Inspiration

When done right, comics are a cognitive whetstone, providing two or three or more different but entangled streams of information in a single panel. Processing what you’re being shown, along with what’s being said, along with what you’re being told, in conjunction with the shifting multiple velocities of imaginary time, and the action of the space between panels that Scott McCloud defines as closure...

--Warren Ellis

Word.

I have actually tried to do this in prose: Blood & Iron is the result, and as many can testify, using only one input stream for all those entangled information threads results in almost headsplitting density and limited success. (In your average comic panel, the streams may be visual/art/action/scene setting, narration, internalization, dialogue/thought, and white space. Yeah, think about that for a moment, and consider that maybe I missed one. Or two. And that they can contradict or ironicize each other.)

Comics are cool. They are an interstitial art form all in their lonesome.

I've been sweating away on my work in progress; as a result, I'm suffering a bit from a condition I like to call "squozen brain." Therefore, today's post will be heavy on links and light in tone!

Thanks to everyone who's taken the male/female voice quiz so far. There's still time if you want to take it. I'm keeping score in a spreadsheet because, yes, I am just that geeky! I'll post the results in a couple of days. I'm finding the results very interesting, but I don't want to say more because I'm trying not to give any hints.

Tomorrow is the 15th of the month, which means another chance to win a bag of goodies from debut2009 .

I've been enjoying this site that discusses outdated library books. It's a perfect demonstration of why libraries weed their collections. My favorite: this one (featured quote from the book: "With all due respect for the liberation of women, someone has to clean the house and do all kinds of boring chores.") Thanks to aprilhenry for bringing the blog to my attention.

I saw a headline on Yahoo recently, something like, "Study finds that cats really do control their owners."  To which I say: "Well, duh!"  And to which my cat says: "Naturellement, foolish human.  Now bring me my catnip mouse."

I'm getting ready to head off to Washington, DC, for conference number one of my back-to-back marathon. Chances are slim that I will find time to blog in the next couple of weeks, but I will be back as soon as I can with all sorts of crazy stories. Or something like that.

Today I was overcome by the urge to abandon my responsibilities and do something fun. So I shanghaied my friend Janci and we took off for Salt Lake City to find Decades Vintage Clothing. I'd been told that vintage clothing stores are the best places to get truly amazing evening wear, and Decades is the only one in my vicinity. I opened the door and the soft rush of air carried with the smell of my grandmother's closet. It is a warm and comfortable smell part cedar chest, part moth ball, part organic fabrics, and part aged leather. I love that smell. I stepped inside the store and fell in love further. I had come to a place where I could browse through history, buy a piece, and take it home with me.

We browsed the racks, amusing ourselves by pulling out clothes and wondering aloud who ever thought putting gold rope and purple rhinestones on a mustard colored dress was a good idea. Right next to the atrocious things that were always atrocious, were some items that I would consider atrocious except for the fact that I could tell they were genuine. The dress with the zigzag sequins is not something people would wear now, but if I look at it in the light of the 70's I can see how it was beautiful. And then there were the dresses that are still beautiful, and unfortunately not my size. I am not generally a fan of lots of bead work on a dress, but some of those dresses were amazing. Bead work done right is stunningly beautiful.

As I continued looking, it occurred to me that all of these dresses have stories. Someone bought it and wore it (or didn't) for a reason. Was the dress worn often? Was it handed off to a friend? Was it shoved into the back of a closet? By what winding path did this dress survive decades and end up in the store for me to admire? Some of those dresses had the aura of the 20's and 30's. It was fun to look at the design choices and guess to which era the dress belonged. Janci and I started made up stories for some of the dresses. "This was a bridesmaid's dress, and she hated it, but she couldn't give it away for fear of making her friend mad."

