Magical Words

I promise, I meant to post yesterday. But then I blinked and yesterday turned into today and I’m still not sure how that happened. *sigh*

Have you ever been talking to someone about the book he’s writing and heard something like this?

“Okay, so there’s this goatherd, and he’s out in the pasture one day when he finds a sparkly green rock. When he shines the rock on his shirt, a white-bearded magician appears and tells him he’s the reincarnation of the greatest warrior the land ever had.  He’s a born swordsman!  He has magical powers! And he has to accompany the magician on a quest to find an object of power that can save the kingdom from the evil Flogmuddles who are threatening to take over.”

The peasant-boy-with-a-mighty-destiny is a fantasy trope, a common theme that’s become a cliche. As writers, we do our best to avoid tropes, to create a story that’s fresh and different.  There are a few writers who’ve made a career out of writing tropes in a funny way (Diana Wynn Jones is a master!), but most of the time, they feel like the same-old-same-old.  I was talking to Faith the other day, and I mentioned that a book had disappointed me because it used my least favorite trope, the Magic Baby.

You know the Magic Baby, don’t you? It’s when the heroine or main female love interest suddenly turns up pregnant (usually at a very inconvenient time, say while the world is ending or there’s a battle being waged) but instead of the usual span of several months, she gestates in a couple of weeks, giving birth to a child with “eyes as old as time” or something equally hokey. The Magic Baby is talking intelligently at three hours, walking at one day, grows up within a week, and either becomes an evil, omnipotent monster or else saves the world, dying tragically in the attempt. It’s been a common trope in fantasy literature, movies and television for a long time now, and it’s pretty much a deal-breaker for me. It weakens the female heroine, since she can’t very well battle her own body. Then there’s that  mother instinct that forces the heroine to defend the baby even while it’s melting the countryside with its laser vision.  I adore my offspring, but if he started consuming the neighbors’ life forces I’d march that young’un out behind the woodshed and put a stop to that nonsense. I’ve stopped reading books that are otherwise excellent once the Magic Baby came into play. It just doesn’t make any sense in my world.

So tell me…what literary trope pushes your buttons?

Tags: Misty Massey by Misty Massey
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I can’t believe I’m about to say it, but – I have all the deadly, short term deadlines met.  All of them. How about that!

And, I actually have something to post about today – a comment that came from my yahoo site about the compassion of editors, or lack thereof. It was very tongue in cheek and started by my observation that a certain developmental editor (book doctor) was very OC.  One of the members asked what that what meant, another member said it (hopefully) meant overly compassionate.

For the purpose of this blog:

OC – obsessive compulsive, a very good trait in an editor.

AR – anal retentive, a difficult trait in an editor as they can be pretty hard to satisfy. Yes you can make up your own jokes from these. I won’t help you, however. <grins>

Compassion? Not a good trait. Not at all. The last thing I want in an editor is someone who is afraid to hurt my feelings. I want someone who believes in me, in my work, and in my future, and is willing to push me to my limits without remorse. I *want* my editor to be rough and tough and mean and gruff. (Isn’t there a childhood rhyme about that?) I want her to point out my failings and the failings in my story. I want her free to be (and do) all that. Okay – she can feel sorry that she hurt me, and pity my whimpers, but she must not be afraid to rip me a new one with every manuscript.

Why? If I screw up, the readers will either hate me, abandon me, or laugh at me, and not buy the book and will post bad reviews. I’d rather my editor be ruthless than the readers. I’d rather she be totally OC.

That is one reason (the biggest one) that my muse is so oddball and ugly. That is the reason why he carries a whip and isn’t afraid to use it. That is also the reason why I sometimes sit down and have a good girly cry over a rewrite letter. It’s tough being abused. It would be tougher being dropped from a publisher’s list.

