WriterCon II Report

[aadler]

20 July 2006 (day before)

The trip started out with some minor bobbles. I had tried to call my son in the central part of the state on Wednesday, to let him know I’d be arriving the next day so we could prepare to go to WriterCon on Friday. However, I got no answer, and I was literally taking the highway exit into the city where he lives before his mother called me back: she had worked a long night shift, turned off the ringer on the phone so she could sleep undisturbed, and then forgotten it was off.

My son was registered at WriterCon as David-T, so that’s what I’ll call him here. My plan was that we get everything ready Thursday, get up at 4:00 Friday morning, and be on the road by 5:00. While I was checking some last-minute things at the WriterCon site, however, I discovered that I had misunderstood the schedule: the first events began at 10:00 AM Friday instead of 5:00 PM, so we needed to get going almost immediately. I made this discovery about 9:00 PM Thursday evening; by 9:45, we were on the Interstate, headed for Georgia.

Friday 21 July 2006 (Day One)

David-T is specifically excluded from my insurance coverage (he had a couple of minor accidents with my car while I was in Afghanistan), so I did all the driving. Every hundred miles I drank a Red Bull, to keep me going. Somewhere in Alabama, we parked at a truck stop for me to try and sleep for awhile, but I dozed for only an hour and then we were going again.

It worked out almost perfectly. We got to Atlanta, and through WriterCon registration, ten minutes before the opening ceremonies began. By then my son was starting to fade — he’d slept only barely more than I had — but the day was just beginning for us.

I circulated quickly before and during the opening ceremonies: spotted and greeted sunnyd_lite and spiralleds, was in turn greeted by agilebrit, and saw but failed to immediately recognize liz_marcs, despite being positive that I remembered her clearly; somehow (in a manner unexplainable by science) I had attached to her memory the visual picture of someone who went to high school with my brother over 20 years ago. Then a panel discussion began in the room, and I realized that I really wanted to be attending a different one, so we moved on.

We tried the room where selected authors were reading their favorite stories, but the initial three selections didn’t agree with us, and we moved on. Wound up in “Calling All Muses: Overcoming Writer’s Block”, where some interesting questions were asked and answered.

The next panel we attended was “Crossing the Red Sea: Editing, Revision, and Finishing Touches”, chaired by people who did editing or writing for a living. Interesting also, no less useful but a bit less lively.

There was a three-hour break scheduled for lunch. I thought there would be time to manage lunch after watching a Firefly vid made with action figures … but there were problems with setup that took some time to work out, and the vid itself was almost an hour long, so when it was over, so was the lunch period, and I just had to wait.

(I got some unpleasant vibes during the showing. Not from the vid itself; actual thought and plotting had been put into it, and there were some genuine comic moments. However, the story involved Mal and Jayne having sex with each other while under the influence of a pheromone-based drug, and then dealing with the aftermath, and I think my son and I may have been the only males in the room, and raucous reaction from the wholly-or-predominately female audience was unsettling and frankly seemed to have some hostile undertones. Left me in a sour mood.)

The mood was not improved by the next panel, “Who Are You People? Characterization”. Okay, note this: there were five panelists, and among them they had slashed Xander with Spike, Xander with Andrew, and Xander with Larry; in addition to which, one of them observed casually that she wrote a lot of Real Person Slash … and these were the people posed to us as authorities regarding accurate characterization. Just as a matter of form, wouldn’t attention to characterization include NOT habitually homosexualizing a major character who had been canonically presented as exclusively heterosexual? There’s no denying that slash is a major current in fanfiction … but, damn it, heterosexuality really is the human norm (not just a presumed standard, but the actual stance of the majority of the human race), and I’m getting almighty weary of having slash automatically assigned the default position in fanfic discussions.

In the next hour, David-T went to the drabble workshop, while I attended “Authorial Support: Recs, Constructive Criticism, Feedback, Archival”. This panel had the best questions and best discussion I had so far encountered, good people with good observations, and well worth the time for attendance.

This done, my son and I went to check into our room at the Crowne Plaza (I’d been a bit too slow to get a room at the con-site itself), then went out for supper. Then back to the ’Con to check on more activities.

