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Panda*Monium!
Oh, boy am I behind on posting and reading. News update--roofer came, caulked and hammered, new flashing at chimney, *maybe* we're fixed--need some energetic rain to confirm. Asked for a price to fix ceiling damage (he'll pay to fix kitchen, where sun tunnel is located) but no estimate yet. Maybe a good thing--I don't want to fix it until I know the top side is fixed!
Yes, I survived the convention--I just barely survived the drive! When you drive, all sorts of things slip into the car...in my case, my Tempur-Pedic pillow. I ended up sitting on the sucker half way there, and all the way home. Whatever tolerance I had for long distance drives, my tailbone is no longer interested. I'm ordering a seat pillow! Being a rep has its advantages.
I can report that south Oklahoma and north Texas are still flat as a pool table, except the part just north of the red river (still exuberantly brick red) where the hills are very twisty. I tried to drive off the road while admiring the leaves, and had to slap myself into line. They were paltry by north and east standards, but for us, they weren't bad. My reward for watching the road was several really outstanding brilliant red oaks and pears in the parking lot of the Holiday Inn in Norman--so gorgeous I paid little attention to the highwayish of the rest of the view.
Ardmore, OK, on the other hand, may have four exits, now, but the part I saw was your typical "Down and heading out" part of town, with the rusted cars barely driving and all. While buying gasoline I was hailed as a person who surely used perfume by two undesirables in an ancient sedan. I was somewhere else mentally (getting out of the car with determination) and so said "Huh? No," which ground their sales pitch to a halt. I suspect I avoided compounding a crime... Then the young woman inside told me that no, she could not give me a bottle of water instead of the 16 ounce drink promised with the fill-up--and did not offer me a glass of water, either.
The best thing about Ardmore remains that my father was born there.
Next, a detour through the Chippewa National Forest (never trust an Internet Map) and a stop at a Chippewa Trading Post for a map. It was clean, bright and cheery, with helpful people. It also had a second room attached with floor to ceiling video gambling. A small child was there tugging on his mother's arm, saying "Can we go NOW?" They were apparently waiting for Dad.
And people in this state are petrified of alternate sexuality--so much so that in their middle schools they won't let more than one pre-teen girl at a time go to the restroom.
My junior high wasn't that exciting. I wonder at their priorities.
After all this fun, I made it back to the interstate and into Oklahoma City. My hosts were already home. We tossed my stuff into the house, Hostess Ooooed over the Austin varieties of hot sauce I brought for them, and we went out to GoPurim (sp?) for Indian cuisine. The place is wonderful. The buffet didn't have any real kheer for me to have (there was wheat in it) but dinner was stunning, and I would drive miles for their chickpea-slipped kale and spinach--it's flash fried and to die for.
I did a little massage work on my hostess, which helped her sleep through the night (need I say she works too hard and needs a new job?) A restful guest room--very zen and lots of books.
We were decadent and slept late--said Host went early to help troubleshoot at the convention. Turns out the hotel liaison who was the most trouble was fired earlier in the week. I threatened to get my Hostess a button that said "Troubleshooter: Kill zone 30 miles" since she wasn't even in Norman when the guy got canned. Hostess and I primped and got to the hotel in time for check-in and for me to do a TV interview for the OK library system. Now, if someone will just reprint the books, please?
Pinned the publisher to the wall over my books, in an easy sort of way (and was good and let him party the rest of the weekend.) Sounds like my books have been pushed back to 2006, due to a merger--and now he wants the new Allie first. Sigh. Well, he's bumped slightly in the queue for a shot at a chapbook; will get rolling on second draft of the new story tonight. I always thought putting out the new one first made better sense, and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
rolanni confirmed that it worked that way for her and kinzel. However, I haven't written the new novel yet, a slight complication. But I won't start another SF in this universe without a contract--I'm not positive there's a market for it, despite the current popularity of SF. Because one group screwed it up, it's hard to find another who will take a chance.