So, yesterday – which was a long rainy day, the perfect dreary kind that makes me want to curl up with a book (or a hobby) and play – I took off all day, made jewelry, and let my mind float free. Not that I was *totally* not writing. Because I’m OC too. I admit that my mind floated into the planning of my next proposal. I couldn’t help it. I’m just built that way. And…sigh…I’ll get another rewrite letter in a week, and I need to have the proposal done before that time so I can concentrate on the rewrite letter, have a girly cry, then settle down to the pleasant-horrid labor of rewriting. Gah… The (hopefully) never ending cycle of a writer’s life. 

This single day of mental vacation was intended to set my own OC mind free so that I can finish the proposal and be clearheaded to work through all the manuscript changes that will surely come, even though my new editor looks sweet and kind and young enough to be my own kid and looks totally not OC. In a good editor, looks can be deceiving. And probably, hopefully, are. I hope she will be a slash-and-burn kinda gal. And whip me and my manuscript into shape. Yeah. I am an *OC Masochist*. For me, that’s just another term for writer.

Faith

Tags: Faith Hunter by faithhunter
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War has erupted among the five Old Races, and Margrit Knight is responsible for the death that caused it. Now New York City’s most unusual lawyer faces her toughest negotiation yet. And with her gargoyle lover, Alban, taken prisoner, Margrit’s only allies–a dragon bitter about his fall, a vampire determined to hold his standing at any cost and a mortal detective with no idea what he’s up against–have demands of their own.

Determined to rescue Alban and torn between conflicting loyalties as the battle seeps into the human world, Margrit soon realizes the only way out is through the fire….

Today is Release Day for HANDS OF FLAME, the third and final book in my Negotiator series!

Although this *book* wasn’t actually the culmination of 4 very long years of intensive writing, it’s the one that, in a lot of ways, completes the visual representation of all that work. When I sold my first book in 2004, I had a very clear and specific goal in mind: a certain amount of shelf space dedicated to my books. I’ve written over a million and a half words on the way to that goal, and now, with 3 Walker Papers (4, if you shelve the WINTER MOON novella along with them!) and 3 Negotiator books, as well as THE QUEEN’S BASTARD, there’s now starting to be a fair chunk of C.E. Murphy books on the shelf, and 3 hard-to-find Cate Dermody novels. I *like* the way that looks.

This is one of those things, I think, that…ain’t necessarily intuitive to consider, as a new writer going into the game. It’s astounding enough to get a contract. Thinking about what happens next, or happens five years down the road, is just too big.

On the other hand, this is a business. It’s important to have a business plan when you go into it. I recall, when I first sold, talking to Jennifer Jackson, who became my agent, about my goals. They were based on my expectations of myself–my knowledge of how fast I can write–and were therefore, ah, lofty. She was politely skeptical. Four years on, I’ve actually done what I proposed and am damned proud of that. It’s been a lot of hard work, but definitely worth it.

I don’t have anything really sage to say, except a game plan is good to have in place. That, and please go buy HANDS OF FLAME…

Tags: C E Murphy by cemurphy
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I’m feeling very much the way Faith must have the other day.  I’ve got nothing to say this morning.  I have no idea what to write for this post.

I’ve been thinking about distractions lately, mostly because I seem to be very much aware of all of the things lying around my house that call to me while I’m trying to write.  The slow drain in our bathroom that I’m perfectly willing to ignore all weekend long, but which becomes A Problem That Must Be Dealt With Now once the work week begins again.  The pictures from our trip out West that I did work on over the weekend but have yet to finish processing.  Converage of the Democratic Convention, which is Everywhere right now and which is quite a pull for a political junkie like me.

The deadline for my current WIP is close enough that I’m aware of it, but not so close that I’m in danger of failing to meet it.  That’s not necessarily a good thing.  I work well under tight deadlines.  I get focused, I work efficiently, I ignore the superfluous stuff.  But right now I can safely blow off work for a few days and really not hurt myself.  And that’s dangerous.  Because when it comes right down to it, I WANT to finish this book as soon as I can.  I want to move on to my Shiny New Toy (my next project, for those of you who missed that post a while back), and I can only do that when I finish work on this one.