Dresses were not the only things in the store. There were almost any imaginable type of clothing. We saw a white coat made out of and iridescent plastic fuzz with giant pom poms on the ties. It reminded me of a poodle. There were some awesome hats and some amazing shoes. If my feet were smaller, I would have bought several pairs. The jewelry cabinet was the very definition of shiny. Necklaces, ear rings, bracelets, and cuff links were lined up as close to each other as possible. Some were boggling. Did people really wear earrings the size of a mason jar lid that dangled six inches down? Many were beautiful and would be incredibly stunning with the right clothing to match.

In the end I didn't even try anything on. Just looking at all the history was so amazing it wore me out, in the same way that visiting a museum wears me out and leaves me with piles of new thoughts to sort through. I will be going back and I will buy something there. I love old clothes and the prices were very reasonable. Most of the jewelry was less than $10. Most of the dresses were about $30. Perhaps next time I go, I will take Kiki. She would love the rack of oriental themed clothing.

I finished my GIVE UP THE GHOST book trailer today! (Finished being a relative term. I need to get feedback from people before I can post it publicly, and may need to do some tweaking.)

I have to say it was some of the most fun non-writing book work I’ve done! Hard work, yes, but picking out the images (I got to “cast” Cass and Tim, hee) and the music and bringing it all together–I can’t wait to share it!

With a little luck you’ll be seeing it by the end of the month.

And I should go now, because there is a cat on my lap demanding my attention.

Originally published at Megan Crewe - another world, not quite ours. You can comment here or there.

I wrote a brief recap of Readercon 2009 for Tor.com. Unfortunately, it's one of those cons defined by the company one keeps, so the parts I enjoyed most are hard to recap, since it was, "Then we talked for three hours!"

The recap does mention the announcement to do one-track programming next year, which is apparently now in flux. As I'm not a huge fan of single-track programming, especially for a con this size, how things fall out will probably affect whether or not I go next year.


Two nourishment-related things that did not end up in my recap:

* The number of times I shelled out ten bucks for a garden salad with chickpeas in an attempt to eat something that was not nachos.+
* The number of times I walked the mile-plus round trip to the Starbucks in the Cabot House shopping center (Distinctive Home Furnishings since 1950mumble!). Fun fact: it's much nicer to make that trip when it's 78 degrees instead of 105, like last year.

+ I ate a horrendous amount of nachos. I couldn't bring myself to beg for grilled cheese this year, somehow.

If I do not finish the book today, I will simply have to finish it tomorrow.

Page 357. Two chapters remaining.

Protein helped with the exhaustion. Memo to me: you do really feel better when you eat the red meat, even if you'd happily go vegetarian on most other grounds.

The thing about entries like this one, wherein I need to describe the day before, when nothing much happened, is that it tempts me to write about all the stuff I need to do during the day that lies before me. Which only serves to subvert the next day's entry.

There are a few things about Readercon 20 that I forgot to mention. For example, during the "Meet the Pros(e)" thingy on Friday night, when all the authors in attendance have sheets with peel-off stickers, and each sticker contains a single sentence the author has written. Con guests roam through the crowd, asking authors for sentences. Some authors exchange sentences with other authors. I gave lots away, but only received three stickers this year (I wasn't asking for them in return for my own). One reads, "Obsessives, doubters, workaholics: When the world ends, we will die, too." The second reads, "'We wage our deadliest battles,' Gundack said, 'against ourselves.'" Finally, the last reads, "Our words are the death masks of dreams." A theme is immediately apparent, and that I received these completely at random makes it all the more curious. I do not know who wrote these sentences.

Also, my thanks to readingthedark, who gave me a copy of Placebo's Battle for the Sun the last day of the con. And there were other people I met for the first time, and that was cool. Catherynne Valente, for example, and Jeffrey Ford, and, gods, I forget. My mind is a sieve. Only, it's a selective sieve, which is the way of most sieves, now that I think on it. I expect there are other things I wanted to mention, but now I can't recall what they are. Oh, I did, once again, arrive at the conclusion that I will never be considered a "great" sf author, because I'll never concede that ideas are more important than characters, and I'll never be a technofetishist, and I'll never confuse the purposes and nature of literature with the role and nature of science.

