World Fantasy Con 25

Providence, RI
November 4th through 7th, 1999

Well, I had really cool things to say about the whole weekend.  Witty and pithy things. But they're all gone now.  My brain turned into a sieve and let it all leak out.  So you get the long/short version with lots of borning details and little in the way of amusement.

Thursday:
It was a bright and windy day ...

Yeah, it was.  And I got up way too early to leave the hotel I was staying at in Richmond, VA while I was out at a client site.  I had a 7:50am flight that bumped me from Richmond to Dulles and then on to Providence.

I just want to say that I hate turbo-props.  I mean, I thought I was used to them.  Six months of being on one twice a week every week should've got me over them, right?  Wrong.  The stupid JetStream 41 that United Express uses for their short hops over in the northeast (and maybe everywhere, who knows) are loud.  Really loud.  Painfully loud.  I think my head might have exploded, but I wasn't sure over the sound of the engines.

I made it into Providence without too much pain, though.  And once there, after I got lost in the airport trying to find my way out, I hopped the shuttle service to the Biltmore.

Everyone else in the shuttle was heading for the con, too.  Well, everyone but one poor woman who was going to Brown.  I think most of us were writers, or wanting to be writers, too.  We were going to start an anthology.  Tales from the Cramped.   Or Tales from the Airport Shuttle.  Or something like that.  An anthology of ten stories.  Ten.  Ten and the anthology was full, not because there wasn't more room in the story, but because there wasn't more room in the shuttle.

Some choice tidbits from the shuttle:  It was a bright and windy day.  A shot rang out.  We were off on an adventure.  Then, a pirate ship appeared on the horizon.

That was really as far as we got with the fiction.  Thankfully, we made it to the hotel(s).

After a stop at the Westin, we went the next block and a half to the Biltmore.   The Biltmore is a pretty hotel.  At least in the lobby.  It looks old.   It has a gorgeous elevator and fountain and gilded stuff all over the place.   To my relief (since every hotel in the area had sold out because of the con and a trade show and who knows what else), my reservations showed up when I went up to the counter to check in.

The elevators were already running on con standard time, even though the con wasn't in that hotel.  They were running on con standard capacity, too... Which is to say way too full.  So finally it was up to the fifth floor where my room was.  And I knew, when I got into the room, why hotels put paintings/prints/whatevers on the wall.   The room felt huge, empty, terribly empty.

The ceilings were really high.  I mean really high.  And the walls were empty, except for one.  I wanted something on the other walls, something to make the room seem a little bit smaller, a little less wide open.

In spite of feeling agrophobic when I was in the room, there were some good things.   The bed was wonderful.  Made me realize what I was missing at the hotel where I'd been staying while I was out at the hotel one the road.  The bed was thick and fluffy and comfortable.  And the bathroom tiles were warm.  The heating whatever ran underneath them and kept them nice and toasty.  I loved walking on them.

So, all checked into the hotel and had time to kill before registration opened at 4:30.   I wandered off to find food, had a lovely tuna melt sandwich from the Union Station Brewery (probably the best tuna melt I'd ever had: havarti cheese, tomatoes, red onions on a pita *mmm*), then wandered over to the Westin and hung out in the lobby.

While I was waiting for registration to open, I poked at my little writing notebook, took some notes, wrote a little, watched Scott Edleman walk in.  It was kinda depressing watching people walk in and out, con people, people I didn't know.  And the few people I did recognize I couldn't hang with because, well, I didn't know them.

Finally, registration started and it was the shortest registration jumble I've ever had the fortune to be a part of.  I was through everything quick-quick like a bunny.   Then I sat down on one of the couches in the con suite/registration room, bemoaned the fact that I didn't know anyone, and poked through my blue plastic bag of treats.   Just as I was starting to worry that I wouldn't enjoy the con at all, to worry that I'd be miserable because I didn't know anyone, as I was starting to feel sorry for myself, I spotted Paula's name-tag.

And we were off!  Paula, her husband and I went off to Fire & Ice (an improvisational/Mongolian grill) to get dinner.  We talked, the grilling guys lost my broccoli, Paula gave our waiter her copy of Ender's Game (from the magical blue bag).   We talked more, the grilling guys didn't lose my broccoli the second time around, talked more, then went back to the hotel for the first round of panels.

