A day late with this, owing to just getting back from MileHiCon yesterday. Was just a bit too pooped to post.
Anyway, it was a good time. I enjoyed seeing Brian Hiebert, ericjamesstone , tlmorganfield (very, very briefly), and Carrie Vaughn again, and also meeting a boatload of new folks, too many to list here.
The Aspiring Authors 101 panel, which I had been sweating a little, went pretty well. There I was, on a two-hour panel with five other authors, including the aforementioned Carrie Vaughn, Tim Powers, and Connie Willis, talking of writing as if I actually knew anything about it. Audience participation was good, and not too many people seemed overly bored. My job on that panel was basically to ask prompting questions and let the stars talk.
The highlight, at least for me, had to be the moment when we were discussing outlining. As regular readers of this LJ know, I’m not an outliner, though most of the others on the panel are. Anyway, I gave my favorite Ray Bradbury quote–"Throw yourself off a cliff and build your wings on the way down"–and Connie Willis responded with, "That’s terrible advice!"
An outliner, is Connie Willis.
For a moment, I was mortified. But then I decided not to worry about it. She didn’t seem at all angry or indignant. She has her process, and it obviously works for her. I have mine. Y’all know what Kipling had to say about constructing tribal lays.
Had a lot of fun on the Kitty Carrie and the Midnight Hour panel, where we panelists (and eventually, audience members) played callers on "The Midnight Hour," Carrie Vaughn’s fictional late night talk radio show for the supernaturally disadvantaged. The idea, of course, was to flummox Carrie, if we could. Paolo Bacigalupi, for example, was an Alaskan werewolf on the run from some crazy lady shooting at him from a helicopter. I managed to get a few good laughs as a clueless pickup owner who thinks his truck has been cursed.
The "Why Do Most SF Movies Suck?" panel was packed. Seriously, it was standing room only, at 10 o’clock on a Saturday morning. Plenty of audience interaction on that one. Memo to con runners, based on my personal experiences at WorldCon and MileHiCon: movie panels are popular. Make sure you schedule one–and have a large room for it.
My reading, in a time slot shared with novelist and nice guy Warren Hammond, went as well as could be expected. Considering that it was a Sunday afternoon, I’m far from a household name, and some politician by the name of Obama was in town, I consider myself lucky that I had any kind of audience. Thanks to those who showed up; hope you enjoyed it.
I was a tad disorganized for this con. I hadn’t been able to put together any promotional handouts prior to departing for Denver, and once there, I realized I had forgotten to pack any business cards. The former was fixable, the latter was unforgivably stupid. Fortunately, I discovered I still had some cards in my bag, left over from WorldCon. Whew! And lesson learned.
So that’s the last of my cons for the year. Odds are good that I’ll return to Denver in 2009. Oh, and I’d like to give a special shout-out to Programming Director Rose Beetem for her consummate professionalism and amazing memory. I mean, seriously–she knew me on sight, and I’d only met her once. Impressive.
And now I’m back, and ready to get some work done. Cons are good for recharging the batteries, reminding you of what you love about the written word, and all this crazy SF stuff.
No updates for Write Club.
Outta here till next time . . .