Meanwhile, I think about that book by Guy Gavriel Kay that I bought recently and haven’t started yet.  I glance at my laptop computer case and think about the cool games I have on my laptop but have kept off my desktop so that I’ll get my work done.  I think about all the really yummy snacks sitting in the pantry.  (Nancy made a trip to Trader Joe’s and the farmers’ market in Atlanta last week.  We have chips and chocolate, crackers and cookies, hummus and exotic cheeses.)

I think this is one reason so many of the legendary writers drank to excess.  It was something to do other than write.  It was a form of procrastination.   They couldn’t check out a friend’s blog or browse through the online catalog at B and H Photo or check for book titles at Amazon.  They didn’t have four dozen television channels at their disposal.  As it is, I’m amazed sometimes that I don’t have a drinking problem or snack myself sick every day.

The same old qualifiers apply here.  I love to write.  I love my job.  I’m very fortunate that I get to do this for a living.  But the fact is, some days I don’t want to write at all, and there are a million things to distract me from my work.  That’s the hardest part of the Put Butt In Chair credo.  My heart is in the right place (the write place?), as is my head.  I know what I ought to be doing.  But it’s so easy to do all that other stuff.  And the irony is that this blog, which is something I’ve committed to do every Monday, is itself a distraction that I’m using right now to avoid the other writing I’m supposed to do.  I’m using a post about distractions to distract myself.  It’s a self-referential diversion.  How very post-modern…..

All right.  Enough of this.  I should go and write.  Although it’s been a while since I played my guitar.  And I can’t help but notice that my music CDs are not very well organized….

Tags: David B. Coe by DavidBCoe
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I found a lost treasure.

When I first became serious about writing, I was working on a Toshiba laptop (this was a while back, so it was a thick, gray monster of a thing!) Eventually, I upgraded to a thinner, nicer, younger laptop. One which had tons more storage capacity but did not have anyplace to insert a floppy disc. I promised myself I would eventually take all those discs to school (where old computers never go away!) and email myself the many documents saved therein, but I kept forgetting. Eventually the discs were tucked in a box and I stopped thinking about them until last spring when an editor (who’s probably given up on me by now! *grin*) asked me if I had any short stories. I pulled out the discs and started looking through them, surprised at all the work I’d let slip out of my sight.

A few days ago, I came across a fragment of a story I’d begun in a shared-world format. I’d given up the world after someone else appropriated Grog, my character, and led him far away from the story I meant for him. When I reread the fragment I’d written, Grog seemed to wake up in my head, and now he’s been wandering around in there for days, banging into the walls and grumbling about how his story was really supposed to go. (And leaving his socks on the floor. Geez.) I’m so hyper to work on his story, it makes my hands shake. I let myself play in Grog’s world only after I’ve worked on the novel, though - he’s become a prize for me.

I guess what I wanted to bring up today is that nothing is ever lost. That novel you couldn’t sell ten years ago might be just the thing for the current market. Dust it off and take a look. Those early stories that were clearly not saleable still might give birth to new and exciting ideas now. Maybe there are fragments still waiting for your attention, while you were focused on other work and couldn’t recognize them for the gems they were.

Not all treasure is silver and gold, mate.

Tags: Misty Massey by Misty Massey
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So, today is my day to post. And I got nothing’.

Not a dang thing.

With that (nothin’) in mind, I’d like to chat about deadlines and the social lives of writers. Because both are on my mind. Deadlines, because I came home to two deadlines, manuscripts waiting on me here at the house, on the bottom of an eighteen-inch-high-stack of mail, most of it trash, but a goodly portion of that deadlines. And both editors (two different houses, two different editors, two different pennames both mine) want said books back by the first of September. Arrrg.