I got the news yesterday morning that Charles N. Brown, co-founder and editor of Locus magazine (begun in 1968), died in his sleep on the way home from Readercon. I didn't know him well. We were once part of the same little dinner gathering in Chicago (2002), but that was about it. Nonetheless, his passing leaves a peculiar void in the world of sf & f publishing, and I was stunned at the news.

As I said, not much to yesterday. We had to make the drive back down to Spooky's parents' place in South County to check on things. Things were fine, except for a catbird trapped inside the netting that covers the blueberry bushes. The netting is there to keep the catbirds out. We call this irony. Spider cat was getting grumpy from all his time alone. More and more, I wish we'd rented a place in Kingston or Peace Dale, instead of Providence. Anyway, Spooky's parents return from Montana on Thursday.

What I was supposed to do yesterday was rest and recover from the weekend, and that's what didn't happen.

So...I have about a billion things to do today. Okay, maybe only about thirty, but still. Too much. July is swamped. Turns out, there will be a re-relaunch of the website later this week. It'll retain the same look and minimalist feel, but there will be a bit more content, especially relating to The Red Tree. So, please keep a weather eye on the website. And there's an interview I have to do, and a mountain of email to answer, and some promo stuff I need to get to for my editor, and preparing to shoot the book trailer, and I have to get started on Sirenia Digest #44. It really is a bit of a train wreck, is July. I didn't think it would be so bad. I was wrong.

Oh, and I should say, it has been decided that my next novel will be only 140-characters long.

Postscript (2:28 p.m.): Thanks to Franklin Harris for bringing this Readercon write-up ("Some important things/people that I saw/met/learned/heard about at Readercon" at Time.com) to my attention. I quote: "I didn't talk to Caitlín Kiernan, but I watched her swanning around in a tentacled mask and grey lipstick, and I felt awe. It is so important that cons have freakish people at them." I'm going to take this as a compliment. Did I "swan" around? There is an Old English meaning of the word, "to wander about without purpose, but with an air of superiority." So maybe I did swan around. Bjork and I, we swan. Also, the lipstick was green. Regardless, good to be mentioned, and yes, I am a freak, and I'm pleased the author included the fada in my name.

My poor meat is so dischuffed with me. I just managed to pry myself out of bed and I'm still exhausted and in the throes of the allergy attack that woke me up at three AM and would not let me go back to sleep until I fed myself benadryl and washed out my eyes. Really, my major life goal currently would be to lie down for a nap, but there is this deadline, see, and the deadline must be obeyed. Prodigious work lies before me today--revising at least fifty pages and/or three chapters of Chill, since today is a day without other scheduled duties. And I so badly want to crash. Alas, the meat must wait a few days still to collapse.

We went climbing at Pinnacle last night, and I managed both routes we set. One was easy--First Crack, which was the first route I ever sent outdoors, last year, and which I managed this time as a clean ascent--and the other was a more challenging, very edgy route on the slab, which may not even have a name. Basically it consisted of a fifteen-foot 5.7 slab ascent, a fifteen-foot 5.5 or so crack system, and another fifteen-foot slab at the top that was very sparse and crimpy and required a couple of fairly technical smears and matches. I got through it without any falls, and with only one bad moment--my shoe popped off the slab on a smear, but I held on and got myself back on without losing my hands.

I also got through both climbs without panic attacks, which was nice and may be a sign of progress. I do better at this whole outdoor climbing thing when I'm not throwing myself fruitlessly at routes that are way too hard for me. I wonder if my climbing buddies can be convinced of that? Because they tend towards the stupidly macho end of the scale when it comes to repeated failures being good for you....

I was going to take the dog for a run this morning, but it's just not going to happen. The flesh is weak. Poor young dog, saddled with a frail and aging monkey.

