April round up

I spent a few weeks of April in Chicago, for the wedding of some most excellent and fabulous people. It's been five years since I've seen them and their crowd, so we spent a couple of weeks geeking out, catching up, and getting them hitched in a very heartfelt and adorable ceremony. It was absolutely lovely, and I'm so glad I could be there for it.

We also hit up the cinema a few times (Deadpool, Star Wars), saw Blue Man Group, and uh... coped with the violent food poisoning American "pudding" gave me on what should have been my last night there. On the plus side, that meant I got to spend a few extra days with everyone. On the minus side, my poor ambulance-driving friend got so worried she almost summoned her EMT friends to give me IV fluids. So that was fun.

Naturally, I was far too busy running around seeing Chicago and mucking about with lovely people to get any reading done, so... Only three books in the two weeks or so I was there, and a couple when I got home. Shortest roundup yet, GO:

Sirens edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling

Stumbled across this in a thrift shop down the road from my friends' place in Chicago, shortly after I finished Snow White, Blood Red. So for 25 cents, I figured I had to buy it. It was good fun, and I was considering giving it to my friends to read after I was done... up until I read one particular story - The Eye of the Storm by Kelley Eskridge. I have fallen head over heels in love with this story for no obvious reason. Aside from the polyamory and the genderqueerness and the general explosion of LGBT+ glory all over the supposedly standard medieval fantasy setting, that is. I am only distraught that there is no novel (series, opus, canon, tie in everything) with these characters. Gyah. I kept the book. That glorious little beauty is mine, all mine.

So You Want to Be a Wizard by Diane Duane

I've been meaning to read Diane Duane for ages and not got around to any. This one, too, was in the thrift shop for 25 cents, so even though that picture above is indeed the cover I suffered through (look at it, it's hideous) I figured it was worth that much. And yes, it was good fun. I wish I'd read it fifteen years ago, when it would have captured me even more, but I still enjoyed it enough to want to read the rest of the series. Solid little middle grade fantasy.

Looking for Alaska by John Green

I feel bad about this one. I borrowed my friend's copy while I was over there, and she and her sister raved about it to me, but... Manic pixie dream girl Bridge to Terabithia been there done that sigh yawn eyeroll? I found it predictable, cliched, and trying just a little too hard to be edgy. Plus I read the special anniversary edition, with preface about how the writing of it came about, and it came across, to me, with an unfortunate lack of acknowledgement of all the YA that has come before and dealt with these subjects. It's far from the first to do what it does, and just a bit more awareness of that would have helped. Sorry, guys. This one really wasn't for me.

Between Two Thorns by Emma Newman

Slightly odd, this. It was brilliant once it got going, but took a little while (and I do mean little) to bring in Cathy, who I'd consider the main character. As soon as she was on scene, I was on board. Through Cathy, we are introduced to the Split Worlds, and the Nether which lies between them. Through Cathy, we learn just how restrictive and horrible the Nether can be. Through Cathy, we uncover more about the world and its systems, and the dastardly plots going on behind the scenes. I love her, and am heartily glad I have book two to hand...

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green

I felt so guilty about not liking Looking for Alaska that I figured I'd try John Green again, and happened to have this one lying around at home anyway. (I acquire books via osmosis and magic.) I thought this was better than Alaska, which was a relief. The characters were more engaging and less prone to existing purely to inspire the others (although that played a hefty part again). I still feel a bit like I've read this before in my early teens, but it bothered me a little less in this one. I can see why it's such a big hit, though.

I'm just going to work. I may be some time

Ooh, there's been a bit of quiet on here, hasn't there? Now, what happened in February/March to distract me from here?

Oh wait. That.

So uh. Hi. I work at Waterstones now.

It's been a busy few months. I curate the sci-fi/fantasy/horror/manga/graphic novel/boardgames section at Waterstones York (aka, all the good stuff). I am a horrifying recommendation monster that appears behind people innocently reading blurbs and excitedly extols the virtues of the book they're holding and also these three over here and have they seen that there's a sequel in a couple of months they should preorder...?

It's been a lot of fun.

There have been signings. So many signings.

There have been parties.

There have been games.

There have been costumes.

And there have been conventions upon conventions and dear heavens so many books. So many.

I have taken time off, too. I went and sailed a ship to France and back for a week.

Not kidding.

But it has been hectic, and I haven't been writing much. I managed 50k for NaNoWriMo but I'm only happy with about 10k of it and it encompassed six different novels in the end. I need to get back to the writing properly, somehow. In between everything and everything else, and all the other stuff.

Been reading a heck of a lot, though, particularly for work. I have a whiteboard in the sci-fi section (and tweeted on the Waterstones York account) where people can (and do, surprisingly) vote for what I should read next, and I've been getting through at least one book a week since March.

So during 2016 I'll try to update this place a bit more regularly with those, at least. Read some spectacular stuff during 2015. Some new, some old, some I really should have read sooner...

Top 10 20? Why not. Alphabetised because I work in a bookshop okay:

One Good Dragon Deserves Another by Rachel Aaron
The Goblin Emperor by Katherine Addison
Twelve Kings by Bradley Beaulieu
The House of Shattered Wings by Aliette De Bodard
Red Rising by Pierce Brown
Kindred by Octavia Butler
The Girl With All The Gifts by M. R. Carey
Luck in the Shadows by Lynn Flewelling
Fool's Quest by Robin Hobb
The Alex Verus series by Benedict Jacka

A Thousand Nights by E. K. Johnston

The Empress Game by Rhonda Mason
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North
Uprooted by Naomi Novik
The Anvil of Ice by Michael Scott Rohan

The Name of the Wind by Patrick Rothfuss

A Darker Shade of Magic by V. E. Schwab
Vicious by V. E. Schwab

The Martian by Andy Weir

The Iron Ghost by Jen Williams

Honourable mentions:
Wake of Vultures by Lila Bowen
The Parasol Protectorate series by Gail Carriger
The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman
Empire Ascendant by Kameron Hurley
Lagoon by Nnedi Okorafor

Yeah. I enjoyed a lot of books this year. Also read a couple that I will actively discourage anyone from reading, but that seems a bit mean to single them out here.

Films and TV have been pretty awesome this year too. Predictably, I loved all the Marvel stuff, and Star Wars, and all the magnificent geekery made available to us lucky things.