We’ve posted here about the necessity of meeting deadlines, and it’s true. Unless you have open heart surgery or your sig-other dies, you are expected to meet deadlines. The publisher’s and editor’s deadlines, arbitrarily assigned and often with no prior notice. And if you happen to miss a deadline that is included in the contract (like when the first draft of a book is due) they can cancel the contract and you have to pay them back whatever they paid you so far. Scary. But the reality of the business.

Have I personally missed that deadly kind of deadline? Um… Yeah. I did. By six months. I just screwed up on when the book was due and thought I had 12 months to write a book, so I signed another contract to do 2 (more) books in that time period. In case you got mind boggled or I said that wrong, I signed contracts for 3 books in 12 months. And I ain’t Catie in terms of word output. No where near.

Now ordinarily, I can write a book in 4 months. But I had trouble with one. A lot of trouble. And it took me longer. And I just got behinder and behinder. Thankfully, my editor knew me personally (by that time), had gotten a promotion, covered for me, and reassigned me into a slot later in the year. I didn’t have major problems from it, but I could have. It could have been the death of one of my pennames.

The two deadlines waiting for me this week are do-able in the timeframe assigned because one is a line and copy edit from people I’ve worked with a lot and can trust, and one is page proofs (galley) for a book that is about to be reissued in massmarket paperback. So I can set my butt on the couch with a tankard of tea and read and make notes and get both done fast. I can. But it cuts into my social time a bit. (grinning) Writers with social time. Hah!

Today I had lunch with Tamar Myers, mystery writer and longtime friend. I met Tamar when I had my first *big* book published in 1994. We lived, then, in the same town. She thought I was a big name because the advance amount had leaked out around town. (See my proud mama in this, anyone?). I thought she was a big name because she had several books out. Turns out we were both midlist, and destined to stay that way for awhile.

She tracked me down, called, and we met for lunch and hit it off right away. Even though we were both terminally shy. Really. (Stop laughing Misty. I was shy. I was! You too, David. Stop snickering.) Anyway, we still meet for lunch once a month, easier now that Tamar has moved back into the area. She’s moved around a lot. Today we met at the Cracker Barrel near Carowinds and had a very late breakfast of pancakes, and talked nonstop for 2 hours, getting caught up on each other’s lives and books. And I came away restored, relaxed, and rejuvenated in lots of ways. Tamar and I have gone through a lot of similar experiences during our time in print, and have shared our failures, successes, problems, and have listened to each other’s publishing war stories. And even though I have these deadlines whelming, and agent issues, and a new editor to learn, I am content because she understands completely.

Anytime I can sit with a writer and visit, debate, listen, and even disagree, I come away restored. Because it is a light in the bend of a dark tunnel. A moment of communal understanding and support along the lonely journey of being a writer. Thank you Tamar. And I thank all my writer friends for being there.

Back to the deadlines.

Faith

Tags: Faith Hunter by faithhunter
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I keep forgetting to post! I have for the last what, three Tuesdays, thought, I must post at Magical Words today and then it’s like, Thursday, and I’m going, “AUGH.” So, belatedly, some catch-up:

Point the first: Comic-Con was amazing. Rather than reiterate, I will point people at my posts here, here and here. I’m sorry to have missed Worldcon and my fellow Magical Worders, but Comic-Con was well worth going to. Wow.

Point the second: I finished the fourth Walker Papers novel about ten days ago, rather unexpectedly. It came in shorter than intended, though not actually all that short: about 103K, instead of 110K. So that was about…six weeks of actual writing, I think, though it was two months elapsed time. Not too shabby, really. So that’s been turned in and I’m ON HOLIDAY. Which is part of why I can’t remember to post.

And point the third: an actual writing post, on the evolution of a series.

