WorldCon Report: Wednesday -- Getting There

(note: due to being cheap and not being willing to pay for internet access until after noon Thursday at the Marriott, this portion was delayed. Apologies.)

Too excited about going, I got up at 4:30am and surprisingly managed to stay up -- usually I get up at 5:30am to take a pill I have to take without food and then manage to sleep in until 7am. This time I had to leave home by 7am, and in fact made it out the door at 6:45am.

My transportation game plan was as follows: go to Union Station on the Red Line, take the Metrolink to Fullerton where Kevin would meet me and take my luggage, and then take the OCTA 43 to the major intersection near the Convention Center and walk the 1/2 mile.

Other than the fact I got to the Metrolink train way too early and sat outside it for 45 minutes, it went great. And why so early you ask? Since registration for WorldCon had been open since Monday, I expected a lot of people, and certainly didn't expect my hotel room ready.

I arrived when registration opened at 9, I believe it was not long after 10 before I had hotel room and registration both. So I went down to the restaurant to have a brunch and took a nap before Opening Ceremonies at 1PM. I was awakened at 11:30am by a phone call that took up the next 45 minutes or so, something I can't discuss right now but has the possibility of being very good. And WorldCon was the perfect place to get such a call.

So, now fully awake and noonish, I went over and briefly at least familiarized myself with where all the major rooms were before heading upstairs for Opening Ceremonies...

WorldCon Report: Wednesday -- Opening Ceremonies

(note: due to being cheap and not being willing to pay for internet access until after noon Thursday at the Marriott, this portion was delayed. Apologies.)

As you read through all this, bear in mind this is my very first WorldCon. So there may be things not obvious to me that readers who have been to other WorldCons might understand better.

Opening Ceremonies began with an animated piece that morphed from the Con logo to various things, most of went by in a blur for me (save a little Roswell like alien stereotype being squashed by a truck that got tons of applause!). After that we watched what appeared to be first episode of TOM CORBETT SPACE CADET in its entirety including the silly Corn Flakes ads (as that was the sponsor); for those who don't know Frankie Thomas, who played the title role, was to have been Special Guest this year but he passed away between being chosen and WorldCon. This is also true of Fan Guest of Honor Howard DeVore. In WorldCon's way of doing things, people do retain such titles posthumously, so there are only two Special Guests in attendance -- author Connie Willis and artist James Gurney. That said, only Connie was at Opening Ceremonies.

After the episode ended, the two gentlemen that headed last year's WorldCon in Glasgow, Scotland (a.k.a. Interaction) took the stage -- one complete in kilt! The head of this WorldCon (a.k.a. LA Con IV) took the stage and the duties were passed in a humorous way. One of the highlights included the current head giving ribbons to all the Interaction staff reading "So long and thanks for all the haggis" to thank them for the two committees working side by side for the past several years.

Then they called out Connie Willis and she spoke to the audience. What an incredible witty and personable woman. I know her by reputation, but I must confess I never read a Connie Willis to that moment (which has now changed, more on that in a later piece). The committee surprised her with a gift they found on eBay, which was a movie poster for "Confidentially Connie" with Van Johnson and Janet Leigh. This was also apparently quite the in joke as she had the "worst crush" on Van Johnson as a kid, she revealed. I wonder if her husband of 39 years -- she also revealed it was their anniverssary that day and had him stand in the audience -- was in on it at all.

After that, a gavel was brought out and tapped on a music stand on stage, thereby signaling WorldCon officially underway!

WorldCon Report: Wednesday -- Panel Report and Book Purchases

(note: due to being cheap and not being willing to pay for internet access until after noon Thursday at the Marriott, this portion was delayed. Apologies.)

After Opening Ceremonies, I was so impressed by Connie Willis -- and realized I would have a lot of time on my hands to read between panels -- that I went down to see if there was one book of hers that I could find that interested me. I walked away with "The Doomsday Book" and 24 hours or so later am already on page 212. That's because it's hard to put down and just writing about it makes me want to go back to it right now!

