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.

NADWCON 2011: Meeting with Terry Pratchett! (Part 2)

These are just some stray thoughts and recollections about the Kids Klatch with Terry, and mebbe a couple other things.

Kids Klatch

Terry recommended seeing a movie from the early 1960's called The Mouse on the Moon. This is the sequel to The Mouse that Roared.  We managed to track down a copy on Amazon, and we all enjoyed this family-friendly, funny, and sometimes cheesy picture. It's definitely worth the $10.00 or so that it cost us. (One of my favorite scenes involves offering pudding on the moon.) Beware: There are no mice in this movie.

My son loved when Terry used the phrase, "Mad as a hat full of spoons" while whirling his head around. (NOTE: He did *not* whirl his head around ala Linda Blair in The Exorcist.)

Mr. Pratchett did not say so, but Alex and I assume that Terry's daughter is at least in part a model for Tiffany Aching.

This tidbit came from the Kids Klatch, but also from the panel about "Publishing PTerry" with two of his American editors, Jennifer Brehl and Anne Hoppe, and his agent Colin Smythe: Terry uses speech to text software called Talking Point. What's fun is that he has taught it Nac Mac Feegle! Crivens! Dinna fash yersel', ya wee daftie.

Speaking of the above panel. Writers, editors, and others in publishing are familiar with a phenomenon called becoming "editor proof". This is when a BIG NAME writer gets so big that he/she believes her prose don't stink. That is, he/she either intimidates editors into silence, or has enough power to ignore them. We've all seen the 5th or 6th or 7th book in a popular series become immoveable, indigestable bricks running nearly 1,000 pages. Or even single novels that stink to high heaven, but the BIG NAME writer can publish anything he wants.

Well, I'm here to tell you that all the members of the panel confirm that Terry Pratchett is just the opposite. Even for work of his that has been through a few drafts with his Brit agent and editors, Terry is open to suggestions from his American cousins. He really is as nice and down to earth as he seems.

Spencer

We Were Feegles Once ... And Blue

NADWCON 2011 adventures continue. Alex and I participated in the Maskerade Saturday night and had a fantastically good time. Even waiting backstage to go on was fun, right up to the moment when we stepped close to the curtain and a bit of stage fright crept in. After all, this was our first ever costume contest. (Alex's first con of any kind for that matter.) Still, nothing debilitating grabbed hold and on we went!

Our premise was an older Feegle advising a youngster going out on his first expeditiashun, uh, expellimation -- first rrrrraid.  I honestly paid little attention to the crowd reaction except for purposes of timing. We were told, however, that it was well-received. Must have been, I guess, because we were awarded one of the special awards -- Best Use of a Brogue. :-)

It was very strange posing for pictures afterwards at the photo call, but we mugged shamelessly. Then I stood stunned as Terry Pratchett walked up to us. He said something in either a) actual Gaelic, or b) a heavy brogue with words I either couldn't quite hear or understand. Regardless, my enormously lame response included saying something along the lines of, "Oh my gosh, you're doing it for real." <fail>

Still, I thought that was going to be the highlight of our con. Then Sunday happened (Kids Kaffee Klatch) and proved me wrong.

Wow. What a fabulous time!

Thanks to all the really cool and fun people we met (Hi Two-Flower! -- Mike), and especially to my wife Ellen for everything (including much work on the costumes) and daughter Jamie for putting up with her geeky dad and brother.

Spencer

The following were all just in our hotel room. If anyone has pictures from the stage, and especially video of the whole Maskerade, I'd really appreciate seeing them. We didn't get to see any of the acts before us.

Knights of the Full Moon: 1st Draft Complete

Huzzah! I've completed the first draft of my latest YA/SF novel. [81K words] I'm currently waiting for my group's feedback on the final chapter, but I'll be proceeding post haste with writing the second draft starting at chapter one.

Beth Vaughan and I operate the same way -- save everyone's running comments, but continue writing new material until the book is complete. *Then* go back and start fixing your huge, steaming pile of --

Of course she has 5 (or 6?) more books worth of experience at it, and a very nice publishing track record. One step at a time. :-)

Spencer