Late coming in, we still beat one of the panelists to the Death is Easy, Comedy is Hard panel where Craig Shaw Gardner and Esther Friesner were already going strong.   John Ford arrived after we did, and they talked comedy in fiction.  Following that, Paul DiFilippo and Gordon Van Gelder talked about The Evolution of Published Short Fantasy, a conversation that included the typical, "What is fantasy, really?" discussion and whether or not to include horror in the conversation.  Also, during the Q&A afterwards, Paul prodded Gordon to describe what he wants (good fiction) and what he doesn't want (he was reluctant to say ... because he didn't want to get vampire elf stories to prove that they could be done).

I chatted with Paul (Paul Pence from the Rumormill) through the 9pm panels since there wasn't anything I wanted to sit through then.  I stood there like an idiot while Paul talked with Patrick Nielson Hayden from Tor (and appologized for the joke that he told and fell flat).  He dragged me over while he talked with Darrel from Weird Tales and Darrel tried to sell Paul more books.  (Darrel's 'May I shamelessly try to sell you one of my books' button entertained the heck out of me.)  Then I scooted off into a 10pm panel where the panelists tried to answer the question Does Fantasy Prepare People for Change?.

I wanted to stay for the 11pm panel talking about the future of genre fiction, but I couldn't keep my eyes open another minute.  I walked back to the hotel and crashed, but not before setting the alarm so I could pry myself out of bed for panels at 9am Friday morning.

Friday:
A shot rang out!

I hauled myself out of bed for the 9am panels.  Well, for one of them.  But not the one I had planned on going to.  I skipped out on the Creative Expressions panel and went to another one instead: What's Your Agenda? - Subtext in Literature.   I can't remember if I had an ulterior motive or not. O:)

While I was there, I met up with Doug (Paula's hubby) and we went together to the True Grit: Quests are Hard, and War is Hell! panel where we listened to the panelists debate about realisim in fiction and whether or not quests have to succeed (not necessarily, but if they don't, they've got to fail spectacularly).  This was the first time I'd ever heard Robert Silverberg speak and I was muchly entertained.  He's a kick in the head.

11am saw me at The Changing of the Dark: How Has Horror Evolved?.  I don't remember what they talked about.  Vampires, something else.  I've probably got notes scribbled down somewhere.  I'd waffled between going to that panel and the Critics and Reviewers panel.  I think it should be against the law or something for them to make two (or more!) panels at the same time that I want to go to.  I'm indecisive enough as it is.

I was going to go to the Fantasy, Horror, Current Events ... and Moral Responsibility? panel to find out what I should do if I ever get one of my FAT (fucked-up, angsty, twisted) stories published and some wacked out teenager decides to do as I say, not as I do and shoot up funky aliens and get dead.  I don't remmeber what I did instead.  Maybe I made my first trip through the art show/dealer's room, or maybe I grabbed a danish and some cider from the hospitality suite.  I dunno.   I'm sure it was long before that moment that I wondered just what they were paying for convention space.  I hate that I can't separate myself from the con I helped (and am still helping) run and just enjoy a con for the con's sake and not wonder how they organized, what they're paying for space, etc.

Instead of finding out how a sophisticated reader/writer can enjoy fantasy, I went and sat on the How Does the Magic Work? panel and listened to Charles de Lint, Thomas Harlan, J. Gregory Keyes and Patricia McKillip talk about magic: nuts and bolts -vs- mystery.  I'm not sure there was ever a consensus, but it was pretty keen to listen to the different theories.

That said, I'm not sure there was ever a consensus on any of the panels.   There was just a lot of interesting discussion.

I was havving a terrible time deciding between two panels at 2pm: Different Takes on the Same Story: the Other Point of View, and The Character of Death.   So instead of making a decision, I went to lunch with Paula, Doug, and..... Ack!   Someone whose name I can't remember.  Maybe it was the tooth fairy.  We went to the Union Station Brewery and I tried something else.  I had something different, nachos or something.  Oh, and a double-chocolate choclate with chocolate on top.  Or something like that.  I'm sure my face rotted off before I even took a bite, but I got over it.  During lunch, Paula and I bopped to Madonna's True Blue.   Doug decided that individually, he could probably handle us, but together we nearly embarassed him off the face of the planet.  *ping* (sound of halo lighting up) *Bzzzt!* (sound of halo showing the Eat at Ed's logo -- hey, may as well make some money on the side, yes?)