But I need to finish this...

Then I came back to the hotel for a personal pan pizza and bottle of water from the Pizza Hut, and when I headed back for the 4pm panel that interested me, I stopped to finish the rest of my water and heard someone nearby introduce a woman to two other people.

"... and this is Janis Ian..."

And I'm thinking, say what? So I can't help but take a look over. And if it wasn't *the* Janis Ian, she was a dead ringer for her. I'm convinced that it was.

Still with some time on my hands, I also looked at one of the major exhibits and learned something very important. They had art on display from members of IATSE 790, the Illustrators and Matte Painters union. Please note this includes people who storyboard for LIVE-ACTION film. Yet animation storyboard artists are in IATSE 839, the Animation Union. In a way, this seems just as important as the argument that animation writers should be in the WGA versus IATSE 839. It takes the same skill set for an animation storyboard as far as staging and action as someone doing live-action, and animation storyboard artists have to draw "on model" like the illustrators. This of course comes out of the history of how IATSE 839 formed (post Disney strike). Just something interesting to ponder...

The 4pm panel focused on "Fantasy Doesn't Have to Be About Kings and Wizards" but didn't quite live up to my expectations. Panelists were Sean Williams, Mary Kay Kare, and Alma Alexander. Darrell Schweitzer, who should have been the moderator, had flight delays and didn't make it. Mary Kay Kare, the token fan of the panel, filled in as moderator with the two remaining writers. I did learn a few things from it, and authors to look for that break the mold. In particular learned about a Charles de Lint book that interests me called "Forests of the Heart".

In between, I had a very short break of about an hour, so I spent some more time in the dealers room checking everyplance for the Charles deLint book, "Forests of the Heart". I did find one copy of it, hardcover, for $20. A little out of my budget. But the Native American spirits versus the Irish fairies is SO up my alley! I want!

However, there was a really neat find out of this. I am a *HUGE* fan of the "Chicks in Chainmail" anthologies edited by Esther Friesner (and by extension, the full length novel "Mathemagics" by Margaret Ball -- I don't know of any other novels that came out of this anthology but if anyone else does let me know!). Anyway, what I did NOT know is that an edition of the anthology called "Turn the other Chick" came out in 2004! I've never seen it in a bookstore before, but I found *ONE* copy here at all of the vendors I've visited. Believe me, I bought that in a hurry.

At 5:30 pm, I went back up for the panel, "Do We Need a New Definition of Literacy?" This panel was led by Fred Lerner (a librarian and SF fan who apparently did fanzines back in the day from one of his comments), Richard Foss (journalist), Melissa Conway (head of the Eaton collection, the largest collection of SF in the world housed at UC Riverside), and Justin Lloyd (owner of game company). They discussed first trying to define literacy, which they were restricting to the printed word until Justin who arrived slightly late and had been the topic proposer indicated he had in mind how blogs (like what I'm doing right now) are the journals of today and text messaging is the language of a subculture. This took the whole hour in a completely fascinating and deeper direction, and the time spent was far better for it. The panel came to the conclusion that literacy, like language, constantly evolves.

That ended the panels for the day.

WorldCon Report: Wednesday -- Of Filking and Unexpected Receptions

(note: due to being cheap and not being willing to pay for internet access until after noon Thursday at the Marriott, this portion was delayed. Apologies.)

After that, I headed back to drop my stuff off at the Marriott then across the street to the Hilton for my first live filk concert. My Dad has filk tapes so I was familiar with them, and particularly curious because Leslie Fish was performing... an artist I know he really enjoys.