My favourite glorious geek media from this year might still be Mad Max though...

Yeah, I shaved my head for that. Cosplay commitment, baby.

Oh, and uh. I have a girlfriend now. She's awesome. We're swapping geek culture at the moment and now I love FullMetal Alchemist and she loves Loki, so that's all going well. Also contributing to the hectic busy, but that's okay.

Lots of shiny to look forward to in 2016. Here's hoping it's a good one for all of us!

... and Con-trast

Last Monday, on leaving NineWorlds properly, I headed into London and met up with friends from York. Or, more specifically, three friends from York, one of whom was travelling from Northampton, and one friend from Huntingdon, who was travelling with the other two from York, and... yes, it started off a little complicated and went from there.

In any case, we Assembled in our flat for the week, and on Tuesday we headed out and painted the town red. Or something like that. There were entertaining (hahaha, yes) incidents with the exceedingly height-phobic member of the group (which ruled out further trips on the DLR, though a little late for that first one) and lots of fluttering about getting briefly separated by ooh shiny, but we all congregated together for the Fantasy In The Court event at Goldsboro Books. Whoo-ee, that was a crowd and a half for a little bookshop. I don't think I've ever seen the authors-per-square-metre count quite so high. We were all a little overwhelmed by that, and still tired from journeying (or previous con) and traversing London all day, so we gathered up the signatures to go with the books we'd acquired, I grabbed Liz de Jager a glass of water on my last squirm through the crowd since she looked so despairing when the bookshop staff didn't see her try to catch them, and we called it a night.

We spent a lot of Wednesday in Forbidden Planet... I bought posters wilfully and without care of consequence, along with, surprise surprise, another book, and cried off with one friend to go rest at the flat in anticipation of WorldCon starting the next day. That being said, three of us did sidle over on the DLR to the ExCel centre to hit registration while it was quiet, and ran into a long time friend there too. She lives about thirty miles from us, normally, so of course we only see her when we all go to DragonCon in Atlanta, or WorldCon in London, or... Yeah. We did a quick trip together on the Emirates cable cars nearby just for fun, then split again to get some sleep and recharge for it all kicking off on Thursday.

So. WorldCon.

Con attendance: 10,700, I heard someone say in passing...

Pre-con book count: 29

Six things to do at 3pm. On this page, anyway.

On Wednesday, I checked out the online web app for the schedule of WorldCon, and went through the 1171 listed track events, readings, and signings. I managed to narrow it down to 165, and went from there to the paper programme to narrow it further. Then, of course, it came down on the day and the time to, "What do I really feel like right now?" and "Can I even get into this tiny crowded room?" and "Should I maybe eat something today?" to decide what I actually attended. Now this, this was much more like DragonCon. Highlighting 7 events at the same time and knowing there's a strong possibility you won't make it to any of them because something else will distract you entirely. Looking at the list of vendors in the big dealers' hall and trying to keep the sheer avarice from gleaming so bright in your eyes your roommates won't be able to sleep. Planning which cosplay to wear on each day based around what appropriate panels you'll be trying to get into...

And then of course, life happens, and even the tentative plans go out of the window. Thursday morning, we split and headed into the ExCel separately, so our height-phobic wouldn't have to face the DLR, and then found that he and his partner couldn't get into the ExCel on foot by any obvious means... aside from crossing the lofty DLR footbridge. He could, of course, ask the information desk and the ExCel staff about accessible ground routes. As soon as he was inside. Some circular arguments there. In any case, he summoned help in the form of recently arrived online friends, who were darling and responded immediately, and I mocked him up a blindfold and he, to his eternal credit, made it across the bridge.

I think I went to the dealers' hall after that, to drift and admire and catch my breath. I did make it to swing dancing lessons, and enjoyed swirling about in my steampunk dress (which is astonishingly hot to wear, for having so little fabric in it), and got to two whole panels - pseudonyms, with Robin Hobb and others; and a gloriously genre-spun I'm Sorry I Haven't A Clue that included Mornington Crescent with the addition of fictional stations, and some excellently done One Song To The Tune Of Another, and even a surprise appearance of Hamish and Dougal in Sound Charades (which truly, thoroughly confused those in the room and indeed on the panel who hadn't actually heard the show before). And then we fled again, too tired to stay for the swing dancing event and show off what we'd learned.

I have vague recollections of making it to the "Exceptional Girl Warrior" panel at 10am on Friday, and the notes to prove it, but that one's mostly got lost in the haze of double-con, I think. I remember the "Kill the Parents" panel moderated by Todd McCaffrey, not least because I bumped into two of my gang in there and hugs with Todd were exchanged. I also managed the "Writing SF/F in non-Western Modes" panel, and Elizabeth Bear and Scott Lynch's signings again (having not wanted to bombard them with a stack each at NineWorlds, though in retrospect that would have worked out quite well, it being such a little con), and even got to a little play. (It was called Mastermind, written by Michael Patrick Sullivan, and superbly acted by Rhys Lawton and an understudy for the female part, who was brilliant but not listed on the playbill as it was such a last minute change, and I didn't think to write down her name and am now cursing myself because she was excellent for being thrown in with little to no warning to the point where she still had the script in her hand. Somehow she worked around that so well I forgot she was line-checking most of the time.)

At six o'clock half our group reconvened for the panel we'd been waiting for all day: Welcome... to Night Vale.

Group cosplay always has more impact than single, but the reaction was still immensely pleasing. We were ushered to seats at the front, deference was paid to us throughout the panel ("Well, you have to be careful of those hooded figures - present company excepted..."), and quite a lot of photos were taken afterwards, both in the room and, better still, with a wonderful Cecil (who I'd snapped at NineWorlds) out in the corridor. I delight in a cosplay that makes people laugh and point and smile and compliment and photograph and appreciate the thought, and this one ticked all those boxes. A grand idea from my friend Legira. And the panel itself was pretty good, too, though wryly amusing as one panelist kept desperately trying to find ways to make NightVale make sense...

It did mean I missed the "Liveship Trading: Fantasy Economics" panel, though, so if anybody wants to fire me over their notes from that one I'd be rather grateful.