Unfortunately, I missed Laurell Hamiliton's reading at 3:30.  I really wanted to see that, but, well, lunch and bopping were more important than vampires and lycanthropes and zombies, I guess. :)

When we made it back to the convention center, I slunk into the Image of "Home" in Fantasy panel and listened to arguements about home, why characters left, what makes home home, and whether or not characters can ever realy go back.  Made me realize just how happy I was to leave home when I went away to college, and why I disliked going back so much after swearing that I never wanted to leave it when I was a kid.

Then I found out just how wacked I am in the Nightmares and Dreams panel.   Or at least how wacked my characters can be.  And what dreams and nightmares mean.

I hung out in the con suite after they kicked us out of the convention center for the night and edited a story.  It was pretty cool... Added 1100 words to a story that it turns out was too short.  Though once I did that, I was afraid it was too long.

And then came the parties.  The one party I went to.  SFF.Net's party was happening upstairs and I wandered up there, hoping to see a name on a badge that I might recognize.  And I did!  Amazing.  Of course, it helped that some of the folks had written their sff.net email addresses under their names.  And it helped when I spelled A-y-n-j-e-l for them when I introduced myself.  But I met Kytte, Helen, and Fiona!  And probably a handful of other people who I can't remember now because I'm a weenie about names.

I spent a chunk of the rest of the con with Helen and her boyfriend with the gorgeous hair (whose name I can't remember!  Aieee!).  The three of us bailed on the sff.net party and went downstairs to the autograph reception that was happening in the really big ballroom on the first floor of the Westin.  Since I was trying to pack light (I succeeded, honest!  I only had my little carry-on-legal wheelie suitcase and my backpack that had my laptop in it!  It's amazing!  2 weeks worth of clothes in that!  No, really!), I didn't have anything that I wanted autographed.  If I had thought about it, I would have gone back to my hotel and grabbed the de Lint book that came in the registration bag, but I didn't, so I didn't, so I stood in the de Lint line with Helen while she got three things signed.  She was on a mission from God.   Or from Gargoyles, or something.  She wanted to get as many of the authors from the In the Shadow of the Gargoyle anthology to autograph said anthology.   So I joined her, a side-kick on her quest (thankfully, I didn't get killed or maimed or even scared on said quest, returning late that nigth to my hotel room unscathed).

While we wandered through the ballroom, I couldn't help noticing that some people had lines up the wazoo stringing along, blocking other people.  Hoards of people waiting for autographs.  And then there were those who didn't.  Not even one person, while I watched, wandered up with a book and a timid smile to get an autograph.  It was that moment that I decided someday, I was going to be one of those people... the people without lines... whose names I didn't recognize.  And maybe, someday much farther down the road from that point, I'd be like Silverberg and/or de Lint, who had lines that stretched the length of the ballroom.

Fleeing before our egos could be crushed anymore, Helen, her bf and I went upstairs to the New Gothic panel, then stayed for the Vampire panel, and then I stuck around for the smut panel.  If my brain had been working at that point, I would've gone up to talked to Connie Wilkins, fellow RMer.  But my brain wasn't.  So I didn't.  I'm surprised my feet even knew the way back to the Biltmore after that.  The panel ran a little bit late.  It was close to 1:30am when everything broke up and I left.   Thus nearly two in the morning when I got into bed (that wonderful, comfortable bed), back in my hotel room.

Did I dream?  Who knows.  If I did, it was bizzare.

Saturday:
We were off on an adventure!

Did I mention that I'm not a morning person?  Especially not when I don't get to bed before midnight the night before.  Needless to say, I didn't make the 9am panel I thought about going to.  Or the 10am panel.  That's right, I slept way too late.   But that's okay, I made it over to the Westin for the Success and Failure in the Portrayal of Evil panel.  Pretty darn rad, but I might be biased since I adore Laurell Hamilton.  It was a great discussion about good and evil and what makes characters evil and how people perceive evil.  And the most evil kind of evil is someone who has a dark chocolate truffle and won't share.  Well, okay, no one on the panel really said that, but I'm sure they were all thinking it.