Dinner was shared with writers Brad and Sue Sinor, artist Cat Conrad and his spouse writer Roxanne Longstreet, as well as writersrachelcaine and juliefortune. Outback was able to handle my food intolerances, and I tipped lavishly accordingly. Both company and food were outstanding, and we spent a lot of time talking shop.
Was fairly quiet the evenings this con--I find I do not have much reserve right now. Recovery is a slow process! So went to the Yard Dog Press party, won a door prize and went home to read Selina Rosen's The Boat Man, a classic "If this goes on..." SF warning tale of the elderly dominating a future America. Unfortunately, it's too late for a Nebula nomination, but it stuck with me, the first rule for a prelim nomination. (This is "Haven't remembered to nominate for months" girl talking here. Got to check and see what I've forgotten to send in...)
Saturday was called "Nothing on the buffet I can eat except fruit". And I had a free coupon, having joined the mileage club! I was getting ready to tear out for breakfast when the day manager offered to have the chef do fresh eggs for me (thus guaranteed to have no milk.) The best meal I ate in the hotel.
After a quick stop-in at the "Teaching SF and Fantasy in the schools" panel, at 10 am I took on the world, teaching Pam McCutcheon's Writing the Fiction Synopsis: A step-by-step Approach to the small workshop group assembled. Overall it went over well, although it definitely needs two or three hours to really do the "Good Parts" version. I did not allow enough time for someone arguing that C3PO was the main character in Star Wars and thus should be listed higher than a "secondary" character. And when Chewbacca hit "minor" character--surprise, agreement! I kept stressing A) this story ONLY, not the entire series, and B) plot layout for an editor for the synopsis ONLY--does the character impact or is impacted upon by the protagonist? Should have figured ten minutes, or knocked heads together after five minutes.
I'd asked Edge Books to carry her book, and I know several workshoppers bought it, as well as another attending author. I, too, did my best for the dealer's room, buying several holiday gifts.
By 4:00 pm we were paneling for "101 interesting ways to kill off a character" which included GOH Mel Odom, a hugely prolific and interesting writer whom I'd never had the pleasure of meeting before. Cary Osborne, Jeff Provine and Brad Sinor were also there, and we made a merry hash of bodies for an hour.
I met my workshoppers late in the afternoon, and had one man (adult, professional, with a good story idea but all over the board) whom I had to rein in to one story at a time, and another young man with excellent dialog capabilities who wasn't nearly as concerned about his 2-D skeleton characters as he was about the editor (me) wondering about certain things in his concept to the point that it was hard to concentrate on the story. (Note--you give the editor only one name in the synopsis, have a concept already done several times in the one-liner version, and you wonder why I wanted to know what made it different from the others?) He seemed to think he could trade on the "shared vision" of everyone watching TV and movies and games in the same world. I pointed out that if I painted the scene in my head, and then he finally gave me a concrete piece of data about the scene that contradicted what I'd created, then he'd momentarily lost me. Do it XX times, and I probably wouldn't pick the book back up.
I was eating a cold, burnt hamburger patty at the time, thus confirming that it is impossible for the average hotel to feed someone with food intolerances. I don't think it made me a harder sell for these fledgling writers, since I did have a chocolate cookie waiting for me upstairs.
The evening included a fast and furious close to the art auction and a Murder Mystery performance by the Yard Dog Press writers. Rumor has it there's fine print in the Yard Dog Press contract... At any rate, it was very silly and much fun, and they did a good job with it. We also paid fifty dollars to charity to see the convention chair demonstrate how an animated panda walked and wiggled. I am proud to have tossed in money!
Writers Bev Hale, Mike Moe and I tried to stay up and talk for a while, but Bev was really fading after a few sips of wine, so we folded up shop. I decided that crashing sounded good, read for a bit, and followed Bev's example. Mike went party crawling, and later reported a nice party atmosphere prevailed.
The morning buffet contained scrambled eggs without milk, so I got to eat again. The fruit was not as good as Saturday, but there was stuff for regular eaters. Dealer Scott Merritt had an extra breakfast coupon he passed my way, so both I and writer Rhonda Eudaly got to munch a bit.