The blog may be a bit quiet this week because I'm off first thing tomorrow for the big Romance Writers of America National Conference in DC.  Crazy schedule, but I'm excited because I'll be spending time with some of my wonderful authors, including, in no particular order:

Rosemary Clement-Moore: RITA finalist for HELL WEEK, the second in her great Maggie Quinn: Girl vs. Evil series
Crystal Jordan: erotica author extraordinaire
Susan Krinard: amazing and bestselling paranormal romance writer
Janet Mullany: wonderfully edgy author who wears many hats, including presenter of "Writing the Hot Historical" with me and Pam Rosenthal at the conference
(I just spotted this great write up including her new Immortal Jane Austen series in PW.)
Michele Lang: two words "LADY LAZARUS" - look for it in 2010
Jasmine Haynes/Jennifer Skully/JB Skully:
Debra Mullins: award-winning historical romance writer
Karen Whiddon: author of the tres popular Pack series for Nocturne
Vicky Dreiling: whose debut novels we've just sold to Warner Forever/Grand Central Publishing for publication in 2011

Not to mention the parties, the chocolate, the Oscar-style RITA Award Ceremony.  Sigh.  Life is hard. 

I'm especially excited about the "Readers for Life" Literacy Signing event on Wednesday evening from 5:30 to 7:30 at the Washington Marriott Wardham Park at 2660 Woodley Road NW , Washington, D.C.  Just check out this amazing line-up.   I'll be there with VAMPED as well!

If instead of RWA (or in addition to) your plans include San Diego ComicCon, check the schedule for great events featuring Rob Thurman and be sure to pencil in the Sci/Fi/Fantasy Discussion Panel with Patrick Rothfuss, Rob Thurman, Amber Benson, Thomas Sniegoski, Seanan McGuire, Jeanne Stein, Kat Richardson at Borders, 668 6th Street on Saturday, July 25th at 8 pm.

I'm also thrilled to report that David Mack, author of the forthcoming uf/supernatural suspense novel THE CALLING is guest blogger today at The Knight Agency's site.  Comment there to win a signed copy of THE CALLING!

1. The first thing I did when I got home was make a pot of coffee and drink the whole thing. (I was seriously undercaffeinated all weekend, which, if you spoke with me whatsoever, I might have noticed.)


2. The second thing I did was watch Stephen King's Desperation on SyFy, and laugh hysterically. And I am the world's biggest weenie about anything vaguely resembling horror, so it takes a lot to show me hundreds of dead bodies and manage to NOT creep me out, but after the fifteenth tarantula-riddled corpse, I was cracking up. Did they build the town on a huge mating nest? Also, young woman stock character, is it necessary to scream every time you see one? It's like your thirtieth corpse. Eventually it has to be old hat, right?

Steven Weber has the magical ability to look totally embarrassed in whatever he's in, as if he's sending a manful hostage note right through the camera to the audience. Best scene: while touring a Small Town Abandoned Place, he fondles a Foreign Artifact (hey-o!) and he and the young woman stock character have to pant at one another for two minutes, because you know how finding random artifacts on an office desk makes you frisky.

In true TV-movie fashion, not only does this encounter not affect the plot, it doesn't even come up (HEY-O!) again in character beats. It's just how Steven Weber rolls.

The best part of the entire thing is Ron Perlman, who knows when the time has come to chew scenery. Check out that pretty face. Third from the bottom is the best one. Jazz hands!


3. I'm still wasted-tired. The con reminded me of the "Gotta Dance" number in Singing in the Rain when Gene Kelly and company are on a pair of moving walkways, dancing manically and zooming back and forth and just missing one another.

Dude. That was like three kind of serious posts in a row. And I'm not at ALA so I don't have superfunnamedroppy reportage to offer. But I will tell you this:

- It has been a blessedly mild summer here in SLC so far. WHEW. We have yet to come within 5 degrees of cracking 100, whereas usually at this time of year it's like heat wave city. I'm grateful.