All the evening sessions were devoted to discussion of various aspects of erotica. I have absolutely zero interest in sex scenes in fiction — be it reading, writing, or discussing them — so we checked at various gathering places, mostly because I was still trying to locate some people I’d met on LJ that I had been wanting to meet in person: poshcat, mandylancast, and bellatemple, in particular. Couldn’t find any of them, large numbers of strangers complicating the fact that I don’t know them by sight.

Upstairs in the hospitality suite, however, chrisjournal did her best to get me into a pitch session with Anna Genoese (alg), who was taking proposals from those who had scheduled such with her, and a slot had opened up. I’ve become increasingly aware, over the past year, that it’s time I began thinking seriously about returning to original fiction … but I hadn’t expected or intended to present anything at this time, and — despite chrisjournal’s encouragement — I didn’t feel I was ready to try to ad-lib a pitch. It may have been a mistake, but I just want to have something solid behind me when I go for something like that.

Back at the Crowne Plaza, I printed out some of my fic for the ’Con library (I’d brought my printer with me, and chrisjournal had given me some binders), and then on to bed.

Saturday 22 July 2006 (Day Two)

We left the Crowne Plaza early, got a quick fast-food breakfast, and showed up at the ’Con for the first session. As it happened, that wasn’t until 10:00 AM, whereas I’d thought something started at 8:00 AM, so we had ample time to sit around, visit with people, etc. I got into a conversation with agilebrit, and joined her at a table while she had her own breakfast; mandylancast spotted me (she’d been searching for me as I for her), and sat down with us likewise. There were more than enough subjects of common interest to keep us busy and entertained until the (actual) first session was due to begin.

Following my expressions of annoyance yesterday at the slash subcurrents that seemed to be systematically shoved into non-slashers’ faces, chrisjournal had taken my schedule and gone through it marking those sessions she particularly thought would be suited to me. She’s a sweet, wonderful woman, and her judgment proved to be generally reliable. The first Saturday panel I attended (on her recommendation) was “Down the Rabbit Hole: Submitting Your Work – Tips, Tricks and Tools”. This was another featuring (and basically dominated by) Anna Genoese, who had more than a bit to say from the standpoint of an editor in charge of approving or rejecting submissions. Once you get used to Anna’s style, she’s very entertaining, and you don’t want to ignore what she has to say about submitting for publication, or working with an editor once a submission has been accepted.

The next panel was “Putting Words in Other Peoples’ Mouths: Dialog”. I don’t actually remember much about that one, except that I drew little new information from it but took pleasure from the interplay of ideas and examples.

Break for lunch, back for more. The panel I attended was “The Gateway for Lost Souls: Fanthropology”, discussing the nature, views, and activities of the people who participate in various fandoms. This had sounded interesting, but was frankly boring. I had truly looked forward to this panel, but it was — for me at least — a resounding dud, the first time one of chrisjournal’s recommendations had missed the mark entirely.

It did, however, feature a moment that definitely got my attention. nwhepcat, not one of the panelists but offering an observation from the audience, related that there had been a lot of recent turmoil in DC fandoms, with the predominantly male population which had characterized the fandom until then being swamped by a huge new influx of interested females … and the ‘old guard’ pleading with the newcomers, “Don’t gay up our fandom!” nwhepcat related this without sympathy but likewise without glee; the others in the room, however, responded with a giant laugh. There are a couple of different ways to interpret this. If those hearing nwhepcat’s comment interpreted ‘gay up’ as simply the introduction of a less masculine viewpoint, then their response is understandable and justifiable. On the other hand, given my own recent experiences at WriterCon itself, it doesn’t seem far-fetched to see the plea as having come from a distaste for seeing an established fandom suddenly inundated in male/male slash.

Taken in its rawest form, that situation would go as follows: the people who formed and maintained a fandom for years, purely from love of the world and its characters, find themselves invaded by a new crowd enthusiastically producing (and celebrating) a mass of stories built around a premise revolting to the original fandom group and glaringly OOC for the fandom characters involved. (Imagine Buffy fandom being swamped by hordes of fifteen-year-old males who thought rapefic was the swellest thing ever, especially when the women — Buffy, Willow, Dawn, and let’s not forget Tara — discover they had actually wanted it all along.) The fandom is being flat-out ruined for its builders by something utterly alien and utterly incompatible with everything they originally loved in it … and when they beg for some relief from this to-them-horrible transfiguration, their distress is not only disregarded but seen as a source of hilarity.