I should have gone to the Philharmonic Orchestra set; that sounded wonderful from the tweets I was seeing, but instead we rested up a bit and checked out the library in the Fan Village (comprised of tents promoting other cons and bids for as-yet-undecided locations for future Worldcons, gaming tents, chill-out tents, food van, and craft activity tent, all indoors and surrounding a big open green space for kids to wear themselves out playing on, and for tai-chi in the mornings, medieval knights duelling, and Quidditch or other wide games at certain times). We hit up the "You Write Pretty" panel, which was a fun examination of what makes a sentence memorable and appealing to different people, queued for a little while for the Ceilidh, then decided it was running too late and staying upright was starting to make everything ache so called it quits.

Saturday I was Quicksilver again, with Jim Croce on the hidden speaker once more, and running very late to get in to the ExCel. I missed the first two panels I wanted (at 11 and 12 respectively), missed Stephen Baxter's signing, missed breakfast, missed lunch, but managed to squeeze into a panel rather wonderfully called, "Your 'realistic' fantasy is a washed out colourless emptiness compared to the Rabelaisian reality. - Discuss." It was crowded and hot in there - so crowded that part way through one of the ExCel staff came in to herd out anyone standing against the walls or sitting on the floor, even though they were well out of the way and keeping the aisles and exits clear. This was also the start of the frequent mantra I heard all weekend, of how the Loncon staff were excellent, and the ExCel staff were... not, on the whole. He didn't bother to lower his voice as he ordered people out, repeatedly and unnecessarily, talking over the panelists, louder than their microphones, winding up everyone he was booting out and everyone he was leaving in. It was a shame, because the panel was interesting, and I would have liked to hear all of it, even if it looked like I was nodding off because pneumatic drills had kept me awake the night before and the room was warm and soporific. My notes would imply I was very much awake for all of it.

It's also a shame because looking back through the con booklet (more reliable than my dazed memory), that looks like the only panel I made it to at all on Saturday. Again, if anybody has notes for "Travel in Fantasy" or "Full-spectrum Fantasy" or "Meet the New King, Same as the Old King", I'd appreciate that. I was hugely tired on Saturday, and also thoroughly, pleasantly distracted by heading along to Todd's signing with my friends and having him suddenly introduce me to Anne McCaffrey's agent, eagerly pushing me forward and explaining how I write and should be talking to the People To Know, while of course I was going, "Ah. Yes. I would currently be dressed as a character from X-Men, wearing a silver wig and the kitschest jacket known to mankind. Now is definitely the best time to make a first impression on a renowned and experienced professional agent."

Oh well. She was lovely about it, effortlessly graceful and gracious, and didn't seem to mind chatting to us for an hour or so while Todd signed. I hope I will meet her again, when Dryden is edited and I am wholly prepared to start pursuing agents and publishers properly, and so will probably not be in full-on costume. She was also at a little Del Rey event later that evening, which was promoting new and upcoming releases, and followed up our conversation by presenting us with postcards for one of the books she'd mentioned, which was very nice.

At that little event, I chatted to quite a few other people, and notably ran into a freshly-published author with whom I shared a brief squee-flail over X-Men in general, the concept of her novel (One Night In Sixes, it's called, and it appears to be out now in ebook, and I shall have to get hold of it to see if the awesome of the concept carries through - if it does, expect me to get evangelical about it, as usual) and the concept of mine, which was kind of her.

Saturday's efforts to completely exhaust me continued with the 80s Night Dance when we wandered off from the Del Rey party - a rather different affair to the 80s Cheesefest from NineWorlds, where requests were gladly taken and even the Scissor Sisters got played since it fitted the bouncy, cheery musical theme and the mood of the dancefloor. At this one, rather, the playlist was genuinely limited to 1980-1989. And yes, I danced my heart out to Safety Dance, The Final Countdown, Thriller (oh help, people started following me and I immediately forgot the next moves), and Karma Chameleon, but requests for YMCA and the Time Warp never came through. Not from the right era, you see. And requests for Bon Jovi, or Queen, or Bowie, or Abba, or something more danceable than the strange electropunk that took over shortly before 1am were met with blank stares or outright hostility ("There's no way I'm ever playing Abba"), which somewhat soured the mood. We joked that the DJ was playing little-known and not terrible danceable stuff in an effort to clear everyone out and pack up early. Trouble being, when I went up to her with the next attempts at requests, that was actually exactly what she told me she was doing, since apparently she was a last minute booking and wasn't being paid for it. So we left.

The disco, moderately busy. Yup.

The trip back to the flat took far too long, too, since we'd missed the last DLR in the hope of there still being something to dance to (sorry, guys), and the next due night bus didn't bother showing. That did give us time to make sure anyone leaving the ExCel found the right bus shelter, since the one nearest the exit had the night bus listed but wasn't an actual stop, as the people there before us had found out to their cost, but still. It wasn't quite how the night was supposed to end, and I still feel guilty for persuading tired friends to stay late in the misguided belief we would have fun.

I made it into the "We Can Rebuild You" panel the next day, which was a really interesting look at how disability is represented in fiction, although marred by the common problem of the audience questions actually being long comments instead. The "insight into editing for writers" panel later in the day was brilliant, though, and turned into a detailed, professional discussion of how to approach writing on multiple levels, and how to approach publishing short and long term too.

I also managed to be at the HarperVoyager stall in the dealers' hall at the perfect time, and got my fangirl hands on a proof, paperback copy of Robin Hobb's latest, Fool's Assassin. That quite literally made my day and nearly made me cry - I don't tend to buy hardbacks, so I was wondering how I was going to get my hands on a copy to read ASAP. And it improved when, with my friends' help, I managed to get it signed by the lady herself later on. That made Sunday pretty awesome. I caught Stephen Baxter too, having missed his signing previously, which meant I successfully got every one of the twelve books I'd taken down from York signed by their respective authors.

By Monday, the last day of Loncon, I was pretty much exhausted, so I saved my energy to make it to the last panel I really wanted: "Robin Hobb: When Assassins Didn't Need to be Hooded". I ran into a friend from NineWorlds who I'd kept seeing at all the creative writing panels, which made that panel even better.It was also delightful to listen to Patrick Rothfuss, Kate Elliott, and Kari Sperring gush and fan-flail over Robin Hobb. It's interesting, to me at least, to see who other authors enjoy reading, and look at how that influences their writing and reflects their tastes.

Our group reconvened, slowly, agreed we were collectively exhausted to the point of zombification, and cleared off to pack, eat, fit in one dazed game of Ticket To Ride, and sleep.