The concert was scheduled as an hour block. The first half was Karen Anderson, wife of Poul Anderson. Hearing her was educational in part because she sings a capella, and I've only ever heard guitar based filk. A lot of her stuff was about SF fandom, with a particularly memorable song about Lt. Uhura, the woman of "Star Trek" with no last name and not much of a job. She also told a cute story about how Nichelle Nichols herself came to hear about the song and later met Karen in person and expressed her appreciation. A more awkward moment for some in the audience came when she performed a more recent composition about the Heathrow incident of a few weeks back, I think it's still too fresh for some.

Unfortunately Karen started late, so Leslie too was about five or six minutes off. And I had to leave by 9pm to meet Kevin in the Marriott with my luggage, and then head off to a private reception for the Writers Workshop. Leslie started off by playing her absolute latest, written several days earlier about a food poisoning experience at the Jolly Roger restaurant. Very funny but it set a wrong tone for what was to follow, at least to me.

Now I know that Leslie does a lot of social resposnibility type of commentary. And she had that, such as a song about the virus that kills cancer cells. But what I did not know for whatever reason is that she's a self professed anarchist. While I didn't notice that quite so much singing along to her classic "Black Powder and Alcohol," it was quite a shock to me when I began to realize I'd fallen into singing a song about bringing down the state toward the end of said song. After which the anarchy sentiment was expressed. I didn't have too long to dwell on it though as it was 9pm and I had to go.

Kevin and I got the luggage to the room and then wandered about to find the room, which wasn't easy. And when we finally did it turned out to be so small there were people spilling into the hallway. An impossible way for two wallflowers to meet anyone, at least not comfortably.

So we retreated for appetizer sized dinners at the Hilton restaurant as I told him about my day, then we spent a little more time together -- seeing as we haven't seen each other in a week and a half, I also had to catch him up on my trip from last week in detail.

Whew! I didn't think Wednesday would be so long! I'll try to tackle all of Thursday tonight and get caught up. But I'm having a great time!

WorldCon: Thursday -- Writing Workshop

After a disasterous morning at the overpriced hotel buffet (I get up for a moment but not only did the guy clear my space, he took my silverware - and as I came back empty handed th first time, he tries to HAND ME BACK what he just bused - I did complain about that), I headed off to the Hilton across the street where the Writers Workshop was. This would last from 9am to nearly 1pm.

The Conference Rooms were on the Mezzanine which turned out to be hard to find. It is not escalator accessible. So unless you know to take the elevator or side stairs you encounter at the top of 2nd floor you miss it. Luckily I scoped things out the night before.

Our group had a moderator, three pro reviewers, and three participants. We each got roughly 45 minutes per story, which was very generous all things considered that usually I guess 3 minutes each is the norm under Modified Clarion (which appeared to be our rules, it's been 10 years since I've done any kind of workshop and that was in undergrad poetry, I came to realize how quickly how out of touch I was). I also am a page by page reviewer when the others all broke theirs out by subject: Character, plot, theme. I just wove those in as I went along and amde the best of it.

Our quality ranged from practically to publication (not me), many things working but others needing a sense of direction (rusty old me), to someone who had an idea with promise that needed more work (again, not me).

The story I sent in I suspected had issues. This is the one that I rushed right to deadline for that one anthology a few months back. Some things, like some modern slang, slipped through. Even though I wanted to try something new by writing from the perspective of a male lead, my female lead was so strong people wanted to read about her across the board. So I guess I must acquiese to my strengths and go back to writing this from the female lead. It will improve a lot of their issues in some areas.

Also of interest: though the panel Wednesday talked about escaping the cliches of high fantasy (wizards, kings), and I wanted to use them but try not to do what is completely expected, I was somewhat consistently in several places being told "this isn't right because that's not the way things would have been done in that time" or "that's not to type". Well, I have to say, this isn't set on Earth at all, so who's to say things can't be this way as long as other things in society go in step with that? That's not to say some of my points don't need clarifying in the story, and there's one faux pas in the battle scene that must be fixed. The generalized blanket "this should never happen" thing I did find to be a tad dangerous though.