- I got my hair cut while I was in Banff. Yes, an out of town haircut in a different country for that matter, and with an apprentice! I was certainly feeling bold. And there's nothing wrong with my hair, per se, but I have crazy hair in the first place and I think the young lady in question tried to tame and iron it into submission whereas I am more a wash-and-go personality. So unless I spend all kinds of time on it, I now have what can only be described as earmuffs. Hanks, really, is what they are. Coils of thick curly hair sticking out of my head and making my ears hot and bothered and not in a good way. So I'm getting my second haircut in a one month period, on Monday, and to make it even more exciting I decided to make a return visit to my stylist from two people ago and as many years. She worked magic on me for a long time, and then, fickle as I am, I got bored and sought new thrills. Yes, I am a hair slut.

- I wish I were more interested in following every detail of the Sotomayor hearings. Apparently my political awakening of 08 flamed hot and burned out fast, because I'm so tired of it all right now. Politics as usual---is there hope for any other way?

- Tomorrow I am off to the Listening Library studios for a few days to record the audiobook for Once Was Lost, which will be released around the same time as the book. After my experience last year recording Sweethearts and Story of a Girl (an ALA Amazing Audio pick, hello!), I'm looking forward to it and to reuniting with my wonderful director, Cassandra. Last time it was very exhausting, but I hope to send a dispatch or two from the road.

Congrats to all my friends at ALA giving speeches tonight!

I just read shweta_narayan's March story at Strange Horizons, "Nira and I."

It's very, very evocative, and it makes me think about the importance of bearing witness, and the recent and ongoing struggles in Iran.

I spent most of today in my office with my brain so tangled in accounting that I was only peripherally aware of the kids. I came up at dinner time to discover that crafts had happened. In fact it was more like a craft explosion all across the table and counters. Patch, Gleek, and their friends had colored paper, and cut paper, and torn paper, and folded paper, and taped paper, and thrown paper all over the kitchen. It reminded me once again that my kids are capable of finding hours of amusement in the simplest of objects.


I think I've shown this picture before. This was the time that the kids discovered a stash of little cups left over from a book launch party.



Those little colored balls are pellets from an airsoft gun. Gleek and Link carefully collected them all on their walks home from school. I've no idea what the rules of the game are, but playing occupied hours of time.


Those gray things are pieces of foam that Howard has picked out of the trays in which he stores his minis. We have a large garbage bag full. Every so often the kids will dump out the bag and make whole towns out of the stuff. This picture was either taken during the early stages of construction, or it is a battle between the two forts. Perhaps they'll lob airsoft pellets at each other.

Sometimes I wonder why I bother to purchase toys.

I squished some of my fingers an hour ago, so typing sucks right now!

We're going to San Diego Comic Con next week! I'm a "Special Guest" this year, for the first time, which means I get to do some panels, and maybe you'd be so kind as to attend one or more of them.



Here they are, all three of them:

THURSDAY 12:00-1:00
Spotlight on Bryan Lee O'Malley: Comic-Con special guest Bryan Lee O'Malley (winner of the Doug Wright, Joe Shuster, and Harvey Awards) talks with legendary comics scholar Scott McCloud (Understanding Comics, Zot!) about Bryan's groundbreaking slice-of-life graphic novel series Scott Pilgrim. From its genesis to the production of the upcoming film version, O'Malley speaks frankly about where Scott Pilgrim came from and where the series is going from here. With a fan Q&A to close the discussion, this is the must attend event of Comic-Con 2009! Room 5AB

(I hear "Room 5AB" seats 500. I have a feeling more than 500 people will show up. Get in early. Me, McCloud, comics, and maybe if you're really good I'll say one or two sentences about this little movie adaptation.)

THURSDAY 3:00-4:00
Oni Press: Panelmonium 2009: Get up close and personal with trend setting indie comic powerhouse Oni Press. Join in the Q&A with your favorite Oni creators, including Ross Campbell (Wet Moon), Jamie S. Rich (You Have Killed Me), Greg Rucka (Whiteout), Bryan Lee O'Malley (Scott Pilgrim), and Chris Schweizer (The Crogan Adventures). Get sneak peeks at upcoming Oni projects, news on Oni Press fan initiatives, free Oni comics, prizes, and more! Guaranteed by Oni Press's totally biased employees to be "the most fun you'll ever have at a panel." Room 10

(I will be on this panel somewhat briefly and probably will not say anything important about anything, so if you're just looking for MOVIE INFO, go someplace else! This one's about comics!)