The trip home was an adventure all in itself, what with diverted buses, appallingly rude Londoners and drivers - and amazingly lovely, kind, and caring Londoners too, other con-goers at the train station, and something like 200 books between the five of us, but I'm pretty sure when we've recovered we'll all be quite happy we went. It wasn't as obviously diverse and openly welcoming as NineWorlds, but it was still a friendly, happy con overall, and there were a lot of people working extremely hard all over to keep things running well. With a little more co-operation and understanding from the ExCel staff (some of whom were superb and engaging and got into the spirit of things, to be fair) it would have been even better.

I have a problem.

Post-con book count: 69

Time in a Bottle plays, over both cons: 319

Con pair...

Today I'm sitting down, not leaving the house, and listening to old, old music I haven't heard in ten years and to which I still know all the words. My brain needs time to recover.

Because this weekend just gone, I was at Worldcon, aka Loncon3. (It's like the superhero of conventions. It has a secret identity and everything!)

The weekend before that, I was at NineWorlds, aka London Geekfest. (Sidekick? Villain? Or the real hero?)

In between, I stayed in London (I usually live in York) and did some other geeky things with friends, including Fantasy in the Court at Goldsboro Books, since a lot of the authors visiting for either or both the above cons were attending too.

So I've been on the go non stop for very nearly two weeks, not to mention the hurried costume-creation and book-sorting and room-booking beforehand.

Con-wise, I'm not a newbie anymore - among others, I've done DragonCon in Georgia the last seven years in a row (and will be sad to miss it this year) and did a lot of the smaller Showmasters cons back when Torchwood fandom was still alive. But I missed NineWorlds last year when it started, and I've never made it to Worldcon, so the individual characters and natures of these two were both new to me. I also usually hate interrupting, imposing, or generally initiating conversation with complete strangers who obviously have a hundred better things to do than talk to me, so I was a little nervous about it all.

NineWorlds first.

Con attendance: about 1700, I've heard.

Pre-con book count: 12

My con started early. I got the Megabus down to London (really not a bad way to travel cheap, especially if you book well in advance and mid-week) on Thursday, the day before NineWorlds started, read over 400 pages of Scott Lynch's Republic of Thieves on the coach down until I was dizzy and dazed when I had to work in reality again, and trekked with my little suitcase, backpack, and tote bag of books from King's Cross over to Heathrow. Outside Heathrow, about to tentatively get on a bus I hoped would take me to the right hotel, I spotted one of the other boarding passengers was wearing a Firefly t-shirt, as she spotted my NaNoWriMo shirt... So I took a deep breath, engaged Con Mode, and spoke to her. Turned out she'd been to NineWorlds the year before and knew the way, which bus stop to use, and how it all worked. We chatted, she led me in to registration, and I was and am endlessly grateful for the reassurance just when I needed it.

And thus NineWorlds started being awesome from the very beginning.

Registration was easy at that point - it being late in the evening (roadworks had delayed my bus/train combo journey so I was an hour later than expected) there was nobody queuing, but friendly faces waiting to welcome us anyway. And surprise goody bags were dished out with our con badges. I'm accustomed to the con booklet, the options of free samplers and advertising posters, and a nice lanyard, but I didn't expect to receive two full, gorgeous books just for turning up.

I think this is an accurate representation, but it's been two weeks now and I'm still dazed.

Other stuff in the bag included 5 "Awesome Cosplay!" tokens (an idea taken from Eastercon, they said), to be handed out to worthy cosplayers, with the note that if you acquired 15 or more you could claim a prize on the Sunday. This lifted my excitable cosplayer's heart in an instant, and had me going, "That's an awesome idea, why doesn't every con do that?"

Next to registration was a "Naming Desk", with a big pot of Sharpies of varying colours, where you wrote whatever name you wanted to wear for the weekend onto your badge, and could pick up extra helpful bits. There were pronoun badges - I seem to recall I saw "he/him", "she/her", "they/their", "zhe/hir" and a blank one to write any unrepresented preference on. I did the "why doesn't every con do that?" again at this point. And there were also "communication clips" - different colours to indicate different preferences. Blue meant "For whatever reason, I find initiating conversation difficult but am more than happy for you to talk to me" (though it wasn't quite phrased like that on some of the reminder posters dotted about the corridors, which I saw get altered during the con to draw closer to this definition). There was also yellow, for "If I already know you, you're welcome to talk to me", and red for "I don't want to/am not ready to talk to anyone right now".

I grabbed a blue and ran off to see what the late night welcome panels were like. And the blue clip came in handy almost immediately: I hadn't had a chance to cut my long silver wig into shape for Quicksilver cosplay yet, and when I slunk into the room, everyone was busily constructing things and chatting merrily among their friends, and I was overcome with that urge not to interrupt people busy with things much more important than my little problem. One of the women in charge of the get-together spotted me and my blue clip though, and came over to ask if she could help. And just like that, she got everything sorted, my wig was hacked down to a better length, and I got to be calm again.

I was BUSY.

On Friday, while dressed as a Vulcan, I made it to panels about editing, swordfight choreography for writers, mythology and fairytales, and "How To Write A Sex Scene" (heavens). Generally speaking, though, despite the pages of notes I took down, the panels themselves weren't Friday's highlights. Instead, I engaged Sociable!Lea as hard as possible and found myself talking to all sorts of people at all sorts of times (like the couple I ended up working with for the Sex Scene panel, and Andy the sweetheart in fabulous World of Warcraft armour), and even bumped into an old friend from the aforementioned Torchwood fandom, much to our mutual surprise and delight.

By the time the evening entertainment rolled around I had a lot of people to wave at and ask after specifics by sight, and a handful I could (and did) stop and talk to and lose an hour without noticing. I prowled the little dealers' hall (I'm used to DragonCon, so although it was varied and delightful and included at least three book stalls aside from the huge, magnificent, drool-worthy Forbidden Planet table all along the back wall, it still seemed small to me) extensively, chatted to vendors and attendees alike, complimented cosplay everywhere, bought books, got books signed (Jen Williams drew, or offered to draw, an adorable dragon in every copy of The Copper Promise brought to her, and Kate Griffin was sweet and seemed excited when I showed up with the very first book she had published some ten years ago, under a wholly different name), rocked out to a Queen tribute band, and danced my feet off at the 80s All-Cheese Disco. When I was leaving my accommodation the next morning, my host asked how Friday had been, and I found myself saying, with some surprise, that it was the best single day I'd had at a convention in years.

