Looking for a Few Good Words

I am without words. Well, without good words. I have words — tens, hundreds, even thousands — but none of them good, none of them close to right. World Con is over. It was amazing and wonderful and unforgettable. All of these things and more.

And can I be slightly hyperbolic here and say that it was also life-changing? Will you forgive me that much?

I don’t want that to be an idle, feckless comment because I don’t want to let my renewed sense of purpose slip away. There were several panels about workshops and writing groups, of which I only managed to catch a few, but the one in particular I did catch resonated deeply — the Cecil Street Irregulars panel. With current events going on at home heavily on my mind, I took many notes and thought deeply and plan (and hope) to take some of this with me back to the local writing group.

Most and best of all, I took away from all of this the absolute clarity that writing is really, truly, the only thing I’ve ever wanted to do with my life. Nothing else has ever rivaled it and nothing goes back as far in my memory as this instinctual drive.

At times I have let it wither. At times I’ve listened to the wrong-headed voices and stopped and at times I was the architect of my own anguish. But there are no excuses that are worth a damn. There are only words — my words – and only I can write them.

I am far from publishable, but there are moments when I realize I am farther along than I thought I was. I can’t let the fear of not being perfect stop me from the sweat, blood and tears of the apprenticeship of writing. Not anymore, not ever again.

And on that note, back to writing. I typed in the words I’d managed at work before World Con, laid down an additional page in the type-in and plan to keep at it for as much to today as I can.

I also want to plug the new(ish?) writing blog that I’m a part of called the Underground Writers. It’s a work in progress, so don’t mind the dust on the floor and the exposed beams above. It’s an outgrowth of what’s begun with the Sudbury Hypergraphic Society and is focused on the nitty-gritty of the work as well as offering a support system for its members. I’ll be micro-blogging there with my fellows about our progress and meetings. Expect meatier (and more meandering) posts here whilst more quick, ninja-like updates over there.

World Con Fangirl Report

What follows is a brief rundown of the fannish aspects of my World Con experience, with more personal commentary and thoughts to follow in a separate post.

I didn’t go to any of the signings for two reasons. 1) I didn’t have the space to cart all the books by the authors I’ve loved to the Convention to get them signed. 2) Going to the signings without my already purchased books would then mean purchasing new copies on site and that wouldn’t have left room for the new books I planned on buying. Yet I still felt very dirty/bad/wrong about not going to the signings. Like I was un-fannish, or something.

Anywho, here’s who I squealed for:

Neil Gaiman was just as delightful as he has been during his other appearances — cute, rumpled and insightful. Saw him from afar at the New Media panel with Cory Doctorow, whom I also got to see at the Cecil Street Irregulars panel. Very informative, that one.

Nancy Kress was another highlight and I got to pick up one of her latest books, Dogs. Went to several of her panels during the course of World Con and she is just as funny and thoughtful as her work. I actually had a moment when my con-mate and I were heading back to the hotel, where we passed Nancy Kress and her husband heading out. As soon as we passed, I started babbling over and over to Pauline, “ThatWasNancyKressOMGThatWasNancyKress!”

Caught one panel with Larry Niven near the end. His books, specifically The Integral Trees and Ringworld, were ones that shaped my interior landscape in my formative reading years. I remember pouring over the maps and calculations in the beginning of those books, loving them as much as I loved the work.

In a “late to the party” moment, I also managed to catch Ellen Kusher and her wife Delia Sherman at several excellent panels. Sherman is so passionate about her work and Kusher is downright hilarious and down-to-earth. I’ve only just come across Kusher through her book Privilege of the Sword and I must find more.

I also got to meet, and have breakfast with, Elizabeth Bear! I can’t thank Pauline enough for letting me tag along. We skipped the morning panels and hung out by the park near the Palais with its fountain and slightly ominous water effects. She was hilarious. For her reading, she read a snippet of her forthcoming book, the sequel to All The Windwracked Stars. Go! Read Bear! Follow her on Twitter!

