WorldCon

[LugaJetboyGirl]

I'm also curious to find out why LJBG labled me "infamous" in my post dubbing photo on the stairs of the party suite? My memory right after the dubbing is a tad hazy.

I have no idea why I said this, other than as a reference to your indomitable good cheer.

@ Peadar: I could hear you saying your report, too. I guess you made an impression, vocally :)

@ Gabriele: I don't really remember any of the details of the Write a Series panel. As somebody said, George did explain 'don't buy the couch.' Basically, don't furnish the house, buy the house or go on vacation until the money for a book actually shows up, since you never know what could happen. All the authors did make it clear that writing is a very precarious business and that you can have off years that can seem devastating. For example, George talked about Armageddon Rag and how it totally tanked, even though all his editors and stuff thought it would be a huge book. Even though he had been a successful writer up to that time, AR sent him back so far that people would only buy stuff from him as if he were a newer author rather than one that had been publishing for a while. He said that if Hollywood hadn't had jobs, that may have been the end of his writing career. *shivers collectively with all Board members at the very thought*

The financial difficulties were discussed at some length, especially the problem of writing AND doing the business side (contracts, emails, merchandise, etc etc) - this is why George got an assistant last year, since the work load can be entirely paralyzing. Also, writers should not listen to financial advisors when they want to invest because a writer's finances are NOT like normal people's. When in their 20s and 30s and even 40s a writer should invest as if they were 80 yrs old, only in very secure places, since a writer's income can be so irregular - this is also because many books only get a few print runs and then go out of print and the royalties stop coming. Um...let's see...the panelists gave advice on what to do if your publisher goes under or won't pay you (threaten small claims court or take the books in place of the money, and then sell them on your website). They also stressed the importance of getting the contract down properly so that if the publisher does go under, the rights of the books return to you - that sort of thing.

Okay, I guess I did remember some details of the panel, but that's all I could dredge up.

[Gabriele]

@ Gabriele: I don't really remember any of the details of the Write a Series panel. As somebody said, George did explain 'don't buy the couch.' ....

Thank you.

I had thoght it was more along the lines how to plan a series, or how to write one if you're not the Plan Ahead in Detail sort of writer.

The business side ... well, even if I'll manage to get published, I don't plan to live off my writing. Playing in the lottery stands a better chance to get me some money. ;)

[LugaJetboyGirl]

Thank you.

I had thoght it was more along the lines how to plan a series, or how to write one if you're not the Plan Ahead in Detail sort of writer.

The business side ... well, even if I'll manage to get published, I don't plan to live off my writing. Playing in the lottery stands a better chance to get me some money. ;)

Oh damn, I think I described the Writing for a Living Panel. Oops.

[Gabriele]

Oh damn, I think I described the Writing for a Living Panel. Oops.

Lol, I can imagine after three days con all the information soaked up mixes with the drinks also soaked up and is in a state of fluctuation. :D

[Balefont]

Oh jesus, you go to one of those schools? I'm so sorry. =/

Mike, honey,

[drift] hahaha, it's not for profit. It covers our new heavy weight gis (one in black and one in white), two black belts - one of which is embroidered, using gold thread, in Okinawa with various characters and our names and it ain't cheap - the extra training classes friday nights, the four tests and then the big ceremony with all the trimmings (read: food). So I'd say it's a pretty good deal all in all. :) It just sucks when it's $800 X2 and $600 for Bailey... [/drift]

ETA: Peader, missing meeting you and hanging out with you was one of my very biggest disappointments for not going.

[Mya Stone]

Summary

Best con ever.

I beg to differ, ser. :P

(Not that I can talk. Being home with post-op Kris and Mav is fun, but I wanted to go to this. It was so close I could taste it. :()

ETA: Thanks to Blue for her write-up of Coffee Talk. (Props to anyone who gets that obscure ref.) Awesome stuff.

And I'm emo that I couldn't go this year. Once Mav is a tad older, it will be easier. Heck, the last con I went to, he came with us, but was IN MY BELLY! :P One of these years we'll come again, and yes, that's both a threat and a promise.

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

Lany’s con experience:

I was up before 7, so I went down to the gym and worked out. Got stared at by a CCP (see the exercise thread). Showered, ate in the hotel restaurant (that was expensive).

In my rush to leave work on Monday, I accidentally put away my print out of the e-mail transferring the membership I have purchased. I didn’t realize the hotel had a computer and printer for use, so I simply wrote out the information and took it to Registration. Amazingly, I had no problems with this at all. :)

First panel I attended was the Werewolf and it has been described above. I left during the middle of it for the Human Battleship (also above) but we made it back before the panel ended.

I went to lunch with a large group, and can’t seem to remember attending any more panels that day, but I did go to the dealers room and buy “The Graveyard Book.â€

Friday morning, back to the gym. At 8:40 I got into the Neil Gaiman ticket line. The tickets were to be given out at 10, but they started a bit earlier than that.