Saturday had a lot to live up to.

Panels included: writing Steampunk, creating fantasy languages (WOW, that one was intense! It was like the distilled version of a month long linguistics course, delivered at speed, with a side order of extra geek for the moments it touched on Klingon, Elvish, Circular Gallifreyan and others), and a "Beat Writer's Block" panel which was more like "Spark New Ideas" rather than "Finish Your Damn Story". I also got lots more books signed, including a couple for friends, hit up the dealers' hall some more (by which point I'd already got a reputation for book addiction at the Fox Spirit table), and found time to eat and read a little more of Republic of Thieves too.

All while dressed in full Quicksilver (with fixed wig, and the lovely lady who'd cut it did run in to me and see it in play, to her glee), belting "Time in a Bottle" from a hidden speaker (if you've seen Days of Future Past you'll understand why) and being stopped near constantly for photos and to be handed cosplay tokens. Even Elizabeth Bear gave me a cosplay token while I was getting her to sign books for me. So that was fun.

The evening entertainment for Saturday also included the Whedon singalong (I sat out for Once More With Feeling because I still haven't seen that episode yet). A couple of cosplayers who knew each other and were involved in the Whedon track were dressed as Doctor Horrible and Captain Hammer, so certain songs of that were acted out beautifully, too, right down to full on freezing in place for an entire song. That was well worth seeing.

And then there was the Queer Cabaret, which started off with poetry and music and comedy skits and built up to the most wonderful, lovely thing I feel privileged to have seen. I mean, really. It was just gorgeous. And the standing ovation was so well deserved.

Sunday morning, I dressed in hot pants and a safari shirt and a brown fedora, packed brown leather high heeled ankle boots into my day bag, and set off on the hour or so walk from accommodation to con. Ten minutes in, the heavens well and truly opened, and by the time I reached a point at which I could surrender and get a bus, I was soaked through, and my desperate attempts to shield my canvas bag with arms, hat, whatever (contents: card games! paperback book! notebook! business cards! paper programme!) were no longer stopping the torrent. By getting the bus, I did manage to guide two day-pass NineWorlders to the con, but it was too late for me. I had to stop by the loos to literally wring my clothes out a few times, switched shoes after drying my feet at the hand driers, and schlepped (coincidentally, also the noise I was making) over to the first panel I wanted - a repeat of a hugely popular one from the day before, a "Writing the Other" workshop with Stephanie Saulter.

So I sat there with all my stuff spread across table/floor/chairs to try and dry it out, and tried not to shiver too much while taking all my notes (notebook was shielded from the worst by the book, blessedly enclosed in plastic bag with remarkable foresight by my absent-minded self packing up that morning). I think I worried Stephanie a little. But it was still worth it! Discussion was interesting and insightful, and hopefully will be very useful for everything I'm continuing to write/edit at the moment/in the future. She was so good (and so nice) I went and bought her first book from the dealers' hall later on.

From there, though, I squelched down towards the steampunk room for a cool panel on "Female Characters in Steampunk", and ran into a couple of the friends I'd made, consistently running into one in writing panels, and generally talking to the other for hours non stop. They, lovely, lovely people, looked me up and down and went, "Our hotel room is a few doors down and there is a hairdryer. Come with us." Good move. I cannot recommend hairdryers highly enough for such moments. Although do try not to point them at any bag that contains chocolate or boiled sweets. I ended up dry and even passably warm before I dashed into steampunk, which is probably the reason I didn't end up exhausted and chilled and in danger of illness. That one, too, was worth it, since I then went off and bought Gail Carriger's book on the strength of her panel presence as well, especially since she was signing shortly after that, with Stephanie Saulter. I managed to fit in a quick trip to the info desk to turn in my stack of cosplay tokens for my prize, too, and immediately affixed the "Outstanding Cosplay!" badge to my shirt.

(Not pictured: the little bag of chocolate buttons also part of the prize, which were immediately devoured.)

I hit up one last writing panel on "How to Invent the Wheel", which was a very good discussion of how to consider the introduction of any technology (future, past, hypothetical) into your worldbuilding and properly deal with the consequences and the range of reactions. Fun stuff. And then I went and played some games for a little bit, to wind down before everything packed up and finished. I managed to squeeze in dinner when I ran into the lovely couple from the Sex Scene panel, and we decompressed a bit chatting together in the restaurant. Then, of course, I found a Cards Against Humanity game going on upstairs, shouldered my way in, and spent the next four or five hours there. Fortunately the wonderful hairdryer-lending people wandered in too, so I was able to give dry, grateful hugs before we parted ways.

One of the CAH players, who I'd run into a couple of times at various points throughout the weekend, persuaded me to stay another half an hour/hour or so when I declared time and got up, by offering me a lift back to my accommodation. Sunday, you see, exemplified NineWorlds, for me. It was full of wonderful, kind people, who were happy to help if they possibly could. It was a relaxed, happy crowd, occasionally vexed by hotel staff, full of praise for con staff, and excited, pleased, and welcoming for everyone else.

NineWorlds is possibly the single most friendly, inclusive con I've ever been to. More than inclusive, actually, but positive. Not queer or autistic or disabled or female or minority inclusive, queer/autistic/disabled/female/minority positive. It was a celebration of everyone who usually gets left out of things, a paean to difference, and uniqueness, and how simple it really can be to make things accessible and enjoyable for everyone. The gender neutral toilets on the third floor ("Toilets with urinals"/"Toilets with sanitary bins") and the variety of available pronoun badges instantly signified that this was a safe space for anyone not covered by binary gender. I saw panelists introduced with their name and preferred pronouns, attack ships on fire off the... wait, this has turned into something else. Better stop before it heads into all those cons, lost... like tears...

Anyway. Yes. NineWorlds. NineWorlds delighted me. It reminded me what my first few cons were like. All hope and joy and geeky excitement, with very little negativity around. I only hope it can maintain it as it continues and grows.

I could hardly bear to take off my lanyard. And I kept that Outstanding Cosplay badge on for another week.

