Talyesin's Tales

Going to WorldCon. Look for me in the Dealers' Room!

Con Diary coming soon. Short form entry: Polaris was awesome. We had a blast.

I'll be appearing at Polaris 2009 - Toronto's fantastic science-fiction/fantasy convention.

That's right, "appearing" not just attending - I'm an author guest! Woo! This is the big times baby! LOL

Back soon!

Looks like I'll be attending Polaris after all - got the invite to be an Author Guest and everything! Woo! Go me!

Plus the Girlfriend wants to meet Matt Frewer, so. :D

Back from Ad Astra. Report forthcoming when I have six solid minutes in a row in a single day to formulate a thought. In general, it was great - much different, but still great.

*scurries back to work*

Off to Ad Astra in a few minutes. Two panels on Saturday and two book launches on Sunday. Big weekend!

Hope to see you there!

In full-blown Ad Astra not-quite-panic now, with two panels on Saturday (Cribbing from History at 11:00 and Too Many Characters at 3:00 (lord knows AGES qualifies me for the first and Squirrelman for the second) and two book launches on Sunday - AGES OF WONDER at 11:00 and TRUTHSEEKERS 2: BIRTHRIGHT at noon (at least they're in the same room!).

So now I'm in designing promotional materials mode, and will be for the next two weeks. (Also a mild case of obsessing about the delivery of the TS2 books, but it's all good, it's all good, I'm okay, it'll be fine...)

Right! Back to work.

So: Polaris was last weekend and it was an all-new con experience for me: as a vendor! A very interesting people-watching experience, I might add.

Friday we hit the road bright and early (we being PDaughter, Sandman7, JystDave and myself) and made it to Tee-Dot in good time with very little traffic congestion, woo! Checked in, registered, went for a swim, hit the bar, had supper, couple of panels, bed late-ish.

Saturday: Up early, breakfast buffet, set up my table next to the Two Wacky Pin Guys. They are great people and very informative. Also cool geeks to geek out with! Spent the day selling my books (!) to people - mainly people I knew, but some complete strangers which was a total blast. It's a relatively painless way to get to meet people and make Con connections, which makes a Con a lot of fun. "See that girl? She bought a copy of Truthseekers." I generally spend cons people-watching anyway so our spot just outside the Dealers Room was uniquely situated for that! Then: Supper (STARVING), Masquerade (paper plates are on parade!), Dance (you really haven't lived until you've joined a hundred geeks all doing the Robot to Domo Origato Mr. Roboto), drinks, very late night, followed by a way too early morning that started

Sunday: FIRE ALARM AT SIX AYEM. Yeargh. So we mostly slept through it (false alarm) and woke up, showered etc, brought all our stuff downstairs to the car in time for ANOTHER FIRE ALARM. Decided to get breakfast at Subway (meh) and wound up coming back just as the fire alarm was being turned off. Set up my table and everyone was off doing con stuff while I sat and sold a few more books. Finally met ThatBitterGuy!

Overall, turnout was very low this year. Maybe due to the guests or the flagging economy or the price of gas, who knows? Generally the dealers were all saying the same thing, so I don't think it was just me. Still, there's always next year!

On the whole I had a great time. It was a whole new experience for me, and one I would like to try again.

The third shipment of Squirrelman books (containing the second book, which is the first volume of SINS OF THE PAST, a possibly unique combination making it the first, second, and third book in a trilogy) arrived at my cousin's place today! Hooray! At some point there will be a photo of the open box etc, but tomorrow I'm headed to Polaris to sell as many as I can! Woo!

In case you were wondering, I'll be at Polaris this weekend. Look for me near the Two Wacky Pin Guys and stop by! Copies of Truthseekers and Squirrelman will be available for purchase, and I'll sign it for you!

Ad Astra 2008 Con report

The ancient and nameless Mackayhotep and I hit the road at around 10:00 AM, and had clear roads, no traffic, no construction, not too much sun, all the way in to Toronto. Stopped at an A&P for lunch – I had brought sandwiches, and Marc’s anti-gluten allergy prohibits much of the roadside fare you usually find. By following the map the hotel provided we managed to find it much more easily than the Googlemap we had last year. By 3:30 we’d checked in and dropped off our stuff in the room and we searching for friendly faces and the panelist registration, which we found before they were ready for us. The insanely dedicated Alana Otis, programme director, informed us we should come back later, so Mackayhotep and I went to the bar for a drink, where we met and were joined by Sandra Tayler, one of my authors from AGES OF WONDER, and her husband Howard, of Schlock Mercenary fame, who was one of the Guests of Honour. (And let me aside here for a moment – I really get a surreal kick out of strangers recognizing me, coming up and introducing themselves.) We chitchatted for a while, then they had to go off to meet with a friend, and Mackay and I went off to pick up our registration packages. Once that was done, we left the hotel to find someplace to have supper. (Another aside: The Crowne Royal hotel is in the middle of NOWHERE when it comes to food.) By way of a sidetrip to the LCBO, we found an Italian restaurant that was okay (though filled with senior citizens for some reason) and then back to the hotel. Met more people we actually knew, including Jana Paniccia, Karina Sumner-Smith, and Tony Pi, all authors of mine from AGES OF WONDER, among others – most of the regulars from Julie Czerneda’s newsgroup, and some NG irregulars, including Jim Hines, Rob Sawyer, and Doug Smith – then checked out the dealers’ room, where I met John Zakour, and where we picked up the copies of MISSPELLED we had ordered from the incredibly wonderful folks at Bakka Phoenix books.
What a surreally proud moment for me – there, in living colour, in actual physical form, was the book I’d been waiting two years to see. A dream, actually, really, come true. My first professional short story sale. My ACTUAL NAME on an ACTUAL BOOK.