Here's the wild card:

FRIDAY 4:00-5:00
Graphic Novels: Moderator Tom Spurgeon (ComicsReporter.com) talks to some of the superstars of graphic novels in this lively panel discussion. Joining Tom are Lewis Trondheim (Kaput and Zosky), Bryan Lee O'Malley (Scott Pilgrim), Seth (George Sprott 1894–1975), Gene Yang (American Born Chinese), Jason Lutes (Berlin), and Derek Kirk Kim (Eternal Smile). Room 8

(It's me, with acknowledged masters Trondheim, Seth and Lutes, plus comics' two other Asians! Oh my god, what? I have no idea what this panel is going to be like. Probably very interesting for you and terrifying for me.)

I don't have my signing schedule just yet, but I think it's going to be something like: late Thursday, midday Friday, and both of those periods on Saturday. I will be leaving on Sunday, and I won't be attending Preview Night on Wednesday, but you've got three days and approximately 5 1/2 specific hours in which to get stuff signed.

As I may have said earlier, there are going to be a few new t-shirt designs, hopefully, and new button designs which I've already shown you, and the rest of the TCAF prints, and I'm not sure what else is left over from olden times. I will be signing whatever you throw at me, but probably not sketching at all due to time and volume.

# of queries read last week: 163
# of partials/manuscripts requested: 0
genre of partials/manuscripts requested: n/a


Dear Authors:

Someone wrote me back recently in response to my email declining to read their material. They were, shall we say, put out that I listed myself as "actively looking" on a website and then did not agree to read their manuscript. Am I to infer from their response that one cannot be both particular in what one chooses to request and also actively looking? Is a person that goes into a bookstore and only buys one book not actively looking for something to read? This writer was not the first to make this implication, though they did so in a manner that I deemed to be on the impolite and unprofessional side, which is why it caught my attention. But not in a good way, of course. (I don't encourage going this route. Or using language that might make a biker's mother blush.)

And let me not mention that the person in question was submitting something that my website and the DMLA website and agentquery.com all list as something that I do not represent. Nor shall we dwell on the fact that the website they mention that lists me is not one that I have heard of or that wrote and confirmed any details whatsoever. (Why are there so many random sites like this? And why do so many people believe everything they read on the internet? And why don't more people fact check? But, I digress.)

My suspicion is that the person in question was not familiar with the daunting statistics of authors writing versus available agents and publishers to supply them with the opportunity to have their book represented and sold to the general public. (As an aside, someone recently posted on the subject of "landing an agent" and how they found the phrase problematic -- it was a writer not an agent who said it, but I got where they were going. One cannot acquire an agent in much the same manner as one obtains a gallon of milk. Nor, they argued, is an agent a possession -- a position with which I heartily agree, of course.)

I find it ironic that I'm writing this during a week when I requested no submissions. Regardless, I do not feel that I am less actively looking for new books that will excite me with plots or characters or settings that I can get caught up with, or ideas that will make editors fall all over themselves in making an offer. Suffice to say that I would hardly be reading hundreds of queries a week and thousands of queries a year unless I was actively looking.

http://litsoup.blogspot.com/2009/07/rip-charles-brown.html

Just got back from the start of the last week of Odyssey and heard about Charles Brown.

Locus has a piece here.

He was the reason I started reading Locus--his editorials were witty and well-informed. I looked forward to them every month because I was interested in what he was reading and what operas he was seeing. I liked reading about him meeting with the authors and editors who came to the Locus offices to be interviewed.

I only met him once, at a party at the 2006 Worldcon in Anaheim. He was very kind to me, talked to me for a bit, and didn't seem to mind that I was a little fledgling agent. He always seemed to me like the kindly grandfather of my sci-fi magazine. I shall miss him and his editorials.