Post-con book count: 26

A Pleasant Surprise

Hi there, been a while. A pretty busy while, as it happens. Done lots of proofreading for friends, a lot more running around and helping/cleaning/tidying for friends (and me), and not nearly enough writing. In fact, after some discussion with a couple of folks, I'm halfway through a blogpost about writer's block.

But that'll have to wait another day or two.

Back in February, my very first post on this blog included a short list of stuff I needed to get done. I actually managed all of them. And Hanith, that very first short story I submitted to the British Fantasy Society journal, has now been accepted for publication.

It'll be a while before it makes it into the wild, but I've had a little contact with the folks who run the journal, and they all seem lovely, so I can't imagine it'll go wrong at this point.

So there we go. Step one, achieved. Step two, get another one (or Dryden) out there.

All cool, yeah, nothing to see here. Totally composed and professional, that's me.

Food for thought

Today I made it to see my lovely aunt, as I mentioned I'd be trying to while down here. We had a great time, talking for probably far too long about a surprisingly wide range of things. She's a bit of a gourmet chef (this is an understatement) so given my tentative inching into that Actual Cooking stuff we ended up talking food for quite a while, and she persuaded me to try some new cheeses and crackers. I seem to be surrounded by people who know what they're doing with food and are eager to take me up on my promise to "try anything once". I don't regret it yet...

Among the food discussion, a couple of books came up - Elizabeth David's works, which sound half cookery book, half food history and exploration of why and how regional dishes came about, due to sources of food and so on. I (as you see) whipped out my ever-present notebook and took down the name, because one area where I am very aware I am lacking in worldbuilding is food. I'm really bad at including meals at all when writing, because I don't know enough about what's available in what sort of climate, at what level of technology and civilisation. And I do rather need to include at least fleeting mention of meals when I write so many important Round The Campfire scenes. But I get lost in clickbait when I try to do vague internet research around that, and end up briefly extremely informed about the spice trails through the Middle East and not very informed at all about pre-potato British cuisine. Or pre-British potato-based cuisine, for a little continental diversity.

Anyway, I have a name and a few titles and hopefully that sort of focused attack will help. In the meantime I'll have to reread Ray Mears and make do for the moment.

Ah, the troublesome life of a writer. Nothing escapes scrutiny, to add depth to the next book.

Assume the Perpendicular

We'll walk the grounds, of Capability Brown...

Anyway, enough Divine Comedy. The friends I'm helping in Cambridge and I went out today, to Wimpole Estate - which I am just this minute discovering apparently has geocaching spots, gosh darnit. Oh well. There was a kids' Easter Egg Trail, which was amusing and got us to meander around the gardens well enough, before rewarding us with a chocolate egg (since my friend was generous enough to buy the official trail guides, which resulted in prizes). And we went up to the farm area and saw all the cute fluffy little baby things, which they both delighted in, and a couple of absolutely flippin' huge Shire Horses, which I sighed over. Pure research, honest. It's not just that I want a giant horse. Really. Promise.

And of course, as happens everywhere I go (I am not kidding; I have managed this in multiple supermarkets), I found some secondhand books for sale. So naturally I rescued a Ben Aaronovitch and a Harry Turtledove from the tables by the exit.

Wheelchairs, however, do not go entirely happily with pine-needle-and-bark-shaving paths, especially when on a slight but persistent incline. My back is a little twitchy and I am rather tired, so I haven't got anything written or read today and it's definitely past my bedtime while I'm writing this.

Daisy sent me an invite to a game called Storium, though, which looks interesting and still has over three weeks left on the Kickstarter - looks like it's going to be a subscription service, to a certain degree, but so far from my little poke around to get set up and join Daisy, it also looks very tempting... Sort of an odd combination of play-by-post forum roleplays like I used to do constantly, and touches of co-operative board games with cards to play and scenarios to overcome. Plus I noticed a lot of familiar names (I'm spying on far too many authors via Twitter) on the list of people they've got doing some worldbuilding for them. So that's pretty darn cool.

I even got the washing up done.

Back by popular demand

You may have noticed a lack of posts over the last few days. Interestingly, I've had complaints about that. I was expecting complaints about the excessive chatter, not the lack of it. Oh well.

So, quick refresh: the daily posts were part of an intent to focus on the happy, good things in each day and try to stay positive. You can draw your own conclusions from the lack of posts, I suppose.

Despite that, there were actually quite a few good things over the last few days. I helped a friend plan a complicated cosplay on Wednesday, and received art (and random little presents too, which was so sweet) from my friend Cally. She drew me a dragon for the new pen name, and named her, naturally, Leaf Pendragon. Ah, the puns. I should've thought of that one. Leaf's now the background of my Twitter page. I'm still playing with settings to work out if I can get her onto the background of the blog too, and keep everything legible. She's a pretty thing, though, you have to admit.

I also got some more feedback on Dryden version whatever it is at this point, and more again on Thursday. I was getting very lost in attempts to rewrite, second (and third, and fourth) guessing myself at every turn, certain of some problems and hating other bits but not sure if that was just me or if they actually needed work. Hearing back from my readers settles that - even if I disagree with the odd comment, it still solidifies what I have to do to make progress. It clarifies matters, and reassures me that there's something worth saving in the draft.

There was also the NaNoWriMo group chat on Thursday night, which meant I got a little writing done. Hanith again, poor lad.

On Friday I made it into town to pick up the latest Loki: Agent of Asgard comic, because Loki. It did make me laugh like a drain, too.

Saturday included a trip to the cinema to see Captain America: The Winter Soldier for the second time... So I really can't complain about that. I even managed to do almost all the dishes and cook again, afterwards.

Today was monthly NaNo in-person meetup, too, so I spent the afternoon hanging out with half a dozen other writers, generally geeking out, chatting, and keeping up to date with everybody's plans and current writing status. It's nice, though this particular meet did leave me more exhausted than usual. I think I'm still not quite entirely recovered from the troubles of Tuesday through Thursday. Remember I mentioned how the food and the happy overlap a lot? This does mean that lack of happy equals lack of food, especially if I'm feeling guilty. That in turn slows me down for a while, which does mean a much lesser chance of sparking off further guilt-inducing incidents, but also means it's difficult to get back up to doing a full day of normal stuff without ending up utterly shattered at the end of it.