And George R. R. Martin, of course. On my first day, when wandering through the dealer’s room, I was happily ambling along, checking out the wares, and then realized I had just walked past him. Fangirl twittering commenced shortly thereafter. Caught several of his panels and, again, just like Kress, funny and thoughtful. One of my all-time favorite writers. His thoughts on writers as either Architects verses Gardeners have given me much to ponder.

If there was one downside at all to World Con, it would be that it’s just increased my to-read authors list by many orders of magnitude. Always better too many than too few, right?

Full Immersion

I’m at the end of Day Two of World Con, trying (and failing) to come up with any coherent thoughts that would express, even minimally, how productive these two days have been. Productive and exhausting, both mentally and physically.

My right hand, for instance, has one hell of a cramp. I haven’t taken so many notes since I was in high school. I’ve put in a solid dent into the Moleskine notebook I have dedicated just to World Con and I’ve already killed the first of my pens, ruining the nerd-esque color-coding I had planned. I have blisters blossoming on my feet. My back has only just begun recovery from the twisting depravity that was the 10-hour bus ride here. After surviving on only two hours of actual sleep on my red-eye trip, I managed to make it through the first day of panels until the evening, where I had to crash with the comfort of two liquid gel painkillers. But that was the worst of it, so it’s not too bad.

Our quiet, non-party hotel isn’t; there is a massive, multi-night French rock festival happening literally outside on the corner. Strangely, perhaps because it isn’t in english, it’s not keeping either myself or my roommate up. And the beds are sinfully comfortable. That never hurts. Tonight may be different. We’re clearly on a hard rock, Fracophone Metallique style. May require headphones.

But the Con itself. My god. Everything I could have hoped for. In some cases, too much. I pour over the convention panel schedule, highlighter in hand, and my thoughts run from “When am I going to eat?” to “Those evil fuckers!” In some time slots there are, no word of a lie, five panels that if they were back to back instead of simultaneous I would happily dedicate the entire day to attending each one and leave feeling completely satisfied. Instead, I must pick one and only one, and then do it all over again each and every hour that follows. I could go to this same Con five times and get an entirely different experience out of it each time.

And as for the writers themselves, so far I’ve managed to attend panels with Neil Gaiman, George R. R. Martin, and Nancy Kress — all of whom make my inner fangirl squeal. (Okay, my outer fangirl, too.) I also got to listen in to a live taping of Writing Excuses, one of my favorite podcasts. I’m not doing the signing thing, though, for practical reasons. I did not have the ability to lug significant quantities of books to the convention to get signed nor do I have the money to purchase new books to be signed and then brought home. I have already bought too many new books and must resist the urge to purchase books 2, 3 and 4 (of 6!!!) of the new Roger Zelazny collection. In fact, the logistics of how I’m going to bring them home have already hit me and I pray to whatever gods there are that the bus ride heading back is not packed body-to-body as the one coming here was for the selfish reason that I will need the extra seat.

Tired, but in the happiest sort of way. And there are still two days left!

More commentary to come when I am lucid. Which may not be until Monday afternoon.

Freakin’ Out!

Today’s been spent in a flurry of productivity — trip related, not writing-related — and it’s turning me into a bundle of nerves.

Finally finished combing through the World Con programming panel. Oh my god, I am going to miss so much. I thought I’d go through it and just write down the ones I wanted to see for sure but when my note page shows four different panels plus a writing seminar all scheduled at the same time, my brain just about exploded. I wasn’t kidding about that cloning machine, but I just have to take a deep breath and say to myself, “You aren’t going to see it all. What you will see will still be awesome. Deal.”

Right now, dealing involves resting my tired fingers and tired eyes by looking away from the screen and sipping some tea. After the blog post, of course.

Up next, backing up my files (tho’ I’ll be cheating, just doing the fiction and pics) and then packing the bag before making some dinner and heading out for a movie. Yes, a movie, followed by a beer. I want to be utterly zonked by the time I get on that bus tonight. I need to sleep while I ride else I’ll be sleeping away coolness on Thursday or, worse, be utterly corked on energy drinks before crashing Thursday night. Trying to avoid the wholesale collapse of my body before the end of the first day.