Mine was first, so then after that I also got to read and review the other two. I won't share additional info due to respect for these folks.

All in all, an interesting time and I'm glad I did it. And I even also have a little piece to put on my con badge to show it!

WorldCon Report: Thursday -- Not So Relaxing Afternoon

The game plan was largely to relax Thursday afternoon and into the evening, especially after J. Michael Straczynksi unexpectedly cancelled, thus eliminating one panel I planned to attend.

The 1pm panel I attended was called "Worlds of Oz", which started out promising when they discussed all the forms of media Oz has survived in. But after a while, it got stuck in the rut of availability of the books in different eras (especially Baum vs. the later writers). So once it hit Q&A at 145 pm. I left because I desperately needed lunch and needed to start making headway on the last of my non-fiction book (due Sept 1).

[EDIT: I realized the next morning I omitted the panelists for "Worlds of Oz". FYI, they were moderator Dave Smeds, Sherwood Smith, Valerie Estell Frankel, David Maxine, and Connie Willis (who continued to simply amaze me, and it was clear Baum had been one of her earliest influences... of many as we came to learn in her speech that night).]

I grabbed a pizza and water at Pizza Hut but realized they had to come back to my room with me. Once back I powered up the laptop and started work on completing the glossary in the back. I'd handwritten all the definitions but needed to type them in. 45 minutes later I am tired so take a break by taking a nap.

My alarm wakes me at 3:50om for a panel at 4. I get there just in time, it is called "Where's the YA SF?" An incredible, engaging discusson moderated by Harry Turtledove, and also included Laura Frankos, John Barnes, another writer whose name I don't know offhand (I'll see if it got released later), and Ashley Grayson. Ashley, unlike the others, is a book agent -- specifically among his clients is my friend Tim Eldred, author fo the Graphic Novel "Grease Monkey" that Tor is marketing YA and which he featured at the panel. After the panel, I went up and introduced myself to Ashley and thanked him for supporting Tim; I know Tim's wanted for years to see "Grease Monkey" out there to be accessible by the public.

After that I come back to finally try and catch up my LJ about the events of WorldCon, which ends up taking the next 90 MINUTES just to discuss Wednesday! I know I need dinner, so I go downstairs and see the place is packed everywhere. I finally find I am able to get a turkey wrap, potato salad, and a soda at the deli attached to the hotel Starbucks, so that's dinner.

8pm finds me back at the Convention Center for the Guest of Honor presentation, hosted by Mike Resnick. One special award not previously announced goes to Fred Patten for his trailblazing work in SF fandom and in the roots of American appreciation for anime. Last I saw him in person was 2 years ago, fairly healthy as he sat on a panel I had to videotape for ASIFA. Tonight they brought him up in a wheelchair, and I wonder if he had a stroke or somesuch. Still it was good to see him.

The others were for the late Howard DeVote and Frankie Thomas, as previously mentioned. Howard's family attended and stood in his honor.

After that, last year's recipients of the Heinlein Medals (Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven) awarded this year's Heinlein Medals. The gold went to Jack Williamson, a major influence for Heinlein and others; he wasn't able to accept in person. In person for his silver medal was Greg Bear.

The evening concluded with speeches by James Gurney and Connie Willis, in addition to getting their statuettes. James spoke of his strong appreciation for fandom, and shared excerpts from his upcoming DINOTOPIA sequel (for those who don't know, he created, drew and wrote DINOTOPIA). Connie Willis' speech focused on books and the imopact they can have on a life. A powerful night.

After that, I checked out the huge consuite in the Hilton. Wonderfully decorated with a mix of old and modern SF and fantasy posters. Little bowls of food everywhere. But really no place to socialize and sit.

But deadlines called, so by 10pm I was back here and trying to wrap up the first pass of the glossary. I didn't get that done until 10:30, and now here I am at one minute to midnight wrapping up Thursday. Whew!