Oh well. The delays in getting round to actually writing Dryden 2: The Second One have meant that the plot is getting longer, more in depth, and crueller with every passing day. Shame it all makes sense and follows on from the chaos of the first book. My poor characters. They did so little to deserve this.

Incidentally, I drink like a camel.

I did a lot of tidying and cleaning today, which has helped since the cats are determined to shed everywhere at the moment. Particularly in my face, whilst purring. This is adorable, but did actually get past the antihistamines and start to cause breathing issues earlier, so the sweeping up and binning of large amounts of cat fur is not entirely altruistic or just for appearances...

Other than that I was split between writing more Hanith (hurrah, Hanith and his healthy, healthy relationship. It makes such a nice change from Dryden) and reading Honour's Knight by Rachel Bach.

Basically, I want to go to bed now so that it's tomorrow and I'll have the time and energy to write a proper squeeful review of it. In summary: FUN. (Also packs emotional punch. But still. FUN.)

Oh, and I've been trying to drink more, in an effort to eat less, stay better hydrated, be a little healthier etc etc etc. I really don't know how people manage to drink the supposed recommended 8-cups-a-day allowance, never mind folks who go for the weird calculations where it ends up saying 12 cups or more as a daily dose. I'm only just keeping up with my self-imposed lower limit of about 6 cups. And I feel sloshy. I'm used to getting by on two or three...

Anyway. Progress is maintained. Not bad.

(Also, my friend Sarah is absolutely amazing at reading my stuff and pointing out the very simple, very twisted, very perfect thing that I should clearly have written in and somehow managed to miss. It's amazing. Every single time, she reads through, and comes back with, "Ooh, and then this?" and I am left sitting here going, "How did I not think of that? Yes ma'am, writing it this instant!" She just did it again to Tick Tock, and now clearly I have lots of revisions and a possible sequel or epilogue to do when it gets rejected and I want to submit it somewhere new.)

40 days: halfway. Score!

Another writing day, though interrupted by pestering cats who decided that I had much better things to be doing, like stroking them for an hour or so. They are incredibly cute, though, and it's still such a nice change to be able to touch them and not stop breathing in response (all hail antihistamines) that I can't resist.

Did a couple of little bits around the house again, including clearing as much space for Dance Central as I'm able to without getting into stuff that I really don't want to be putting in the wrong place. And Daisy has talked me into calorie counting as well to try and get back into our good clothes (and cosplay, over here). So far so good, helped by the portions of homemade meals I still had left. I am rather competitive, which is keeping me from devouring (at least all in one go) the wonderful stash of chocolate I've still got from the Christmas sales...

I swear I wasn't this food obsessed before I started a) cooking, or b) writing these blog posts. But it's actually a very good thing, honestly. One of my clearest warning signs of dipping back into the self-hatred and the dark spirals is when I have no interest in food and stop eating. Which in turn, due to lack of energy and the side effects of hunger, spirals me down further. So focusing on happy and focusing on food actually overlap much more on the Venn diagram than you might expect.

Anyway. Other stuff.

Claire tidied up her next Lavendar short story, we discussed one of the finer points on Twitter for a bit, I fired it at a couple of lovely, obliging friends who were able to give it a quick read and answer a single question for her. (They both enjoyed it, too. I do have awesome friends.)

So yes, you should probably go read the story: here.

(And the first one is here if you didn't get to that before. Tut tut!)

Enthusiasm is infectious

I actually got in after midnight so am sneakily backdating this one because otherwise the list of my posts will skip a day and wind me up for eternity (perfectionist? Me? Never...) but let's stick with "today" terminology anyway:

I helped a few friends out today, with some driving, a ridiculous amount of overdone feedback for poor Claire's latest short story (from whom I fully expect absolute reams and essays of red text on whatever I send her next which will be really helpful and is definitely not at all an ulterior motive at play), and some more driving - in which I transported Enthusiastic Geeky Friend to the cinema and in return she provided tickets.

To see Captain America: The Winter Soldier.

Be still my little Marvel fangirl heart.

There was much geeking, and lending of Hawkguy comics, and trailers for Amazing Spiderman 2, and Guardians of the Galaxy (oh, so very pretty on the big screen), and an X-Men Days of Future Past trailer I had not already seen (I adore X-Men. It rivals Loki for getting my instant attention. So this made me flap about in joy while she flapped about for Guardians of the Galaxy, and everyone was happy).

And, you know, Winter Soldier.

We asked, but they wouldn't let her have the giant Black Widow wall hanging. And they wouldn't let me have the huge reversible cardboard stand of Professor X and Magneto. Boo. But oh well, saves us trying to find space to display them properly.

So generally a rather Marvelous evening, aha. (I'm sorry, that was terrible and entirely predictable and I feel very little shame for it.) And I got home gone midnight, since we, as usual, spent at least half an hour geeking out wildly and discussing at top speed everything Marvel related while I was parked in front of her house.

Basically, at this point in Marvel phase 3, I am left wondering why there's such a focus on origin stories (though I do love a good origin story) in other franchises, and say, constant rebooting of some superheroes so as to go over and over the origins until they become boring, when they could be moving on to the really fun stuff like Avengers, Thor: The Dark World, Iron Man 3, Winter Soldier...

Yes, it's fun. I was pleased. I will say no more.

Geekery is the song of my people

I really do have awesome friends. I've been a little bit too sedentary and apt to eat for the sake of it recently, and it's starting to have an impact. So I figured I'd try to get back to something that actually helped and was fun; dancing. Sadly the specific sci-fi conventions I used to go to and dance till I dropped three nights in row have now stopped running, so I need a more local alternative.

By the power of friendship (which is magic, don't you know) I've now acquired a spare... well, everything, required to get Dance Central on the XBox 360 running in the living room. Circumstances have led to my lovely friends having even a spare console sitting quietly gathering dust, so I don't feel like I'm inconveniencing anyone or imposing too much (aside from the enforced trip to a storage unit today, wherein I pretty much appeared, grabbed one of them, and kidnapped him for the afternoon. Next time, remind me, I will simply arrive on the doorstep and intone, "Come with me if you want to live").

Hopefully, therefore, there'll be a bit more activity shortly, as soon as we've (me and Daisy, who's both kind enough to let me stay at hers, and also keen to get the dancing going) cleared space for the Kinect to work. I did enjoy the Kinect games a lot when I lived with said briefly-kidnapped-friend and we had space. I used to be quite good at them... We'll soon see if I've lost my touch completely.