I did attend the “Legal Systems, Past and Present†panel with Bradford Lyau, James Morrow, Kate Nepveu and Charles Stross. They talked a lot about values, culture, regulating morality. Morrow pimped his book a lot, but I am definitely interested in it. I got a little distracted by some side topics and later had some interesting conversations about the Scottish system of 3 possible verdicts: guilty, not guilty (like most others) and a 3rd option of “not proven guilty.†I am still very fascinated by this.

My next panel was “Food: Ancient, Modern and Future: Near and Far.†Ana Christina, Cecilia Tan, Jon Courtnery Grimwood, Jon Singer, Richard Foss. There was a lot of talk about food in books, researching food, what different things food brings to the books, some personal research information. It was very interesting for me as food is a special interest of mine, especially food found in certain books. ;)

After that, was the Neil Gaiman signing. I was about 90th in line and waited just over an hour. He drew a tombstone and wrote “To Alex, Enjoy the ghosts†which was very cool.

That ended my con activities for the day.

I spent some time e-mailing people from the hotel lobby and then tried to get up to my room and the parties, but this was the night of the elevator issues. Took me about 40 minutes just to get to my room so I gave up trying to get to the parties.

Saturday morning (more of the working out), then off to a 9 am panel. I had planned on “Writing for the Non-Adult†but got talked into “The Goldilocks Alien†instead. Most of the panelist didn’t show up and a couple of guys from the audience were called up (a doctor and writer and some other guy). While the panel was very interesting, it got rather technical and was a bit over my head in the biology and medical departments. Still, I did enjoy it.

After the panel, it was picture taking time followed by “Archetypes without Stereotypes†with Ben Jeapes, Pat Rothfuss, Nalo Hopkins and Doselle Young. This was a really great panel. I think someone went into it already. I laughed a lot at the panel and they were very engaging and entertaining.

This was followed by “The Knight’s who say f***†which is also above. I left before the end of it for the Peadar O’Guillin signing which I have already described (minus the Pebble parts since I figured she’d want to explain why she threw her book at Peadar ;) )

After that, we headed to the consuite to help set up and then went to dinner in China Town. We had great food and better company. At one point I laughed so hard I choked and had my drink coming out my nose. Pebble was laughing so hard she couldn’t breathe.

The BwB party was amazing. I took one of the first watches at the door. Had a great time welcoming people in. Made a few new friends ;) Spent the rest of the night hanging out upstairs talking with everyone and just enjoying myself. The quest was fun to watch as was the Knighting. I left about 2:30 and the party seemed to still be going strong.

I did not exercise on Sunday morning. :lol:

Did the “Privacy†panel and again it was interesting, but nothing really earth shattering. I planned on doing the Corset panel/class but the lunch with George was more important :)

Guess I just hung out until dinner and then the Hugos which was the first award ceremony I have ever attended. It was very interesting. For the most part, you could pick the winners based on the applause (which the rather boring hosts had asked people to hold until all the nominees were named, but that was ignored)

I just went to my room after to ceremony to pack up my stuff and so people wouldn’t see me getting all emo and crying.

Had quiet and uneventful train ride home.

I enjoyed the panels, but loved the company. I had the best time ever.

eta: damn, that is a boring report. :rofl:

[Lord Dracarys]

Here is my full report.

The Con/Pre-Con was awesome. Don't think I've laughed so hard or had such a good time in quite a while. It was awesome meeting, and seeing all of you again.

The panels I did attend were all interesting, and have already been mentioned in pretty good detail.

The party was awesome, and it seemed to go pretty damn smoothly. However, I do wish I'd managed to try the blue drink.

Missing all you BWB (Team Schwank gets a special mention) members from the con. Wish that we didn't have to wait so long between seeing one another.

Also sorry to those I did not get to see goodbye to.

/Report

Okay this was much more of a very brief overview, but figured I'd say something regardless.

[Gabriele]

My next panel was “Food: Ancient, Modern and Future: Near and Far.†Ana Christina, Cecilia Tan, Jon Courtnery Grimwood, Jon Singer, Richard Foss. There was a lot of talk about food in books, researching food, what different things food brings to the books, some personal research information. It was very interesting for me as food is a special interest of mine, especially food found in certain books. ;)

That one sounds like it should have been led by GRRM. ;)

[Lany Freelove Cassandra]

That one sounds like it should have been led by GRRM. ;)

I was surprised that not only was he not on it, his books weren't even mentioned. A lot of other books were, but I didn't write them down. I have a little ADD problem and my mind drifts a bit. Jon Courtney Grimwood talked a bit about his research on Moroccan food research, and how the longer you take to prepare a meal, the more respect you are showing your guests. I had just worked on a Pigeon Pie recipe whose orgins are Moroccan and understood why it takes 3-5 hours to make them. (the Pigeon Pie is from the Hand's Feast in AGoT)

[BlueRose]

I cant even upload one day of photos to flickr because I took so many and they are big files, and there's a monthly size limit. Anyone have a good easy solution?