Thing the first . . . The folks over on the Rath have an excerpt thread. I almost always share my excerpts with them (if not, they read the blog so they post them over there after I blog them!).  Delete scenes from Fragile Eternity are over there.


story:

A while back I admitted that I was writing a few short stories.  I asked readers to pick the book the Dark King should read*. . .  I loved the suggestions, and I now have in my head a great bookshelf of their books. (It's a wooden shelf, free of knickknacks but for a few odds that were left behind when they went over to pick up a book.)   Still, Pheona had the perfect suggestion . . . actually so did Tiger, Dusty, and RedRainDrops66, so all 3 of these folks can ping me (email or catch me thru PM on the Rath) if they want

a) to read it before anyone else does (i.e. in draft form in the next month or so)
b) a copy of the anthology whenever it releases (signed if you want--or not)
c) a copy of a different one of my books (signed or not if you want)
d) a copy of Irial's selected book (which clearly will not be signed) or the one they recommended.

And with the business out of the way, here's the excerpt in question . . . It's not a big one, or a finished one, but *shrug* I'm in one of those moods today . . .



_____

* It was NOT a contest, but I'm in a mood so *shrug*

So, I suppose this will be my quick and dirty "con report" on ReaderCon 20. There are three photographs afterwards, but only three. I avoided cameras like the plague this year. Last year, I only avoided them like a bad cold. But Spooky took two, anyway. The third, I took on the way home yesterday.

Like last year, I generally enjoyed ReaderCon a great deal. It's that rarest of beasts (in my opinion): a convention that's actually good for writers. I was very heavily booked, but didn't really mind. I prefer not to have a lot of "downtime" at something like this. Anyway, I suppose I should mention what were, for me, the highlights, and do the overview, recap sort of thing. I should say, my great thanks to Geoffrey Goodwin (readingthedark), who very kindly helped Spooky keep track of me, and was generally good company.

Friday: We got to the con hotel, a Marriott in Burlington (Mass.), sometime between 2:30 p.m. and 2:45 p.m. And despite what their website promised, there were no PS3s in the rooms, rather like how last year they promised free internet that turned out not to be free. Sooner or later, someone has to call them on this shit. They speak lies that sucker in geeks, and create unrealistic expectations. Anyway, my first panel, at 4 p.m., was the reading for Ellen Datlow's forthcoming Lovecraft Unbound (Oct. '09). I read from "Houses Under the Sea," as was very pleased to meet, and hear, Michael Cisco. It's going to be a fine book, but then Ellen's always are. Next up, I had the solo presentation for A is for Alien, which was very well attended, and that's about the best you can ever ask for. Then I had a panel, "Reality and Dream in Fiction," which wasn't so bad, though I suspect the subject was rather too broad for an hour-long discussion. I spoke about my "dreamsickness" and my pathological inability to know that I'm dreaming while I'm dreaming. After the panel, I had another solo presentation, "You Never Can Tell What Goes on Down Below: Reading Dr. Seuss as Weird Fiction." It came off better than I'd expected, at least the first half hour. Thereafter, though I'd been asked to read the entirety of The Lorax, and had agreed to do so, the whole thing was hijacked by a number of annoying people in the audience who wanted to argue the political correctness and sociological implications of children's books that were neither "weird" nor authored by Dr. Seuss. Before that, though, it went rather well, and I also read from Lewis Carroll and James Reeves. No dinner on Friday night, because there wasn't time. I did have a short break, and then managed to see Greer Gilman's (nineweaving) wonderful reading from Cloud and Ashes (Small Beer Press), which opened with a genuinely amazing performance by Sonya (sovay), who exquisitely set the mood for Greer's prose with a ballad. And after the reading, there was the ReaderCon 20 Grand Ceremony, and the Cordwainer Smith Rediscovery Award, and then the annual "Meet the Pros(e)" thingy. I hid in a corner with Peter Straub, whom I'd not seen in ages. Getting to spend time with Peter (and his wife, Susie) was definitely one of the very best aspects of the con. And later still, because I lacked the good sense to go to bed, several of us retired to a vacant meeting room and talked until 2 a.m. or so (me, Spooky, Geoffrey, Michael Cisco, Sonya, Eric Van, and a few others whose names have been lost to me). I got to bed about 2:30 a.m., I think.