And dog needs a walk. That will rest my eyes.

Other Peoples Stories

Just finished getting my mind blown away by Neal Stephenson’s The Diamond Age. When I read Snow Crash, it was a revelation, yet The Diamond Age handedly surpassed my already high expectations. There is so much happening, so many good and interesting and deep extrapolations, not just with technology, but with culture, too. Your mind is left full for days, weeks, past what other perfectly fine books offer. I would love to take a peek at his process, see how he writes his books. So much happens, and so much world-building. I couldn’t imagine not having a book bible as big as a room, and if he does it all in his head — my god, I can’t imagine it.

But I loved reading it. I don’t know if he’s going to World Con. It would be amazing, but I can find no confirmation of this. Hope springs eternal, though.

In the meantime, I am reading The Gunslinger by Stephen King with the hopes of finishing it before World Con. This book isn’t from my to-read pile; it’s part of a cultural exchange. I’ve been begging and begging Todd to read A Game Of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. He’s loved the dark storytelling of HBO’s Deadwood and Rome and with HBO beginning work on adapting Martin’s series, I’ve been pushing him to read it. In retribution, I must at least read the beginning of King’s Dark Tower series, and so I am committed. I want to (and should be able to) finish it before World Con because I don’t want to bring any books with me. Irony? No. I am sure I will be buying books when I am there and I want to keep my baggage light. Instead I plan to put my various e-book reader programs to the test during the long ride there. I might even buy a book off of e-Reader, not just read one of the freebie SF downloads for Stanza I’ve managed to find.

Anywho. Working on the novel right now. Not happy with my default choices for where the action of the scene takes place. I know the content of the actions, the verbal fight my character will have with her mentor, but not where to put it. This is becoming a procrastination wall. Yet no shorter a wall because it is self-made.

Maybe I’ll just write the dialogue until it hits me where the hell I should have it take place. I mean, I have a back up idea, but it’s boring. I’m going through that right now, hating the book and then finding it strangely compelling. Rasifrasm.

PS: Only 8 days until World Con!

Is that a Migraine Coming On?

I didn’t realize I was as out of sorts as I was until Todd said something today when we were out.

(What were we doing? Why, adding another couple of books to my reference shelf, specifically The Science Book and A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words with my shiny little Chapters gift card.)

I was interrogated about the number of Cokes I’d had (only one) and after shrugging it off, I started babbling and then totally lost my train of thought. He gave me another look, and said, “You’re bouncing off the walls, you’re unfocused. You can’t even finish a sentence.”

But the truth was I wasn’t all corked on caffeine, I was feeling a little punch drunk. Scattered. Random. Tired, even. After I dropped him off I grabbed some food, scarfed it down. Normally that helps, but I’m still feeling, and this is my own technical term here, googly. It may be a headache brewing, I don’t know.

Did not write today, except in my journal. Work has finally dropped the other shoe — our campaign is being closed and we are transitioning to another campaign. I heard about it through the grapevine, as I was off yesterday when it dropped. Heard mostly consistent information but a few tantalizing bits that swung in widely different ways. I expected that when those of us who were off yesterday came in, we’d also be taken into the board room to be officially told but not so much. I know the upper staff were annoyed that it broke on Facebook after someone inside texted someone outside who then put it up on Facebook, but that’s to be expected. They apparently told people they would be calling us, but no such calls came and no meetings have been set up. I can sort of understand if they wait until tomorrow because then everyone who would have missed it will be there. But I would be just as surprised if we aren’t taken aside.