Before I dashed round to their place to steal all their tech and run away laughing, I also made it back in to the charity bookshop where I worked up until last September. One of my friends who's still there had essentially summoned me via the arcane email ritual of "We've had a ton of Dragonlance donated, help", so I appeared to perform the solemn rites of "Here, they go in this order and you should put these ones out on the shelf first; they're the rarest, and oh, I'm just going to borrow this one for the moment and let you have it back later..."

So I've acquired another book to read. But it's all about Raistlin, and he's cut from the same cloth as Loki, Dryden, all the wicked, dangerous characters I like so much. So that pleases me a great deal.

Not that I have a type in fiction, or anything like that, oh no.

Also there was much flailing and geeking out, which always happens every time I see that friend. Her enthusiasm for everything is wonderful, if occasionally a little like being flattened under a landslide of excitement. It doesn't leave you room to be annoyed or upset by anything, because the only way to survive such wild delight is to go with it. It pushes you into the frame of mind where you want to give back the same level of glee, so suddenly you're focusing on all the. best. possible. things, and the happy spiral twists into the most excitable snake eating its own tail you've ever seen, and everything is a reminder of something else wonderful that must be shared right now until your face starts to hurt from grinning and you remember the parking's about to run out on the car and have to leave... on the third attempt, because each time there's just one more thing either of you absolutely must mention before you go.

It is exhausting, when I'm so out of practice at sustained excitement, but very, very entertaining. And has a tendency to gear me up to go and achieve something, hence the unexpected and most useful trip round to the others', with the bonus of lots of hugs and chat with my lovely people.

Anyway, when I got back in I settled down and beta-read a friend's 8000 word fic and returned it, as I promised I would. I seem to recall, actually, promising I'd do it yesterday, but yesterday ended up being weird and almost-migraine and I got practically nothing done, so we're all counting today as a success and not too late.

I've even got another short story from the writing group to read and critique tomorrow, so that'll be fun.

When I type it all out like that, it seems like a very productive day. Which is, after all, the point of these blog posts.

Now I'm going to go and write more Hanith, because Hanith is fun.

As the tiger sang: That's what friends are for...

Today I was an hour and a half late meeting up with friends... Because the lovely people I'm living with happen to be epic, amazing board game geeks, and yesterday they acquired the latest expansion set for the game Sentinels of the Multiverse - which is a hilarious riff on classic comic book superheroes and villains, and a thoroughly enjoyable co-operative game too. So we started playing a game at 1pm, I needed to leave at 2pm at latest... I started to feel like maybe the game was taking a little too long shortly before we beat the scenario and wrapped it up, went off and checked the time... 3.20pm. Whoops! Fortunately my friends are lovely and understanding and most of them have played Sentinels before and know how absorbing it can be.

In any case, we made it out and about and tried a different restaurant to usual. Pulled pork all round, and much gossiping and silliness and relaxing in good company, so happy days.

I also managed to finally pull myself together and talk to one of my best friends in the world, who is insanely busy and lives in the US so has completely different time zones to me and we never get to meet up face to face. I miss her a lot, all the time, but I'm notoriously bad at keeping in touch and she, as I say, is ridiculously busy, so it's been a little while since last emails etc. I'm pleased I managed to get a little contact going again, and must try to email more often. My only resolution this year was to be better at keeping in touch (with a lot of people), and I've already let it slide too much.

I've been chatting to a couple of other friends on Skype as well, including my lone friend back in my hometown, who, similarly to my US friend, I don't talk to enough. Those two in particular always brighten my day. They somehow manage to settle some unstable part of me, even on the other side of a computer. I do get more anxious if I haven't talked to them in too long.

So generally today has been a day of my people, which is good and calming and helpful and fun. Tomorrow will be reading and writing again, and possibly even that weird cooking thing too...

To-do lists

Kitchen clean? Check.

Borrowed DVD watched? Check.

Gospel of Loki review done and posted? Check and check.

Not a bad day all round, there. And Joanne Harris remains utterly lovely on Twitter. I think all the authors I've met have been nice, all generally kind and appreciative of fans and readers, but at the moment Rachel Aaron and Joanne Harris are the most prominently sweet online (that I have seen). I appreciate the time they take to respond to people, and the effort they put into being helpful and generous and polite as much as is humanly possible.

If I ever do make it into the realms of having fans of my own, I will try to do the same.

Oh, and today is two weeks of Happy Things blog. The second week was a lot harder; a lot of things happened that made happy very, very hard indeed and which I'm still getting over, but aside from maybe one day I still haven't had any that were a total loss yet.

Tweet tweet

Twitter is an odd place, especially if you keep your account open instead of private. It gives you access to conversations between complete strangers, brought to your attention by people you do follow bringing the chat into your view, or through the triple perils: the flame spurts of the search box, the quicksand hashtags, or the trending topics of unusual size.

A lot of the time, as anyone will warn you, this leaves you open to trolls and hate-mongers and bullies and all kinds of weird and upsetting opinions, statements, links, arguments, pictures, et cetera, et cetera, ad infinitum. You can stumble across it easily, people can stumble across you, and it can get unpleasant very easily.

And then you have the other side of it. I've seen people use Twitter for all sorts of good or just mundane things, from organising the next cinema trip to rehoming pets to fundraising for charity to finding missing belongings, animals, people...

Sometimes the random disconnected strangers turn out to be kind and generous. They make the effort to do better than just scraping by at the passive level of "Don't be a dick". They go one step further and actively do something nice.

I'm fortunate enough that most of the people I keep on my Twitter feed are like that. And it's helpful and reassuring to have friends who will step up and offer comfort and cheering-up and what help they can manage when things go pear-shaped, as they so often seem to.

What's surprising is when strangers do it too.

I can only assume that Joanne Harris was searching for mentions of The Gospel of Loki to see what people were saying, and stumbled across me citing it as the only positive thing in two days of squabbles and hurt and a rapid stacking up of bad, dark, unhappy things. She could easily have moved on to the next tweet with all squee and happy reviews.

Instead she paused, and took a moment to send a message, and be nice to a stranger. For no reason other than she could.

I ate today because of that. Because the kindness of friends is expected, and the kindness of strangers is surprising.

Gospel of Loki review tomorrow, perhaps. I kind of owe her now.