Saturday: The day started off with my signing, at noon in the dealers' room. Many books were scarred by my hand, some of which I'd not looked at in years. Then I had an hour free before the first of two rather unfortunate panels, starting with "Is Fiction Inherently Evil." The whole affair was predicated on a highly dubious pronouncement made by French ne'er-do-well Simone Weil, that (deep breath) fiction is inherently evil because it portrays good as dull, glamorizes the wicked, and fails to point out the supposed banality of evil. I sort of disqualified myself from the whole discussion right off, by noting that I don't actually recognize the division between good and evil in any traditional sense, and by asking if we were really supposed to see Grima Wormtongue as being more glamorous than Aragorn or Galadriel. I think Peter had the most cogent comments on the panel, though Michael Bishop and James Morrow added good bits, as well. And after that, I didn't even have to leave my chair, because the equally questionable "Is Darwinism Too Good for SF?" took place in the same salon. The premise was, simply, that it has been suggested that Darwinism has proven such a successful theory that it has left sf writers with very little room to wax fantastic. I started off by pointing out that all of biology is based on a single data point (Earth), and, therefore, no matter how well we might presently understand life on Earth, we may understand very little about life as a cosmic phenomenon. The panelists all had scientific credentials, and we quickly concluded that there was plenty of "wiggle room" in SF for nonDarwinian (not antiDarwinian) stories of evolution. My favorite moment was when Anil Menon was asked (by Stephen Popkes) if India has seen the sort of resistance to Darwinism we see in America, and he said no, there'd been no friction to speak of, no creationism in the school systems, and so forth. After the panel, we were corralled for a truly grand and delicious dinner at a nearby Szechuan restaurant. Too many dishes and tastes and flavours to even try to recount here. But we made it back in time for the "Kirk Poland Memorial Bad Prose Competition Tournament of Champions," which has forever etched the phrase "she cupped him where he was soft" into my brainmeats. Later, those of us who'd gathered late the night before reconvened and talked until sometime after two. Oh, we were interrupted by some very rude harpy of a woman wearing two cameras, who noted that we were, collectively, wearing a lot of black, and so felt compelled to ask, "Isn't goth getting old?" I almost smacked her with my cane. Geoffrey almost asked, "Like you?" But we were all somewhat too stunned and polite to do much of anything. That was Saturday.

Sunday: I had only a single bit of programming, so it was an easy day. After we checked out of the room, Spooky and I prowled about the dealers' room, where I was very good and bought only a single book. At 2 p.m., after saying my goodbyes to Peter and Susie, I had my reading. All of Chapter Four of The Red Tree was read, and my thanks to everyone who stuck around and missed part (or all?) of the closing ceremonies while I went so far over the one-hour time slot to get it all read. We left the hotel sometime about 4 p.m., and made it back to Providence just before five, I think. Before dinner.

Also, it was good to meet Chris and Meg, as I'd only met them previously in Second Life.

And yes, I will likely be back next year, and no, I will not be at Necon (I never said I would). And yes, I did wear masks almost the entire convention, and will likely do so next year. In fact, I may do so at all future public appearances. Friday's Cthulhu mask (and the Kambriel dress) was the most popular. Alas, there are no photos from Friday of that outfit (to my knowledge); some might turn up online somewhere. Oh, by the way, my masks were crafted by E. L. Downey; they were gifts to Spooky and me in May 2005. Also, my grateful thanks to everyone who took part in the recent eBay auctions that made it possible for me to attend the con.

And now, the photographs (behind the cut):

( ReaderCon 20 )

Okay. Yeah. That wasn't quick. Or even particularly dirty.