WorldCon 2012

Four of the five members of my writing group went to WorldCon 2012 this year in Chicago. We had a fine time with some nice surprises, a little disappointment, and an odd experience booking rooms.

Beth, Helen, Bob and I represented our group. Alas, Marc couldn't make it this time. Bob was also accompanied by his girlfriend Alice who turned out to be a lovely person with deep roots in Chicago like my own. (BEAR DOWN CHICAGO BEARS!)

Altogether we booked three rooms at the Hyatt. Without going into detail, the billing wound up being optimized to be as wrong as possible while still involving the people who actually stayed in the rooms. Still, they were very nice rooms and the Regency Club on the 35th floor was swell.

My disappointment was that I had arrived prepared to pitch Knights of the Full Moon as well as Shattered Home to any appropriate agent, editor or publisher who wasn't fast enough to run away. I had my 5 second elevator pitches locked and loaded, as well as brilliant half minute synopses almost guaranteed to leave the victim potential ally breathless for more. Alas, despite my pretty good efforts, no such opportunity arose. The closest came while I attended the Night Shade Books presentation of what's new. Turns out, however, that they don't publish YA stuff. :-( While SH is actually YA/adult cross-over, KFM is definitely YA, and my work in progress (currently titled The Other Side of Space) is for MG to YA.

One of the good surprises was seeing Teresa Frohock at Worldcon. She's a very nice lady whose work I had the pleasure of critiquing some time ago on the Online Writers Workshop, and whose comments from long ago you can find here somewhere. Her first book is titled Miserere--An Autumn Tale. Here's her site: www.teresafrohock.com

Another excellent surprise was having Neil Gaiman show up for the Hugo ceremonies! His Doctor Who episode (The Doctor's Wife) won for best dramatic presentation, short form. Quite interesting that three nominees were from Doctor Who, with a fourth (an episode of the U.S. sitcom Community) apparently inspired by Doctor Who.

Coming up some time I'll talk about an amazing writer named Jack Skillingstead!

Not complete failures as parents

I've been meaning to write this for quite awhile. My daughter Jamie is one of the brightest people I know. Parental bias abounds, but being valedictorian of her high school and earning scholarships to cover a large majority of her university tuition are pretty good pieces of objective evidence.

What most recently impressed me about her, however, is her in-her-bones understanding of how life most often works. Here's the story:

Several months ago she told us about a conversation with one of her friends. They were discussing college and what "everyone" was doing to prepare for the BIG CHANGE. My daughter asked her friend what scholarships she'd applied for so far. (Jamie has probably written three dozen essays for different applications.) The answer was along the lines of, "Not much. Something good will come along."

Jamie was aghast. In the retelling she said to us, "Doesn't she know that good things don't just land on you? You have to make good things happen!"

I've rarely been more proud of her, nor more pleased with Mom and Dad.

Scrabble Poetry

I'd not blogged for more than a handful of months in part because of so much going on -- "The vicissitudes of life" as my old friend Victor Lyons used to say.

I was prompted to get back to it recently because of something my daughter Jamie said. Yet when I did, I started (yesterday) with a note about my new novel Knights of the Full Moon.

So I decided to try again, but realized I wanted to take more time than I really have at the moment to write about Jamie. That's when I noticed how I mention Scrabble at the top of this blog, and yet I haven't said anything about it yet.

So, without (much) further ado, here's a Scrabble poem that I wrote some time ago during a fierce war with my friend George. It was the opening volley in a horrible conflict.

How do I spell thee?  Let me count the ways.

I spell thee OBI, OBE, and OBEAH, all are right,

We know even when the book is out of sight,

But FATTEND upon all seeing made me lose face

I spell thee XI and CHI and KI, with definitions not the same,

I spell thee freely, what 'ere it takes to win the game

I spell thee with passion that all can feel,

And thus bluff the phony, so you will think it real,

In thinking of GRIEFS, is it I before E?

Do ADZ and ADZE both correctly use my Z?

With my lost challenge, I'll spell thee again, but not the same,

But now the spot is gone.  Damn!

I shall spell thee better next game.


With lazy apologies to Elizabeth Barret Browning. More later!

Knights of the Full Moon -- shopping

My new 87,500 word YA/SF novel Knights of the Full Moon has now survived its third draft, and is presently loose in the woods, sniffing for lucky agents. Go, Knights, go!

Under the full moon, teens Jenny, Dreek, Maria and Charlie find an ancient, indestructible jeweled shield; four hours later they've viciously murdered Davey Crockett. So much for their worst problems being Jenny's OCD and Dreek not being "black" enough for his mom.

The shield grants them mental and physical powers, but that hardly makes up for the apparent killing, even if they had been temporarily insane. Being forced to attack the police doesn't help, nor does the six-armed, blue alien woman trying to slaughter them. And then there's Stink Man, and conflict with ham and cheese. At last when Jenny's family comes under attack they have to find a way to destroy the shield or go insane trying, a challenge that shatters their friendship.