So back when I started THE QUEEN’S BASTARD, I knew it was going to be a big book. I was guessing around 175K. My editor said, “Glack!” and we cut the book at a place which I actually am *really* pleased with; it allowed me to do a shift for THE PRETENDER’S CROWN that wouldn’t have worked nearly as well if the book had ended where I initially planned for it to. (Plus, where I’d initially expected it to end turned out to be at about the 230K mark, which, well. O.O) And at the end of the day, TPC wraps up with more or less the ending I’d expected for TQB, rather than the one I’d expected to reach by the end of the second book.

Consequently, I’ve been struggling to figure out how to deal with the third book in the series. I called the series a cycle instead of a trilogy, because by the time I turned TQB in it seemed pretty likely I wasn’t going to be able to wrap the series up in 3 books, and “cycle” lets you write as many as you need. But we’d never really discussed whether or not Del Rey would be okay with a more-than-three-book-series, and so I’ve been kind of trying to write a proposal that pulled the series together and completed it in the third book. I wrote the first three paragraphs of the synopsis–a chunk that *could* be covered in the prologues that are part of this series–and realized that yeah, it *could* be a prologue…or it could be a book all on its own. The fact that I’m struggling with it finally suggested to me that I was really leaning toward it being a book all on its own.

So I ended up emailing my editor to say so how many books do you want this series to be? It could be three, it could be four, it could be five. It’s not impossible, given that it took two books to tell the first part of the story, that it could end up being *six* books. My guess right now is that four is a nice number, but I’m reluctant to actually pinky-swear that one, given that I used to be quite sure it was a trilogy.

And this, gentle readers, is how series grow out of control, and how what was originally billed as going to be 5 books becomes 12, or 3 books becomes 6, or what-have-you. I have myself complained bitterly about writers who can’t seem to end a series, and therefore feel a bit sheepish at the idea that one of my own series is expanding beyond what I initially expected it to be. OTOH, I now have far greater sympathy for it happening, and find it kind of interesting to view from the inside.

Tags: C E Murphy by cemurphy
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We dispense a fair bit of advice on this blog, so I thought all of you would be pleased to know that I actually took my own advice the other day and it actually worked.

I got back from WorldCon energized to write.  Unfortunately, I’d been away from home and my current work in progress for three weeks and I had totally forgotten what I was doing with the story.  I assumed that I’d read the last two chapters I’d written and would soon find myself back into the flow of the book.  Didn’t happen.  Some of you may remember that right before I left for our family vacation and WorldCon I wrote a post about The Writer’s Wall, which I generally hit right around the two-thirds mark.  That’s where I was when I left for points West.  I had hoped to avoid The Wall by taking the time off and coming back to the book fresh.  Instead, I found myself running headlong into it.  Not fun.

So what did I do?  First off, I read through what I’ve written of the book thus far, starting from the very beginning.  Why?   Because I needed to remind myself of what I’d done with all the various plot threads.  I remembered in a vague sense, but sometimes I find that it’s the small details that often act as cues for future plot twists.  I needed to familiarize myself once more with the characters, the narrative flow of the book, and the hints I’d left along the way to point my readers and (in this case me as well) in the right direction.

Then I sat down in front of my computer and started writing out a stream of consciousness conversation with myself about what I still needed to do with the book.  The first line read, “Help!! What needs to happen at the end of the g__d____d book??!!”  As I mentioned in my post about The Wall, this stream of consciousness thing is something I do quite a bit and recommend highly.  I ask myself questions and respond to them, typing the entire exchange as I go along.  Why do I type it?  Personal preference.  I tend to process information best visually, particularly when it’s information about writing.  If you process information differently, by all means skip the typing part.  But this approach usually works for me.

