And now, the long-promised World Fantasy Convention Report!

Flight confusion did not result in my being abandoned at the airport in Albany, thankfully.  The driver had sorted out the details and waited for me patiently.  This worked out well for another, too, and the driver was able to offer the extra space in our car to Martin H. Greenberg who’d been on my flight but had arrived much later than he’d planned so his shuttle plans were all messed up. 

So I rode to the convention with Martin H. Greenberg.  (*squee*)

I just finished chapter three of SanClare Scarlet (2.0), and I still really like the new direction, but it’s off to the first readers again for a gut-check.  As I said when I started this draft, I give up on word counters, but I’m just shy of 12K which, considering SanClare Black clocks in at about 125K, puts me at about 10%.  So.  That’s good.

Nanowrimo starts in a couple of weeks, and I think I’ll put making major progress on the book my Nano project.  Either that, or I’ll do La Cause as my Nano project–and idea I like rather better since it needs the jump-start more.  Hrm… Well, we’ll see how I feel closer to time.

Of course, it doesn’t help that I’ll be out of town the first few days of November at World Fantasy about which I am EXTREMELY excited.  But I’ve never been before, so–any advice anyone?  Stuff I should know? Stuff I should do? Stuff I should pack?

It was a hot time in Collinsville, IL, peoples--which was AWESOME since the convention center is not attached to any of the surrounding hotels and one therefore had to walk everywhere...

I've been to Seattle's most recent NasFic and to LAConIV so I can say with some sense of knowing what I'm talking about that while Archon 31 was a very nice convention, it was a pretty bad NasFic.  They owe me about $60 back on my registration fee.  Otherwise, it was a great time!

See my con report below the cut!

( Mind the Gap! )

Oh, so THAT was a WorldCon.

I'm not sure I can recommend LAX and O'Hare in the same day -- however, the big airports do know how to handle big crowds so the chaos was always under control. No one took any makeup from me but not being able to take a coffee aboard with me will take some getting used to.

Economy plus seemed worth the extra money this time. Leg room is nice to have on a longish flight.

... i have to work tomorrow... what a cruel truth. to bed now where I will likely be sat upon by cats who plan to prevent my escape bodily. Coffee would be good now except then I wouldn't sleep.

And we are back to the glamour of cleaning the litter box.

*yawn*

Subjects about which to fret or freak, in order:

• Finishing up the packing pre-move
• The actual move
• Getting settled-in post-move
• Working from home
• WorldCon
• (edit) HALLOWEEN!
• Thanksgiving
• Christmas
• Boxing Day/St. Stephen's Day (depending upon my mood)
• Twelfth Night

(this is lisamantchev's fault)

Darned allergies, anyway. I am on daily Allegra and have been for years, but at the end of the day, before pill-taking time, sometimes the irritants slip through and ARGH! So my eye hurts.

Week's almost over -- yay! Weekend! Yay! Plans are set for Indian cuisine and movie-going. Probably book-shopping and coffee-drinking, too. The wild life, but I like it.

My novel continues apace. I don't write about my writing. Heck, I don't talk about my writing, but *shrug* -- why not? Habit, probably. Superstition? Nah. Just habit.

At CascadiaCon this year, I found out that an average novel length is about 80,000 words. To which my brain said, "Oh? Well, I'm not even 2/3rds done and I'm almost at twice that." So this tells me I need to chop things up a bit. So I've chopped part one off and am giving it a more complete arc so when it ends, it also has an ending rather than a cliffhanger into part two. I'm nearly done with that. A few weeks should wrap it up, then I can proceed to part two and wrap THAT up and then onto part three and DONE! And then part four which was always supposed to be it's own book anyway. The realization that I had three or four books rather than one in the works, though, was a bit of a shock. A nice shock, as it means I'll actually be able to say "I finished my novel!" much sooner than I thought. For the record, it's a fantasy and quite a dark one, at that.

Just got back from Columbus, Ohio and the big ol’ SF convention there — Marcon... that is to say, it used to be big, but it was kind of not so much this time. I hadn’t gone for a year or two and before that skipped a year or so, and now I remember why. It wasn’t that it was a BAD con, it’s just that it is so much less than it used to be. Far too little programming and what there was of that was run far too much by opinionated fans rather than by pro and quasi-pro guests. I mean anyone who watches a TV show or reads a certain author can have an opinion; doesn’t mean they bring any special insight to the topic qualifying them for a place on a panel.

Guess what’s on? Changing Rooms! Seems to be a marathon, and I am happy. However, this does pose a bit of a problem for me as I’ve checked out three more Sharpe movies from the library, and I’m anxious to watch the next one. But here we are with a Changing Rooms mini-marathon and a new What Not to Wear coming on in less than a half an hour!

This is my new obsession :: Richard Sharpe and his Chosen Men. My library has the entire run of fourteen films based on Bernard Cornwell’s Sharpe novels, and I am going through them in order and enjoying them enormously. Sean Bean (also known as Boromir in LOTR: Fellowship) does not get the opportunity to play enough good guys.

Other new things I’ve tripped into are the Liaden novels of Sharon Lee and Steve Miller (love ’em!) and the complete ouevre of Sherwood Smith, especially Crown Duel (previously released as two books: Crown Duel and Court Duel). I did get several new author recommendations at Marcon, but that came more from conversations with the people I was with than from the convention itself.

I still think Matrix Reloaded is amazing. I’d like to rent Matrix — or buy it, I suppose, and then re-watch MR just to get the whole scope of the thing. I’m looking forward to Finding Nemo this coming weekend. And then the next big thing is Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix which I need to go pre-order at B&N pretty soon here.

Here we are! Comic book day. I bought ’Tec, and BOY was I surprised... I think I was in denial last issue. No more in case I spoil it for someone. I’m sorry to see Young Justice go. This week’s issue was very good.

On the shopping front, is there anything more frustrating than shopping right now? I mean EVERY store had the same stuff in the same, bleah colors. I did find some things, but it was work, I tell you. WORK!

Have you ever tried to organize a trip with several people, all at VERY distant locations? We can’t even conference call! It’s getting extremely complicated. So I’m off to do that now...

Had a happy accident of a meeting up with my former co-workers at the library. Our local main library has moved locations for a few years while the actual building is practically gutted and rebuilt. It’ll be incredible when it’s done, and their temporary location just opened and is also very nice. I stopped in to see it and both my friends happened to be working and were almost ready to go to lunch, so we all went together!

New site design is a hit. I had a small outage this morning, but when one has one’s site hosted for free, one can’t complain too loudly ;-)

Several of my friends and I are trying desperately to figure out a date and destination for our annual Girl’s Science Fiction Convention Weekend and this year it’s not going as smoothly as in year’s past. I think we’re close to a decision, but it’s quite a lot of back and forth discussion, pros and cons, blackout dates, and previous obligations.

For not being a Marvel comic reader at all, I am inordinately excited about the Daredevil movie — mostly because of Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner, I think, but also because I quite like my Marvel in movie form (X-Men, Spider-Man... what’s up with all the hyphens?). Another friend and I are trying to sort out what weekend I should visit her in Chicago and if we can time it up to the release of Daredevil (or is that hyphenated, too? Is it Dare-Devil?)

I wasn’t all that excited about the Golden Globes winners. I haven’t seen the most of the movies in question which won things, so that’s probably why, but I have my own preferences from what I have seen. I think Gangs of New York and Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers and About a Boy are about the best movies I’ve seen in some time and definitely of last year (well, and the hyphenated webslinger’s own flick, naturally). I’d like to see Chicago and The Hours however... I need to see if they’ve opened in town yet.