So, maybe that’s why I’m feeling googly. Maybe it’s work. It is comforting to think that two weeks from now I will likely still have my head spinning from my first day at World Con. They’ve released the program guide, and the first two times I sat down with it, I couldn’t get through the first day of panels. There is so much, and so much I will miss. I joked on Twitter that I’d need to invent a fully-functioning cloning machine a la Multiplicity. Part of it will be resisting my natural urge to go to nothing but the writing-related panels. I know that may seem counter-intuitive, but I get just as much a charge from the science and culture panels as I do the writing how-tos and there are lots to be had. And how’s this for cruel? The Opening Ceremonies opposite a panel on Wonder Woman opposite a panel on Doctor Who! Devious! Impossible! Plus there is the opportunity to see one of my favorite podcasters Mur Lafferty who will be on a few panels relating to new media and it looks like there will be a live recording of Writing Excuses, one of the best writing podcasts out there.

And I’ve only made it halfway through the Friday listings! The tentative program book is over a 100 pages, quickly nixing any thoughts of printing out the document. Oh well, better to be spoilt for choice, right?

I Can’t Stress Enough

Promises to be an interesting couple of weeks ahead: what will either be a productive or highly entertaining Hypergraphics meeting, the results of all those damn post-cancer tests taking in the first half the year, a dentist appointment, a vet appointment that I still need to make, and then, at long last, World Con.

Precisely two weeks from now, I will be packing my bags (and re-packing, and fussing, and making my innumerable lists) for the long and winding bus trip to Montreal. I will end up having a full nine days off, with World Con lovingly snuggled right in the middle for me to work myself up into a frenzy and then have two days to cool off after my return. I hear the post-Con blues can be a mighty terrible thing but I am hoping that overall I will be more up than down when it’s all said and done and that it translates directly to my writing.

When I was trying to describe to someone at work what the purpose of the new blog was, I found myself hung up on a word. You know, when there is a specific word that you know, that you need, but for the life of you your tongue will not speak it and your brain will be reduced to a hamster wheel as you furiously churn trying to remember what it is. Normally I have at least a sound in my head associated with the word. “It’s a c-word,” I said, absolutely obsessed, groping for the word. But the word didn’t come to me until two days later, when it burst forth as I was only tangentially thinking of the blog in the first place. Accountability! That was the word.

But then I was befuddled. Why did I think it was a c-word? Was it because the first word was a vowel? Didn’t seem like it. And then it hit me — I remembered the ‘c’ sound because it is the stress syllable of the word. It’s a-COUNT-a-bil-i-ty, not A-count-a-bil-i-ty. Not that I have a ton of proof to go on. It’s just a hunch, but it rings familiar to other experiences where I couldn’t remember the word, finally figured it out, and the sound I associated with it was not the first letter of the word — unless the stress syllable was the first word. I’m going to keep tabs on that, as I forget words too damn often, and see if the rule bares out. I think it will, though I don’t know why.

Anywho, the plan is to type in the words I’ve written long hand and … that’s likely just been scrubbed because the tentative program for World Con has just been posted.

New Blogging Venture

Spent the evening after dinner going through my collection of saved RSS feed articles of interest. I’m supposed to be keeping up on these so that they don’t build up into hour-long chores but I’m having the same amount of success with that venture as I am with the other self-appointed tasks that I try to keep up on.

Like blogging. *cough cough cough* Anyways …

But there has been some movement in the writing. While the Sudbury Hypergraphic Society meetings continue to be helpful, a few of us felt like we wanted to meet more frequently. So we’ve started what we’re calling the Off Week Meetings, a writing-only event, and we’ve even started our own blog on WordPress, which can be found here. The entries there will be short and to the point, word count updates mostly and an opportunity to cheer each other on. We thought that this may help make us all feel more accountable to someone else besides ourselves.

And since the first meeting of the Off Week group, I’ve been writing nearly every day. Not tons, that’s for sure, but more and more regularly than I can say I have been in the last few months. Back into my regular writing-while-its-quiet-between-calls plan, which, with work as busy as it’s been lately, has not been happening. Still, progress. I am pleased.

I’m counting the days to World Con, though. Work has become a torture.

Water Fowl Ready!

It’s done. Not only has the room at the hotel been booked (and a month ago at that) but I have finally purchased my tickets and bought the membership for Anticipation, the 67th World Science Fiction Convention!