At noon, I listened to folks (Samuel Delany, John Ford and Teresa Nielsen Hayden) debate whether Chip Delaney's statement that when people say they can't read science fiction "they are expressing not a  prejudice, but a literal fact" has any relevance in fantasy, as well.  I think the final concensus was, 'yes'.  But this has to do with the way people learn to read, what the learn to read, and when they start reading science fiction or fantasy.  Chip also noted that his, er, <insert approprate young male relative that I've managed to forget here (I think it was his nephew, but I won't swear to it anymore, more than a week later)> had no problem understanding the story Chip told him in which a fish said "meow" and a frog said "bow wow".

I bailed on The Heroine's Journey and walked off to CowderHead's/ Blimpie's with Paula for lunch.  We talked about writing (what we were doing, what we werent' doing, where we thought we were, what we wanted to do with our writing eventually) while we waited for the folks to kill our respective lunches, bread them and fry them, then squeeze tomatoes and mix ketchup.  On the walk to find lunch, we considered just how realistic it was to have an out-door skating rink somewhere that warned up to the low 70s during the winter.  Decided that, as much (theoretical) fun as skating sounded, the ice looked really wet and there were too many kids out on it ... kids who would either skate into us, or skate circles around us.  I'm not sure which Paula was more concerned about, but I was certainly more concerned about the latter.

Back at the convention center, I did something that wasn't going to a panel. I can't remember what.  I can't remember with who.  Maybe Paula and I talked, or maybe I wandered through the art show and the dealer's room and sighed over everything I couldn't afford but wouldn't've minded bringing home if I had been able to afford it.

Three o'clock rolled around and I went to listen in on The Horror of Marketing - The Marketing of Horror?.  Before the panel started, when I went in to sit down, I saw John Harvey of the RM.  We said hello, then the panel got underway.   Things were fairly heated about horror: what is horror, is it dead, how to market it (dark fantasy, dark <whatever>), does my ex-<insert noun here> count as horror?  By the end of the panel, I thought there might be a brawl between the folks from Dark Echo (who beg for horror novels to review) and the panelists (who suggested that reviews are a great way to market -- if you can get a review).  I ducked out to Shadow of the Torturer: The Writer as God, just in case.  Much to my dismay, I didn't learn how to torture my characters even more than I already do.  I did listen to a lot of cool insights into why writers do torture their characters, however, and where things cross the line from  sympathy for suffering characters into "oh, get over it already, you whiners".  And that line's pretty darn fine.

Then I wandered over to listen to de Lint and a handful of others talk about Coyote and Others.  They listed some of their favorite tricksters, their favorite tricker stories, and some cool books out now with trickers in them.

Out of tricksters, or tricked by one of them, the panel ended and I wandered out and ran into Paul Pence again.  He introduced me to s'more of the Providence contingent (more names that I've forgotten!).  We waffled about dinner.  I talked with Cecilia Tan (from Circlet) for a bit, about the slush pile and their publishing schedule.   She said that if I hadn't had a rejection letter at that point, then my stories had made it past the intern and were in piles on her desk for the respective anthologies.   So either they're on her desk, or my rejection letters got lost in the mail. :)

Back toward the hotel because they were locking up the convention center.  We ended up back in the hospitality suite, chit-chatting, trying to make a decision about dinner.  I talked with Cecilia again over nothing related to publishing or fiction, then finally made my way back to the Providence contingent.  Paul bailed to have dinner with his wife, and the rest of the Providence contingent and I went to the bar in the hotel for dinner.  We talked about writing.  Gee, sensing a trend here?   What we wanted to do, how long we've been doing it, where we want to go, how we're going to get there.  Did I mention that I was stilla wuss?  I passed up time # three (or was it more than that?) to introduce myself to Kim Mohan.

I had planned on going to a couple of panels back in the hotel, but we wandered back to the hospitality suite and I sat in one of the big fluffy couches and it was all over.   I chatted with a whole bunch of people who wandered by.  We talked about smut, about the difference between plubming diagrams and erotica, what Circlet might publish.   I pulled out "Switch" and let Paul read the rough draft.  It wasn't a plumbing diagram *grin* but he said that it also needs work (which I knew).  We talked about e-zines and vingettes, about life, the universe, and everything.  We even talked about scifi on *gasp* television (a mortal sin at a lit convention, yes?) and where it's been and where it's gone and where it's going.