It did this time.  I started the stream of consciousness thing late Friday morning.  By quitting time Friday afternoon, I’d outlined the remaining chapters of the book.  Now, you may be asking yourself, “Hadn’t he outlined the book prior to starting it?”  And yes, that would have been a very clever thing to do.  Had I done it, I mean.  That would have been clever.  Outlining is good.  Unfortunately, I hadn’t taken that particular piece of advice to heart when I first began.  I outlined the early chapters of the book, fully intending to outline the rest once I was well into the project and had a better sense of where the book was headed.  I’ve known for a while how the book ends.  I just wasn’t entirely certain how to get there.  [Note to self:  Next time outline the WHOLE book.  Idiot.]

Anyway, all is right with the world now.  (At least the world I’m writing about.  Our own world remains thoroughly screwed up.  But that’s a post for a different venue.)  I know where I’m going with the book AND I know how to get there.  All because I took my own advice.  Er. . . except on the whole outlining thing, which I pretty much blew off. 

So I guess the moral of this post is that you should take all of our advice to heart and not just pick up on the little snippets that seem to work for you while ignoring the rest.  Except that’s terrible advice right there.  Not all of our advice is going to work for you.  You really should pick and choose.  So maybe the moral of this post is that I should take my own advice to heart rather than picking and choosing which things I want to do and which things I don’t.  Yes, that’s the moral.  Turns out this was really a post for me more than for you.  I probably should have mentioned that up front.  Could have saved you some time.  Sorry about that.

Tags: David B. Coe by DavidBCoe
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Oh dear…I’ll warn you now, this may be a pretty whacked-out post. Between the trauma of being stranded in NYC overnight, catching a cold on the trip and having to return to the day job, I’m a little brainless.

WorldCon was terrific. Faith and David have already mentioned many of the selling points for going, so I won’t repeat what they’ve said. As we’ve told you many times, writing is a solitary business. Sometimes cons are the only chance we have to meet others in our profession, and they’re great opportunities to network with the people who can further one’s career. However, things can become a little silly. If you’ve never been to a con, here are a few thoughts to help you understand what might happen when you do, at last, attend one.

- It is easy to let oneself eat badly while at con, and after two days, you might realize you’re in desperate need of fruit and veggies. Therefore, strawberries left unattended at a publisher’s party are not only fair game, but could lead to David and Misty coming to blows over who gets the last of them. (No, we didn’t, but we might have if they’d run out.)

- Bathtubs make excellent drink coolers, and publisher’s parties are really, really hot. As in sweaty and muggy. Deal.

- Downtown Denver is a relatively safe place to walk at night, but do not be surprised if you and your friend are propositioned by a passing homeless guy who appreciates your fashion sense.

- If you’ve agreed to serve on a panel about sci-fi movies, be aware you’re about to talk to people who know the names of the entire film crew for the original silent version of “The Day The Triffids Made The Earth Stand Still”, and who can argue the merits of that film’s sound engineer versus the guy who did sound for the Technicolor remake from 1968.

- Spend some time in the bar with a publisher who’s already drunk, and eventually you will find yourself promising to write a story for an anthology titled “Must Die Warm”, based on being so cold you can’t feel your toes.

- If someone says, “Let’s go for sushi,” go.

- Just because John Scalzi is slurring his words as if he’s drunk, don’t be fooled. That’s water in that glass.

- If you decide to create a secret enclave with the bar couches, somehow people will still find their way in. And strangely enough, you won’t mind at all.

- When drinking, try to be sure the Sean at hand is the Good Sean and not the Evil one.

- No matter how strong you mean to be, once you’re in the dealer’s room, all control is sucked out of you and you’ll end up going home with a silk corset. (Especially if Lisa Mantchev is nearby…)

- There is definitely a Tim Tam fairy, but rumors of the Cadbury fairy have yet to be proven true.

- Writers with determination can walk from the Convention Center to Starbucks and back in less than twenty minutes and still not be late to their panels.

- Happily pointing at Faith’s mass-market book covers while at a publisher’s party can result in David losing a finger.  (No, he didn’t, but for a second, we were all worried.)