The last panel I had was the ever-popular "Business practices for Artists and Writers". We had three writers, an artist, an art dealer, and a publisher on the panel, and it actually had some good stories and information to share. We also slipped in the "If we can discourage you, that's good, we did you a favor" speech.
I missed several other interesting panels, such as "Will anyone know or care if I just make it up? The importance of research in storytelling" but I was dragged off for real food. Beverly A. Hale, Michael Moe, Rhonda Eudaly, Julia Blackshear Kosatka, and convention liaison Leonard Bishop insisted on Cracker Barrel. The food was much better than I expected, I didn't get sick, the waitress was wonderful and we showered her with money.
We didn't stay too late, heading back to OKC for a quiet evening. My hosts discovered that I'd never seen "Firefly" and showed me the two-hour original TV movie (which was not shown first, in typical TV fashion...) I was impressed. The western motifs were occasionally carried to silly extremes, but good characters, good story, interesting universe...I think I will try and borrow the rest when back home.
I stayed over to be well-rested before driving back, and of course the weather deteriorated and snow hounded me past the state line. I bought a lotto ticket from a very interesting Islamic man who told me to always ask for the winning ticket, or how could the universe send it to me? We didn't get to talk much more--I apparently lured half of north texas to his Exxon. But I made it home with very little nodding off, I'm pleased to say. The lotto ticket was not the winning one, but hope springs eternal.
Now--must write a short story, and package a copy of KINDRED RITES for the nice librarian who interviewed me.
Don't know if Pandamonium will happen again--despite excellent publicity, they didn't have the turnout among 18-30 year olds they were hoping for--but if it does, they're trying to do it well, and it was enjoyable. Lots of artwork sold, dealers did just fine for a new convention--very good people.
Yes, I survived the convention--I just barely survived the drive! When you drive, all sorts of things slip into the car...in my case, my Tempur-Pedic pillow. I ended up sitting on the sucker half way there, and all the way home. Whatever tolerance I had for long distance drives, my tailbone is no longer interested. I'm ordering a seat pillow! Being a rep has its advantages.
I can report that south Oklahoma and north Texas are still flat as a pool table, except the part just north of the red river (still exuberantly brick red) where the hills are very twisty. I tried to drive off the road while admiring the leaves, and had to slap myself into line. They were paltry by north and east standards, but for us, they weren't bad. My reward for watching the road was several really outstanding brilliant red oaks and pears in the parking lot of the Holiday Inn in Norman--so gorgeous I paid little attention to the highwayish of the rest of the view.
Ardmore, OK, on the other hand, may have four exits, now, but the part I saw was your typical "Down and heading out" part of town, with the rusted cars barely driving and all. While buying gasoline I was hailed as a person who surely used perfume by two undesirables in an ancient sedan. I was somewhere else mentally (getting out of the car with determination) and so said "Huh? No," which ground their sales pitch to a halt. I suspect I avoided compounding a crime... Then the young woman inside told me that no, she could not give me a bottle of water instead of the 16 ounce drink promised with the fill-up--and did not offer me a glass of water, either.
The best thing about Ardmore remains that my father was born there.
Next, a detour through the Chippewa National Forest (never trust an Internet Map) and a stop at a Chippewa Trading Post for a map. It was clean, bright and cheery, with helpful people. It also had a second room attached with floor to ceiling video gambling. A small child was there tugging on his mother's arm, saying "Can we go NOW?" They were apparently waiting for Dad.
And people in this state are petrified of alternate sexuality--so much so that in their middle schools they won't let more than one pre-teen girl at a time go to the restroom.
My junior high wasn't that exciting. I wonder at their priorities.