Noticing that it was too late to catch any panel, I pried myself out of the comfortable confines of the couch and staggered back across the street to my hotel room where I packed everything up, decided not to try and shove the books inside either my suitcase or my backpack (I'd leave that for flying back to Denver -- for now, I'd just attach the blue bag to my suitcase), and went to bed.  That wonderful comfortable bed that I was going to have to give up when I checked out of the hotel the next morning.  The fluffy softness that I was going to find replaced with the half-mattresses at the hotel I'd been staying at for work.  Feh.

Sunday:
A pirate ship appeared on the horizen...

I gathered everything together and managed to zip the zipper of my suitcase.  Then I said my good-byes.  G'bye bed.   G'bye heated bathroom floor.  G'bye high ceilings that make me paranoid and make the room seem too big.  Okay, so I won't really miss the ceilings.  But the bed and the heated tile floor, yeah, I'll miss them.  And I tromped downstairs to check out, then across to the Westin.

So I found out that if the audience outnumbers the panel, the panel goes on... kinda like in college if the professor didn't show up by a certain time, then the class got to leave.   Yes, it was a 9am panel.  Yes, it was Sunday morning, the last day of the con.  And it wound up beeing pretty darn cool.  Critters in Fact and Fantasy.  And we talked about animals and aliens, what makes them real, where authors go wrong and what happens to the reader when they go wrong.  We also talked about thinking out out ideas for mythological beasts, what they have to eat, when, how much, etc., just as carefully as we need to research the same information for animals that are going to appear in stories.  About 3/4 of the way into the panel, I started thinking about my big winged cat beasties in the might-be-novel I started a few weeks ago and on the plane back to the client, I wrote about 1500 words worth of notes about them.   Which is cool.  Even if it doesn't all make it into the might-be-novel, it's good information to have.

I was torn between the critters panel and the Scams and Scandals, Pitfalls and Traps panel, but on the All About Agents panel, Donald Maass said they'd probably be repeating some of what was said on the scams panel so I didn't feel too bad about bailing on it.  Some of the information on the agents panel was stuff I already knew.  Some of it was new stuff.  I think, overall, it felt good to hear it all from the mouths of pros... even the stuff I knew.

Then off to the Quests of Horror? panel where I discovered that most horror quests don't give the questee a choice in the matter, while most fantasy quests give them a chance to say, "Hmm, no, I really don't think I want to go fight the fire-breathing dragon and risk my life for a princess I won't even get to kiss just because it's the right thing to do.  Find yourself another wanna-be hero."  Okay, they didn't say it quite like that, but doesn't it sound exciting?

Noon saw me racing into the Beyond the Black Gate: Heroic Voyages to Hell and Back (from Orpheus to Frodo).  (Can we get a panel name any longer?  Please?   I wanna try and remember something like that so I can tell my grandkids about, 'When I was your age, the panel names took up fifteen sheets of paper and we aren't talking manuscript format, either.')  Interesting, but by that point I was really brain-fried.  I'm not sure how much of it I remember beyond cryptically scribbled notes in my little notebook.

Afterwards, Paul and I walked over to a little pub (suitcase in tow), and had lunch.   And we talked about, you guessed it, writing.  And what qualified as a Fantasy Novel(tm).  Then we walked back to the hotel.  The banquet was over, at that point, so I grabbed a seat in the peanut gallery and watched the awards ceremony.

After the awards ceremony, I wandered aimlessly, complimented Ellen Datlow on her dress as she walked out of the bathroom, called home, waited for the shuttle, walked over to the Biltmore, waited for the shuttle. Did I mention that it was cold and windy and that night-time seemed to come out of nowhere on Sunday?  Well, it was, and it did.   And so my hand was frozen by the time the shuttle got there (20 minutes late).

The ride back to the airport was entertaining in the same crowded sort of way the ride from the airport was, though for a much shorter timeframe.  Most of the people on the shuttle when I got on were people going from the airport to Brown.  I was good with that.  I had a seat to myself once the Brownies got off.  And I chatted with two other writers for the remainder of the drive.  Have I mentioned I'm terrible with names?  Well, I can't remember their names, either.  We talked about the parties they went to that I didn't even know about (Ace and Bantam parties) and that, at one of them, Gardner was chewing on rose petals (why is it that everything I hear about Gardner at parties involves him doing something weird with flowers?  Clarion West 98 and the gladiolas, and now this...).