Spent the rest of the evening before the panels began with friends, catching up and checking out the art show, which, for such a small con, was awesome – I suppose it helps having artists as the Guests of Honour, eh? We checked out the Anime Room too, which was playing some bizarre cowboy anime – except all the characters were scantily-clad girls, of course. Mackay had a panel at 9:00 and I had my Goals of Fanfic panel at 10:00. The panel was pretty well attended – which is to say for a Friday night, that late, at least the audience outnumbered the panelists . Pretty lively discussion ensued, and by the end of that I hit the sack.

Saturday began way too early with breakfast with Julie and many of the other authors in MISSPELLED, including Kell Brown, whose wife was in intermittent labour with their about-to-be-any-second-now child, a son whose name they had yet to agree upon. Enjoyed the breakfast and wandered around a bit, bumping into familiar faces, then at noon it was off to the races! I had three panels (Authors Who Edit, Buffy Season 8 (which I moderated), and Neopaganism: Fact vs. Fiction), which managed to fit around two panels I wanted to attend; still, I think I would have been better off skipping one of the panels I attended in order to have a bit of mental freespace. I tend to wander about at cons, flitting in and out of panels and media rooms and dealer rooms and art show at my whim and fancy. A strictly regulated schedule takes a lot out of me. Managed to meet Brad Carson and Costi Gurgu, two of my authors from AGES OF WONDER, though the meetings were sadly brief. Five panels later was the Newsgroup Pizza Party, which was a blast, as always. Julie did a reading, we all ate pizza, I took photos (finally remembering my camera in my bag) and then Jana, Nathan Azinger and I went to the bar and shared a bottle of wine. Eventually it was time for the Masquerade (singing: “Paper plates are on parade!”) which was very good for such a small con! Nineteen entrants, many in the Master division. And then, Ad Astra produced their various Beef/Cheesecake volunteers, attractive individuals scantily clad in a variety of geek-inspired costumes, with whom one can be photographed for charity. I was tempted to get a photo with one or more of them, but by then I was very, very tired. Though I wanted to go to the dance, I instead opted to sleep. By all accounts I missed some fun!

Sunday morning Marc and I decided not to set a time for waking, so we slept in. Well, I slept in – 8:00 AM is plenty late for me - but Marc did not consider it late enough. Still, it was a good thing we did, because finding someplace for breakfast took on a quest-like level of difficulty. Have I mentioned that the hotel is in the middle of nowhere, food-wise? Yeah, that. We drove around for an hour trying to find someplace other than a Tim Horton’s to eat before we finally surrendered and went to Tim’s. Got back to the hotel, checked out, stored our baggage in the car, then went back to the con to just basically putz around while we waited for 1:00 finally, FINALLY, arrive.

Well, 1:00 FINALLY arrived and it seemed so strange, sitting in front of an audience, while Jana, Karina and The Narrator explained the game they’d set up to celebrate the launch. You see, as a way of making the launch a con-long event, they’d arranged to provide the attending authors and our celebrated editor with slips of paper upon which were printed clues. These clues, once deciphered, became an anagram of a code phrase. The first to decipher the anagram (thus correcting the “misspelled” words) won a prize. (Aside: I also participated as a Goblin Lover – helping Jim Hines out with his own launch of GOBLIN WAR, the last in the Jig the Goblin series, which as I understand it was very well attended.) As the Narrator explained, the authors each stood and recounted the backstory of our stories. Prizes were awarded and cupcakes were eaten, and then, the signing. I signed many, many copies, both for people purchasing the book and for Bakka Phoenix (who provided the copies) to sell at a later date. I really enjoyed the signing, though I really need to build up a repertoire of stock phrases to sign above my name – and the oddest thing happened: You know when you write a word so often it stops having any meaning? That happened with my name. Also, I think I need a different, faster signature for signing books.