[pat5150]

I love the picture of me schwanking with Patrick Rothfuss in the background.

Yes!

Hmmm, I wonder what Rothfuss and I were discussing for him to look so into it! :P

Oh, and I totally forgot about the angry robot! That was so funny!

Patrick

[Mich]

Finally time for the beginnings of a con report I guess... just got home from dinner and drink with Tenalpia, Pebble, LooN and MG. Sad and emo and stuffs. More peoples going home tomorrow so it was a last hurrah for them. Will definitely miss you guys! :)

I got in Thursday afternoon on the train. Arrived in time to drop stuff and check into my hostel then to wait for the Werewolves of Brigadoon panel to finish and then meet up with peoples :) From there it was time for food. The herd mind wins when it comes to dining :thumbsup: Got to watch Mormont lose his cherry which I guess makes me a voyeur... *shrugs*. We decided the meeting place this year would be the main floor (lobby) of the convention centre. At some point realised the meeting place gave an excellent view of the flaming fountain. Montreal really likes their fountains, and to light them with flames or other lighting. We found the SAQ (yay for rockstar and vodka!!!). Went con party hopping and stayed up pretty late. Key points of the night...Tor throws a great party, Pierre is an absolute blast, converse shoes completely rock, there is nothing wrong with shameless promotion, and there can be only one!!!

The next morning went to the Intellectual Property and Creative Commons panel. It was a very interesting panel. Discussion was held about publishing under the creative commons agreement, the impact it has on book sales, how people can exploit copyright holders and how some people feel that distributing work under creative commons is a help or a hindrance when it comes to popularity and sales. Cory Doctorow was a panelist (I lurve Cory Doctorow!) This topic seems to have become a key point of debate between many people throughout the con. The X's showed up at some point this day, as did Daj and V :love:. Attended Paedar's reading with 2 other authors. Peadar did quite well for a noob :P he didn't stutter and the shaking hands were minimal ;) Spoke quite clearly and his story was very entertaining. IMO he definitely outshone the other authors at his reading. He's almost convinced me to start reading his stuffs...almost. Found peoples at the metal bar which was awesome! and spent some time there with Tryia, Mr. Tyria, Mandy, Tenalpia, Pod, and Aoife before heading off to the screening of Coraline. Gaiman did the introduction for the film and was, as always, a master of presenting himself and his work. He explained a few things regarding the work on production, why it took so long to film, and discrepancies between the film and book. Unfortunately the tech people couldn't get their work together. They couldn't get the blueray player to work properly (heaven forbid they update the firmware when told to). Finally they managed to find a dvd copy of the film. It started an hour late but it's still a fantastic film to see. Afterwords met up with peoples in old Montreal for drinks and headed back to the party hotel. The UK/Ireland party was the place to be that night so of course this was where bwbers and George were to be found. Good times to be had.

Enough for now. Well past my bedtime :)

...to be continued...

eta Blue, try using a flickr uploader program. It can batch resize the images to make the file sizes smaller and give you more upload space.

[BlueRose]

Here is my photo album so far, I didn't get through all the labelling yet, but it's a good start. it's chronological, starting Thursday morning. There are several hundred photos!

Blue's photos

[Peadar]

ETA: Peader, missing meeting you and hanging out with you was one of my very biggest disappointments for not going.

Why thank you, BF! Likewise. And next year George is coming to Ireland...

Peadar did quite well for a noob :P he didn't stutter and the shaking hands were minimal ;) Spoke quite clearly and his story was very entertaining. IMO he definitely outshone the other authors at his reading. He's almost convinced me to start reading his stuffs...almost.

Soon... soon she will see the error of her wayssss...

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

BlueR,

Wonderful photos. You really did take a ton, didn't you?

[mormont]

:lol: I totally forgot I went to the 'Archetypes' panel. That was actually pretty good. I knew I did more con stuff. :P

[Sis Who Swears]

Great pics Blue! :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

[Lucky Pierre]

Here is my photo album so far, I didn't get through all the labelling yet, but it's a good start. it's chronological, starting Thursday morning. There are several hundred photos!

Blue's photos

:)

One of your panel photos has Heather Ubranksi (the red head on the right) mislabeled as someone else. I only bring this up because she and I shared drinks in the bar and mapped out the new accreditation process for WSFS. I need to email her...

eta: Heather has the wrong tent card in front of her...

[Lucky Pierre]

I just remembered the Absinthe Bar with GRRM. Did anyone get any pictures there?