So there are my slightly cryptic thoughts on WorldCon. Now, I must go and crank out some pages. My editor is excited to see the book, which means I need to get those last pages written. Frankly, I’m a bit excited about the end myself. If you have questions about WorldCon, Denver, writing…hell, ask me anything. If I don’t know the answer, I’ll make something up.

Tags: Misty Massey by Misty Massey
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Like David and Misty, I’m back. Unlike David and Misty, I’m not at home yet, but through the magical mystery of the Internet, am back virtually on MagicalWords.  My body is somewhere on the plains of Kansas…no wait, it’s the rolling hills of Okalahoma, seeing the country and taking rivers. And listening to the hubby find songs for every freaking state, city, etc that we pass through. Entering Okalahoma has been the worst. He doesn’t listen to show tunes but he knows the opening phrases…over and over. Arrrrg! Anyway, hope this loads up properly on the laptop…

For the past few weeks I’ve been crossing the country doing research for my AKA’s (Gwen Hunter) thriller that will be out this Feb. 09, and getting to Denver for the conference, which was called both WorldCon and Denvention3.

It’s been a lovely trip, full of unexpected surprises – things I will use in future books, including, possibly, Golden, Colorado as a book setting. But I’ll blog on that in another place. Speaking of which…the conference.

This was my first WorldCon, held in Denver, and it was fine, fun and full of fantasy. There were lovely visits with my agent, Lucienne Diver, whom I adore, and dinner with my new editor at ROC (division of Penguin) Jessica Wade. She is perky, clever, thoughtful, willing to let a writer take chances with a character and plot, and, though she looks fourteen, has five years experience as an editor. Can’t beat all that. Except to say that we clicked, which is what all writers hope will happen with an editor. I do like her very much. That in itself was worth the price of the trip out.

The con… Well, many of you know that I come to conferences through the mystery and the romantic suspense genres. Cons in those genres are different, though there are similarities as well. Let me start with the clothing…

Fantasy cons…The animal ears, Star Wars costumes, erotica elements, belly dancer costumes, S&M and erotica elements, character clothing from a favorite series, and that was the fans. The writers tend to wear jeans and tees, which came as a shock…I mean, the mystery cons and romance cons, are so different.

Mystery cons are business attire by day. (Yeah, jackets and business slacks and loafers or comfortable walking shoes with arch supports.) Formals and tuxes are worn at the big events. No one wears costumes at a mystery con. The fans are usually older, with a demographic that is more mature, more traditional, and less ready to party. Heck, most mystery fans are asleep after the early news. (Did I say that? Faith slaps self.)

At romance cons, writers dress in the clothing of the time period in which they write, so writers and fans may show up in saloon girl clothing, cowboy or cowgirl outfits complete with whips and six-shooters, pirate outfits, medieval costume, or Elizabethan gowns. The erotica element is present there too, like in fantasy cons, with just as much to show. Ahem.

Parties: The parties at WorldCon were fun, though the fact that I don’t care for parties might have something to do with the fact that I left early every time. Fantasy con parties are drunken, loud, with a lot of hooking up for after-hour sex. Our little group hung together and we may as well have worn *Keep Away* signs around our necks for the trollers.

Mystery con parties may serve wine or beer, but will as often serve hot tea. And scones with jam. I kid you not. However, the hooking up still takes place, and it is amusing watching the thriller writers troll for other writers and fans young enough to make do.

Romance con parties—well…like fantasy parties, they are rowdy and drunken gatherings of fans (all women) and writers (99% women) and most of them straight. And so few men, and most of them gay. So, not much hooking up. At one memorable RWA con party I went to, 50 drunk women pulled my hubby into the middle of the dance floor and spent 2 hours rubbing all over the poor poor *poor* guy while I talked business with my editor and publisher. I still tease him unmercifully about that, and he gets this happy glow when I do. And yes, we went home together. And I had a lovely evening…. Okay. Onward.