After all this fun, I made it back to the interstate and into Oklahoma City. My hosts were already home. We tossed my stuff into the house, Hostess Ooooed over the Austin varieties of hot sauce I brought for them, and we went out to GoPurim (sp?) for Indian cuisine. The place is wonderful. The buffet didn't have any real kheer for me to have (there was wheat in it) but dinner was stunning, and I would drive miles for their chickpea-slipped kale and spinach--it's flash fried and to die for.
I did a little massage work on my hostess, which helped her sleep through the night (need I say she works too hard and needs a new job?) A restful guest room--very zen and lots of books.
We were decadent and slept late--said Host went early to help troubleshoot at the convention. Turns out the hotel liaison who was the most trouble was fired earlier in the week. I threatened to get my Hostess a button that said "Troubleshooter: Kill zone 30 miles" since she wasn't even in Norman when the guy got canned. Hostess and I primped and got to the hotel in time for check-in and for me to do a TV interview for the OK library system. Now, if someone will just reprint the books, please?
Pinned the publisher to the wall over my books, in an easy sort of way (and was good and let him party the rest of the weekend.) Sounds like my books have been pushed back to 2006, due to a merger--and now he wants the new Allie first. Sigh. Well, he's bumped slightly in the queue for a shot at a chapbook; will get rolling on second draft of the new story tonight. I always thought putting out the new one first made better sense, and
rolanni confirmed that it worked that way for her and kinzel. However, I haven't written the new novel yet, a slight complication. But I won't start another SF in this universe without a contract--I'm not positive there's a market for it, despite the current popularity of SF. Because one group screwed it up, it's hard to find another who will take a chance.Dinner was shared with writers Brad and Sue Sinor, artist Cat Conrad and his spouse writer Roxanne Longstreet, as well as writers
rachelcaine and juliefortune. Outback was able to handle my food intolerances, and I tipped lavishly accordingly. Both company and food were outstanding, and we spent a lot of time talking shop.Was fairly quiet the evenings this con--I find I do not have much reserve right now. Recovery is a slow process! So went to the Yard Dog Press party, won a door prize and went home to read Selina Rosen's The Boat Man, a classic "If this goes on..." SF warning tale of the elderly dominating a future America. Unfortunately, it's too late for a Nebula nomination, but it stuck with me, the first rule for a prelim nomination. (This is "Haven't remembered to nominate for months" girl talking here. Got to check and see what I've forgotten to send in...)
Saturday was called "Nothing on the buffet I can eat except fruit". And I had a free coupon, having joined the mileage club! I was getting ready to tear out for breakfast when the day manager offered to have the chef do fresh eggs for me (thus guaranteed to have no milk.) The best meal I ate in the hotel.
After a quick stop-in at the "Teaching SF and Fantasy in the schools" panel, at 10 am I took on the world, teaching Pam McCutcheon's Writing the Fiction Synopsis: A step-by-step Approach to the small workshop group assembled. Overall it went over well, although it definitely needs two or three hours to really do the "Good Parts" version. I did not allow enough time for someone arguing that C3PO was the main character in Star Wars and thus should be listed higher than a "secondary" character. And when Chewbacca hit "minor" character--surprise, agreement! I kept stressing A) this story ONLY, not the entire series, and B) plot layout for an editor for the synopsis ONLY--does the character impact or is impacted upon by the protagonist? Should have figured ten minutes, or knocked heads together after five minutes.
I'd asked Edge Books to carry her book, and I know several workshoppers bought it, as well as another attending author. I, too, did my best for the dealer's room, buying several holiday gifts.
By 4:00 pm we were paneling for "101 interesting ways to kill off a character" which included GOH Mel Odom, a hugely prolific and interesting writer whom I'd never had the pleasure of meeting before. Cary Osborne, Jeff Provine and Brad Sinor were also there, and we made a merry hash of bodies for an hour.
