all, it was a fun con, and would have been much more fun had I not been fighting a cold. Interestingly, there was much more of a family atmosphere here than a lot of cons I’ve been to– which can be both good and bad, but all in all it turned out all right.

Next up on the con list: Norwescon, in late April. Hopefully that should be enough time for me to finally get over this damn cold.

There seemed to be a general steampunk theme to the con (most of the costumes certainly fit the category), an impression which was reinforced by the massive inflatable steampunk-style airship in the main corridor:

Personally, I’m not sold on steampunk. I mean, some people are huge fans, and more power to ‘em, but as for me… it’s an interesting style, but it’s just one style. Fandom represents a huge variety of interests and passions, yet steampunk seems to be increasingly dominating the con scene. Maybe it’s just that steampunk costumes are good looking and relatively easy to put together; I’m tempted to do one myself, just so I have something more interesting than street clothes to wear to cons. But I still like to see more variety in the costumes and the styles at a con… although it could just be that I’m spoiled by Dragon*Con.

Despite my complaining about steampunk, the highlight of the afternoon was a reading by Phil and Kaja Foglio, who write and draw the steampunk webcomic Girl Genius. They recently came out with a novelization of the first three comic books, called Agatha H and the Airship City, which is sitting on top of my to-read list. Still, I’m afraid that reading it may be a letdown. I’ll never be able, even in my head, to duplicate the voices that Phil uses while he’s reading out loud. He’s the best oral storyteller I’ve ever heard, and Kaja is pretty darn good too.

Afterward I went to a panel on “Promoting Yourself via Social Media,” in which a bunch of authors, none of them younger than their mid-40s, talked about how odd this social media phenomenon was and lamented how much time you have to spend nowadays on the Twitters. About halfway through, the panel got hijacked by a marketing consultant in the audience, who went into her own philosophy on social media, which I would sum up as “Ask them what kind of soup they like!”

I didn’t feel like I got much out of that panel. Admittedly, I haven’t spent a great deal of time promoting myself on the Internet, because I feel like I need more of a product: in other words, more stories, preferably on websites that aren’t my own. I do have a “social media infrastructure” in place: a Twitter feed on which I try to be entertaining and responsive, and a blog where I try to post stuff that is hopefully interesting to read, even for someone who doesn’t know me very well. But until I hit some success with my writing, I’m basically just another random dude on the Internet, and no one’s going to care what I have to say on Twitter or Facebook or even the blog, really.

Of course, the writers on the panel did have “product” to push, in which case my main advice to them would have been: make it easier for people to connect. Include your website and Twitter account on everything you do. At cons, have postcards to hand out with your book cover on the front and your website on the back, or even just business cards, so people who might not want to spend fifteen or twenty bucks on a book right then can nevertheless engage with you, particularly now that they’ve seen you on a couple panels, maybe asked you a couple of questions, and know who you are.

Once they’re following you on Twitter or Facebook, don’t just post crap. Be funny and witty (this should be easy… you’re a writer), link to blog posts, mention cons or events you’ll be attending, and by then they’ll be fans and will have no problem buying your next book (or even your backlist). At least, that’s how it’s worked on me. At the con, I picked up Brave New Worlds, an anthology edited by John Joseph Adams, mainly because I’ve been following his Twitter feed, which in turn got me to buy his book. Of course, it didn’t hurt that the anthology had stories by Cory Doctorow, and Philip K. Dick, and Neil Gaiman, and various other illustrious authors in it… and hey, look, now I’m promoting it myself. Social media at work!

Of course, this is just my own take on the subject; it’s not backed up by studies, or marketing experts, or even my own success. I haven’t succeeded. But based on what I like to see as a fan, I can extrapolate what I think would be a successful strategy as an author or editor.

Next up was a panel on E-books vs Paper, which basically reached the same conclusion as everywhere else I’ve heard:
-E-books are here to stay
-The Kindle/Nook/etc is convenient and awesome but DRM and occasionally incompatible formats are still a stumbling block
-Paper books probably aren’t going away anytime soon
-E-book piracy sucks

Whenever I think about the format wars and the ramifications this debate has on the publishing industry, I could easily give myself an ulcer worrying about what to do as a new author. So I’ve decided to pretty much ignore this debate for the time being and work on improving my writing… once I have something to market, then I’ll worry about it. Yeah, yeah, I know… create the product and market it afterwards… what an old-fashioned way of thinking.

Later, I went to what turned out to be the main highlight of the evening: a geek-themed burlesque performance by The Tempting Tarts. Didn’t know tribbles could be incorporated into an erotic routine? Ha ha, goes to show what you know!

After an overpriced meal of fish and chips at the hotel bar, I stuck my head into a few of the room parties, but nothing was particularly engaging, so I left. I still need to work on my conversation skills at cons… my experience at most of them has been that unless you already know people, it’s hard to meet new folks, particularly if: you’re not a panelist, you’re as shy as a typical geek, and you’re not in costume. Most people are already hanging out with friends, and, well, most aren’t that interested in striking up conversations with random strangers. Of course, now I’ve just descended into the Introvert’s Lament, which means I should probably wrap up the blog entry.

The one-sentence version: RustyCon was all right, but personally, I prefer larger cons with more variety.