The ducks are all in their row, neat and squeaky and ready to fly! Er, bus, anyway. You know what I mean.

I spent a half hour consolidating all my notes into Evernote, including hotel maps, bus routes and walking paths. The only thing I don’t have an electronic-only version of is my set of bus tickets. Still, having it all kept in Evernote will eliminate the amount of paper I have to carry around and will support my “travel light” mantra that I’m trying to take to heart.

Not that I don’t normally, but since I’ll be traveling mostly on my own, I want to minimize the amount of luggage I have to look after. Not just for the on-the-road stuff either – there’s that whole Sunday where after we check-out when I’ll be homeless until it’s time for me to catch my bus. I don’t want to be lugging around bags more than absolutely necessary.

I had plans to work on the manuscript build, but that’s not likely to happen tonight. I’m tempted to get Todd to drop me off at work early tomorrow so I can sit down with the computer in the quiet of the cafeteria. Then again, so long as I get up with him and get myself ready early, I could have an hour of undisturbed writing time before I have to walk to work. Okay, that has the ring of a plan to it — and better writing here than spending any more time at work than I must.

And the logical fallacies of Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune continue to drive me insane. Todd’s playing it, and I swear to the video game gods he has killed upwards of 300 mercenaries who are armed to the teeth and can be found in every single location, no matter how remote, how well-hidden, how difficult to reach it is for Drake himself to find. “We only found this area by using a secret passageway and then I had to scale the finger-wide ledges of a bottomless gorge before pulling myself up to find, well, 15 heavily armed men and large cargo crates of supplies!” And did I mention the reams of gasoline-filled barrels that float down rivers and pile up strategically against walls? Not stacked, no — piled like wayward acorns of some fuel-obsessed rodent. Keep in mind that this is coming from an avowed Tomb Raider fan, used to nonsense but the delightful kind of nonsense that at least still held together in some sort of a story. With Drake’s Fortune I’m not sure if I should be furious or insulted. Kudos to Todd for sticking with it for so long — I would have thrown the controller down in disgust long before now. I hear the sequel is much improved and honestly, they have the bones of something worthwhile. Sure, Drake may have Lara Kroft’s moves executed with the agility and speed of Spiderman, but the world they’ve depicted is a lush one and, if they strike a better balance between gunplay and game play, it could be a real winner.

But, wow! Neither here nor there. </rant>

No, no, no . . .

No words typed in.

No work done on the short story.

No progress on the manuscript build.

I did journal today – extensively. And it lulled me into a false sense of productivity. Still, it needed to get out and it couldn’t be done here and I feel a little better in that regard. It is as I feared, though – I like Tales of Vesperia. The graphics are so beautiful. It really feels like you are playing through an animated movie. I like it, which means it has to go. This afternoon, after my journaling and my uncharacteristic bout of house work (or is that characteristic procrastination?), I ended up playing for several hours. As usual, it’s left me feeling drained and vaguely unhappy both because I wasted the afternoon and because I’m not playing it now. Yes, yes, it must go, it must be excised from the house like a rogue poltergeist before the cat starts hissing, the cutlery starts flying and my head starts twisting backwards.

And the dog, that damned beautiful, goofy dog. She broke her back yard leash and I, having left her out there while I ate dinner, ended up running around the neighborhood in lounge-wear, glasses and a messy pony tail all in a panic while I searched for her. Silly thing had her legs in the air and her belly being rubbed a few houses up the road where the neighbors had seen her and brought her inside their fenced yard. They were just calling me as I came up the street. A panic attack and rawhide treat later, Ginger now waits for Todd to come home while I hope and pray I actually sleep tonight.

Two days until the Hypergraphics meeting.

Five days until Todd and I scoot off to Niagara for a couple of days (which reminds me, I need to make sure we have appropriate Sitters for the Critters.)

Fifty-six days until World Con. My brain still hasn’t entirely wrapped around that bit of cosmic, literary joy.