They both highly recommended Donald Maass' book The Career Novelist which I've since picked up from amazon.com (along with Ken Rand's The Ten Percent Solution) and haven't had time to read yet (though I went through The Ten Percent Solution pretty quickly and fell in love with it and wondered why I hadn't bought it sooner).

I made it to the airport in time, mostly because I didn't have to deal with checking my luggage (all of it went under the plane at a plane-side check in ... I hate turbo-props most of the time, but this is one bonus).  And I think I broke the poor guy who was checking people in at the gate.  Checking in kinda went like this:

I walk up to the counter and wait and wait and wait.  Finally the gate agent comes over and I walk up to the counter.

The gate agent looked me in the eye, then his eyes kept darting back and forth from my eyes to my eyebrow piercing.  Finally he said, "It really draws attention, doesn't it?"

Me: Yep.  The best thing about it is that it keeps people from talking to my cleavage.

Him, flustered:  Er, I wouldn't, uhh.  You know, it's really not fair to say that to me because I'm a guy.

Me, shrugging:  It's true.

Him, laughing: Yeah, I guess it would be.

Him, after getting me all checked in: But I wouldn't have been able to talk to your cleavage given what you're wearing.

I was wearing a turtle-neck and a big foofy sweater.  I laughed, he grinned, and I sat down to wait to get onto the plane.  I was entertained.

So I got on the plane, flew to Dulles, switched planes in Dulles, and flew back to Richmond.  To my complete amazement, the flight attendant managed a snack service on that twenty minute flight.  First time I'd had a snack between Dulles and Richmond.   I arrived in Richmond without event, called my sister on my celphone and waited for my project manager to pick me up.

And so ended my first World <Fill In the Blank> Con.  Looking back at it now (two weeks later), I had fun.  I was a weenie.  I met cool people.  I didn't schmooze.  I ate good food.  I saw cool panels and found inspiration for new stories or for spicing up existing ones (including my novel!).  I probably had some expectations crushed, but I wasn't nearly so disappointed with myself as I was after Readercon this past summer.  I'm making plans for WorldHorror Con in 2000.  And probably World Fantasy in 2000.  And I'm waffling about WorldCon in 2000.  That last depends on whether or not I end up at Clarion.

And some choice quotes, tid-bits, questions and ideas from panels:
(or at least the stuff I scribbled down and thought was worth noting at the time)

Okay, you probably won't care about any of this, but it's lots of stuff I thought was cool or amusing, or thought-provoking.  If you don't like it, don't keep reading.   If you wanna know what was going through my brain over the course of the weekend, well, you might find some of it here.  Then again, you might not.  Everything is in something remotely resembling order.  The panels are chronological.   Everything else is the order in which it was scribbled down in my little notebook.

So... Here goes:

Death is Easy, Comedy is Hard

• If you're Groucho, you can get away with it, but if you're Groucho, you can get away with anything.
  (Darned if I know what John Ford was talking about at the time, but it amused me.)

• Comedy and horror are both hard to do in lengh.  That's why comedy fantasy series don't do well beyond a certain number of books.  Things get repeatative and annoying.

• Parodies should never be as long as they work being parodied.  The shorter, the better with a parody.  Mainly because parody can't stand up as long as the original work.  I'm not sure what this says about movies like Hot Shots and Fatal Instinct, though (and the constant sequels).

• Comedy should/can be done so that a story can be serious without making drastic changes to it.

• There are only two things in fiction: farce and tragedy ... and farce is only tragedy played at 75rpm.

The Evolution of Published Short Fiction

• Some of the influences on modern fantasy include: Poe (who proved that short stories were a viable market for fantasy/horror fiction), Hawthorne, Ovid (with his metamorphisis/transformation influences), Tolkien (for the trend toward novels).

• Ghost stories are no longer the "primary" type of fantasy story.

Suffice it to say that I had alot more scribbled down but now, almost a year later (yes, it's taken me that long to remember about this and get it uploaded), I can't decipher half of my notes and I don't know what panel I was on when I took them.  If I get them sorted out, I may update this page.  Or I may not.  Maybe things will wind up in my journal as I sort them out.  Who knows.  I'll be better about my WFC2000 con report.  I promise.