At mystery and fantasy cons, what is much more fun than publisher parties is gathering in the bar with writers (those not looking for a temporary bed partner) after the evening’s official events end, sipping beer and chatting as the group ebbs and flows, grows and shrinks and the hours pass. I’ve spent evenings with big name and midlist writers and fans and gotten a few good pics…and lots of good advice. At WorldCon, well, David has already mentioned the writerly names, so I won’t bore with repetition, (Faith waves hi to all the new friends!) but it was wonderful, and I met lots of new people.

David has a sharp wit and kept us all laughing. Misty Massey can talk to anyone, and if she ever tells you she is shy, she is fibbing through her teeth. She is gracious, charming, and took good care of me when my adrenaline condition acted up and I got lost. Real lost. Like, couldn’t find my way out of a paper bag—that kind of lost. And totally forgetful. When it happens it is like falling into full blown Alzheimer’s. A bit of rest helps, but there wasn’t much rest this week. Because of the panels….

The panels at all cons are really good, and David, Misty, and I had several each, but often opposite each other, so getting together for lunch was nearly impossible. On my panels, there was a lot of give and take between the writers, with great audience participation. Only on two panels, one of Misty’s (which I did get to attend) and one of mine, did a writer consider herself the only expert and take over. Writers who do that are tiresome, and spoil things for everyone, as the audience comes to hear a group, rather than a monologue, and if the moderator sits there like a rock on a turtle, allowing said chatty writer take over, it gets boring. On Misty’s panel, the moderator was Mr. Rock on Turtle. On my panel, the moderator did a great job and called chatty Miz Know It All (not the same person as on Misty’s panel) down. And had to keep calling her down, over and over. Tiresome.

There were people from my Yahoo group at AWorldCon, Randy and Char, and we ran into them all week, but never found time to belly dance. Though yes, I brought my hip scarf. I did get a private filk demonstration from Char, and she has a lovely, clear voice. (Hi Randy, hi Char!) David, you would have loved it. (happy grins) Filk is a type of musical style that is very whimsical, lyrical, full of medieval influences, and is often story-telling at its musical best. And it works with fantasy-based cons. Randy and Char also gave me cake. Very good cake! And salt and vinegar potato chips. I was sooo hungry!

Last but not least, was the seminar I gave on the First Five Pages, and Why My Manuscript Didn’t Sell. It went very well. Very very very well. (Hi to new fans and writers from the seminar!) I was quite pleased. Well, I was quite pleased with the entire week. Cons for fans are fun! And they are part of a writer’s life, necessary for several reasons, which is what this rambling monologue has been leading up to. I’ll list a few reasons:

1. To see agents and editors, keeping high in their radar
2. To hear about the industry and what is happening, might happen, or recently happened
3. To taste regional food (read beer here…90 Shillings and Fat Tire. Yummy)
4. To connect with fans and hopefully make new ones
5. To connect with writer friends. I live near Misty and about 5 other writers, but most live miles away and I might bump into them in person only once or twice a year. I made new writer friends and look forward to seeing them again at other cons (More waving!)
6. To attend parties with publisher bigwigs
7. To rub elbows with the creative and powerful
8. To brainstorm PR and book ideas with fellow writers
9. To plan for the future, both series and business and next year’s cons
10. To have a bit of fun in an occupation that is so very solitary

Negatives for cons? Expense. Time not spent writing. Did I mention expense? Time away from family. Oh—and then there is the expense. What cons also don’t do is make a measurable, quick difference in a career. Writers don’t see an instant jump in book sales.  Writers don’t suddenly move up the lists. And cons are very expensive. Yeah, I know. I said that already. Flights (or in my case RV gas) hotels (or in my case RV camp fees) and food are a lot to pay to be part of an industry that won’t do much to help you with your career until you are already moving up the charts. But the fun and the after-party beer/cola/water fests make it all worthwhile.

Faith

Tags: Faith Hunter by faithhunter
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