I met my workshoppers late in the afternoon, and had one man (adult, professional, with a good story idea but all over the board) whom I had to rein in to one story at a time, and another young man with excellent dialog capabilities who wasn't nearly as concerned about his 2-D skeleton characters as he was about the editor (me) wondering about certain things in his concept to the point that it was hard to concentrate on the story. (Note--you give the editor only one name in the synopsis, have a concept already done several times in the one-liner version, and you wonder why I wanted to know what made it different from the others?) He seemed to think he could trade on the "shared vision" of everyone watching TV and movies and games in the same world. I pointed out that if I painted the scene in my head, and then he finally gave me a concrete piece of data about the scene that contradicted what I'd created, then he'd momentarily lost me. Do it XX times, and I probably wouldn't pick the book back up.
I was eating a cold, burnt hamburger patty at the time, thus confirming that it is impossible for the average hotel to feed someone with food intolerances. I don't think it made me a harder sell for these fledgling writers, since I did have a chocolate cookie waiting for me upstairs.
The evening included a fast and furious close to the art auction and a Murder Mystery performance by the Yard Dog Press writers. Rumor has it there's fine print in the Yard Dog Press contract... At any rate, it was very silly and much fun, and they did a good job with it. We also paid fifty dollars to charity to see the convention chair demonstrate how an animated panda walked and wiggled. I am proud to have tossed in money!
Writers Bev Hale, Mike Moe and I tried to stay up and talk for a while, but Bev was really fading after a few sips of wine, so we folded up shop. I decided that crashing sounded good, read for a bit, and followed Bev's example. Mike went party crawling, and later reported a nice party atmosphere prevailed.
The morning buffet contained scrambled eggs without milk, so I got to eat again. The fruit was not as good as Saturday, but there was stuff for regular eaters. Dealer Scott Merritt had an extra breakfast coupon he passed my way, so both I and writer Rhonda Eudaly got to munch a bit.
The last panel I had was the ever-popular "Business practices for Artists and Writers". We had three writers, an artist, an art dealer, and a publisher on the panel, and it actually had some good stories and information to share. We also slipped in the "If we can discourage you, that's good, we did you a favor" speech.
I missed several other interesting panels, such as "Will anyone know or care if I just make it up? The importance of research in storytelling" but I was dragged off for real food. Beverly A. Hale, Michael Moe, Rhonda Eudaly, Julia Blackshear Kosatka, and convention liaison Leonard Bishop insisted on Cracker Barrel. The food was much better than I expected, I didn't get sick, the waitress was wonderful and we showered her with money.
We didn't stay too late, heading back to OKC for a quiet evening. My hosts discovered that I'd never seen "Firefly" and showed me the two-hour original TV movie (which was not shown first, in typical TV fashion...) I was impressed. The western motifs were occasionally carried to silly extremes, but good characters, good story, interesting universe...I think I will try and borrow the rest when back home.
I stayed over to be well-rested before driving back, and of course the weather deteriorated and snow hounded me past the state line. I bought a lotto ticket from a very interesting Islamic man who told me to always ask for the winning ticket, or how could the universe send it to me? We didn't get to talk much more--I apparently lured half of north texas to his Exxon. But I made it home with very little nodding off, I'm pleased to say. The lotto ticket was not the winning one, but hope springs eternal.
Now--must write a short story, and package a copy of KINDRED RITES for the nice librarian who interviewed me.
Don't know if Pandamonium will happen again--despite excellent publicity, they didn't have the turnout among 18-30 year olds they were hoping for--but if it does, they're trying to do it well, and it was enjoyable. Lots of artwork sold, dealers did just fine for a new convention--very good people.
no subject
Should my ears have burned? *grin*
no subject
Did I say I hate Roxanne? %^) But it was a good con, in case you ever need to head this way. Ah! Edge had gotten in your book--I nag well--and I know a friend bought one copy, and at least a couple more sold--I saw the pile going down.
no subject
Hope the roof repaire works since it is wet as wet can be. Hey my mom is a neighbor of yours now, do you know of any neighborhood restricitons?
no subject
When we moved in here, our realtor told us (that's Roberta) that we could start a trailer park in here, the restrictions were so lax. So we bought the house near people who were taking care of their property, as opposed to the one with the fence falling down behind us.
Where's your Mom?