That would indicate not just selfishness, but active meanness. And, even if the slashers in Buffyfic maintain that they’re not motivated by the smug satisfaction that comes from rubbing someone’s face in something that appalls him, it still feels, to those subjected to it, exactly like gleeful oppression.

Okay. On to the next panel, “Cold Dead What? A Lecture on Vampire Physiology”. The subject material for this panel was carefully prepared and entertaining in its construction; however, I’d been given a copy of the handout the night before, so I was already familiar with it, and the panel itself never departed from the prep material. If I’d known that would be the case, I’d have gone to “Underwriting for Tearjerking”.

Break for evening meal. I took David-T back to the Crowne Plaza, occupied my own time with whatever I could, and then returned to the con-site for the cocktail party. (I’d paid my son’s way to the convention itself, and even sprung for his t-shirt, but I saw no point in paying for his entry into a cocktail party when he couldn’t drink. By this point, he was just as happy to relax with evening television.)

I had earlier discovered a small problem with the name-badges for attendees: printed in a subdued color, with part of the name falling on the background graphic, they were simply impossible for me to read unless the wearer was standing directly in front of me. Because of this, I despaired of finding the two people I was still trying to locate: poshcat and bellatemple, both of whom were definitely there (I’d had that confirmed), but I’d never run across them. I stationed myself at the door, so carefully scrutinizing name-badges that more than a few people thought I was security. I did see and speak to poshcat that way, then let her go while I continued my watch; eventually I gave up, however, and it was someone who had heard of my difficulties who brought bellatemple TO me when she showed up.

I had a couple of beers, but since drinks weren’t included in the entrance price, and I’d have to drive back to the Crowne Plaza, I didn’t go beyond that. I relocated poshcat and congratulated her on having her book proposal green-lighted by Anna Genoese (so all she had to do was add 100,000 words in six weeks); we exchanged a few more bits of minor conversation, then I moved on. I found bellatemple outside taking a smoke break, and mixed it up a bit with her (I’m sure I found her contributions somewhat more memorable than she would have deemed mine to be). Once I’d had as much as I was going to drink, however, and the dancing started, I happily joined agilebrit at one of the tables in the lobby, and we spent an hour or more sharing philosophies, fanfic reminiscences, and plans for what we’d do at the next WriterCon.

liz_marcs had overslept, so she showed up late to the party itself. When I was ready to leave, and was doing a last-minute sweep to be sure there was nobody I didn’t want to miss, I found her (liz) in a conversation with mandylancast and bastardsnow, and eagerly joined it. Unfortunately, the subject of the conversation was one where I was in powerful disagreement with everyone else, so I just sat quiet, waiting for it to move to something else, only it didn’t, and I basically stood up and walked off with an abruptness that had to have them going, “WTF?” (I won’t even try to claim that my behavior wasn’t boorish, and apologized to liz_marcs and mandylancast at the first opportunity the next day; I didn’t see bastardsnow, and will have to find some way of conveying the same apology to him.) At any rate, that was the end of the night. Back to the Crowne Plaza and straight to bed.

Sunday 23 July 2006 (Day Three)

Checkout from the Plaza, breakfast at Burger King, straight to the ’Con for the last panels and the convention wind-up. chrisjournal had recommended the panel on representations of religion in the Jossverse. I had reservations, however; I still remembered my annoyance, in the Vampire Physiology panel, at the way people had tried to explain the efficacy of crucifixes and holy water against vampires without ever acknowledging that religious reality might have anything to do with it (“Hello? We’re talking about a world where demons walk around openly and an invocation to Satan brings immediately visible results, and you’re choking up at admitting that there might be a God and he might be neither disinterested nor powerless in such a situation?”). I opted for “Proper Comma Placement Saves Lives! Making Grammar Work for You” instead, and rather enjoyed it. I still say Xander and Spike’s bed is just plain wrong, and not only because of the imagery; in that phrase, we have two things — first, Xander, and second, Spike’s bed — whereas Xander’s and Spike’s bed, while still horrifying, would at least be grammatically correct.

Then, “Going Pro: Writing for Money”. Wow! One academic writer (Rhonda Wilcox), two fiction writers (Susan Sizemore and Rachel Caine), and a fanfic-loving editor at a publishing house (Anna Genoese), together with much more to say than could be fit into a ninety-minute time slot. Crammed full of information and illuminating detail, occasionally illustrated by hilarious personal anecdotes, I could listen to stuff like this all day. We realized we were out of time only when people started coming into the room for the NEXT session, and we weren’t even close to being through.

Break for lunch. Then, “What’s the Worst That Could Happen? Plot”. Interesting, and I enjoyed myself and saved the handouts, but I don’t actually remember much of that. Darn.

Finally, from 4:30 to 6:00 PM, “Dear Sir or Madam: How to Write a Query Letter”. This was another led (solely, this time, I think) by Anna Genoese. It didn’t actually have much to say about the query letter itself, but served as a means of addressing some of the things left unresolved from Anna’s “Going Pro” panel.

Finally, the closing ceremonies. There were other minor events scheduled after that, but by that time the things remaining meant less to me than getting a prompt start at driving home. (It would be another all-nighter.) So we circulated, thanking the various people we could find, then carried all our stuff out to the car, and made our departure.

Wrap-up

At the first WriterCon, Jane Espenson was the big name. Her lecture and Q&A on the last day were a delight, as anyone who was there can attest. I would have to say, however, that Anna Genoese probably had more of an overall effect on the second ’Con than Jane did on the first. This would especially be so for those who, like me, intend someday to seriously attempt original writing with the intent of getting it published; everything Anna said was worth hearing, even if some of her own published authors pleasantly contradicted her on a few points. Even for those not especially interested in publishing, however, Anna was just plain fun to listen to. When someone (I think chrisjournal) said they didn’t know how to repay her, Anna said, “Invite me to the next one!” I would urge that this be done.

I was more scrupulous about listing my gripes than about including the warm fuzzies, so let me clarify at the end: I had a good time, slightly better (all told) than at the first ’Con, and will gladly attend a third one if my schedule permits. Everyone who contributed to it deserves congratulations and thanks … but, of course, the greatest portion would have to be reserved for chrisjournal, the organizer and animating spirit. Every room with her in it is a sunny room.

Comments

[texanfan.livejournal.com]

To start off, let me reiterate that the unfortunate conversational gaff on Saturday night was largely my fault. I knew your position on the topic at hand and, had I been thinking more clearly, should have steered it to other avenues while you were there. Since we hit religion next I'm not sure that would have been an improvement, but such is life.

I can see why we didn't cross paths Friday as we were at different panels all day. Friday morning had my favorite panel of the whole convention. Narrative flow modded by Savoytruffle. I took copious notes and gained a large number of new tools for my writer toolbox on pacing and mood. Thoroughly enjoyable.

As a rule I'm not a vid person so I skipped the Firefly vid that caused you difficulty. I think I grabbed a quick lunch and retired to my room to write. I did that a lot this con. IT was wonderful to get fired up about writing and then go do it!

I would love to read a detailed report on Authorial support. That was a case where I had to make a choice between two great panels and thus missed one. The same is true of Down the Rabbit Hole and Going Pro. There were times I regretted being unable to clone myself.

The handout for the Underwriting emotion panel has most of the salient points the presenter made. This was a panel with an exceptional first half but I found the second half to drag, for me. Quite possibly because the presenter was using scenes from Buffy shown on her laptop to illustrate her points and I was too far back to see the screen.

I'm thrilled to hear that poshcat was one of those who got her manuscript requested. Nine out of twenty is a pretty impressive number in my book. I'm very curious who the other eight are. I'd love to congratulate them all.

I'm sorry you missed the religion panel. It was intensely fascinating. Modded by RevDorothyL we had two ministers, a Lutheran seminary student, a Wiccan high priestess, a Jew, a Unitarian and an agnostic. Everyone was civil and respectful of each other's viewpoints. Part of what you mention about crucifixes and such was brought up. As was the extremely flawed depiction of Wicca as a religion in the shows. It was a lively and engaging discussion that could easily have gone on all day.

I'm very much looking forward to the third one.

[aadler]

If you believe you should have been more considerate, that’s for you to work out with your own conscience. I know that I behaved badly toward you and the others in that incident, and I repeat my apology. Thank you for doing your best to hold a moderate course, even if there are some areas where we will never agree.