Then we were off. A little more traffic, but we still made good time. Stopped at Whiskey Willy’s in Kingston for supper, instead of the traditional roadside fare which never completely satisfies. Downsides to the con? No hot water in our room (had to let it run for 5 minutes+ to get it close to lukewarm) and did I mention there’s NOWHERE TO EAT around the hotel? But in the end, these were downsides to the hotel, not necessarily the con, which from my point of view was very well done – good panels, good times, good discussions, just a good, solid con. Congrats to the con staff! And thanks to everyone with whom I had many an interesting discussion. (And apologies to everyone whose name I forgot – I’m terrible with names! But I’m working on it!)

Next year: AGES OF WONDER!

For those of you who may have been wondering, here's my panel schedule for Ad Astra next week:

Fri 8:00 PM Misspelled Game Intro (My story is being launched on Sunday!)

Fri 10:00 PM Goals of Fanfic Writers (because, you know, it's out there - ignoring it isn't going to make fanfic go away)

Sat 1:00 PM Authors who Edit (seeing as I've done both!)

Sat 2:00 PM Buffy Season Eight (somehow I'm moderating this one! I should go pick up the latest issue)

Sat 4:00 PM Neopaganism: Fact vs. Fiction (Sorry Jim! Looks like I have to miss the Goblin War launch!)

Sun 1:00 PM Misspelled Launch (AAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!! *excited Kermit-like arm-flailing and running-about behaviour!*)

Next year is shaping up to be extra-busy travel-wise:

March 28-30: Ad Astra. The Official Launch of MISSPELLED, containing my first professional fiction sale to a major publisher, so you know I'm going.

June 10?-19: San Diego & Moorpark, CA - Finally meeting Cindy's fiancee Max AND the twins' graduation from high school. Action-packed geektastic!

June 27-29: Echoes Festival. Still up in the air about this one - a pagan festival of music. Definitely want to get into the woods more than one weekend next summer, but this is an optional trip based on my available vacation days and financial situation. Next summer I'll be moving out on my own, too, so my expenses will be different than what they are now. Anyone else out there going?

July 11-13: Polaris. More networking and geeking out with fun folks.

July 26?-Aug 3: Kaleidoscope. With any luck I'll be able to get up there the weekend before - I know I'm going to have to leave the Saturday night for my 20th high school reunion (ye gods) (and likely I'll be back the Saturday night to spend that one last night in peace and relaxation and tranquility before having to face the world again).

Oct 30-Nov 3: San Diego. Cindy's wedding. WOO!!!

I'm looking at next year's schedule, in terms of travel plans. It's starting to look like I'm heading to California at least twice (maybe three times) - once for the twins' graduation, once for Cindy's wedding, and hopefully, once for the Nerd Prom, Geekapalooza itself, San Diego Comic Con.

But then there's the (relatively) local cons: Ad Astra in March, which I have to (willingly, gleefully even) attend because it's the launch of my short story, "The Mysterious Case of Spell Zero"; Polaris in July... World Fantasy Con in Calgary in November conflicts with Cindy's wedding, which I'm not going to miss. It's unlikely that I'll do Anime North next year, despite the good time I had this year. It's a good con, though... I dunno. It all depends on my finances, ultimately.

Kaleidoscope next year conflicts with my 20-year high school reunion, but I'm not missing KG again if I can absolutely help it. I'll go up for the few days leading up to the reunion on Saturday, drive home for the reunion (missing the Bardic, alas), drive back to KG afterwards. AND San Diego Comic Con is the weekend before KG... I'd have to get off the plane and drive right to the campsite, LOL!

Of course, in order to go to all these conventions and festivals and events, I'll need fifteen days of vacation at least. And the money to pay for them all.

Selling a novel would take care of the money...

Did I forget to mention that all this in the midst of having convinced myself that next year I absolutely, without fail, will go camping at least once a month come summer? LOL...

Okay, so, since the website seems to be somewhat unhelpful, this question goes out to anyone who's been to San Diego Comic Con:

How much is registration?

Edit: Okay, so I went through the sign-up system and got to the cost information. $50 pre-reg, but how much is it at the door? Or can you even get in at the door without pre-reg?

Remember last year? When I picked up both Jewel Staite (aka Kaylee from Firefly) and Amber Benson (aka Tara from Buffy the Vampire Slayer)?

( Katee Sackhoff (Starbuck from BSG) climbed onto my lap. )

Right! Off to Polaris 21! Geeks abound! Writers coagulate! Katee Sackoff! Ron Glass! Awesomeness! Back Sunday!

I think what I like most about going to conventions isn't the cosplay, or the dealers, or the panels, but the general feeling of ... belonging, I think. Of knowing that a whole lot of people around me feel as I do. That we have a common interest, that we're all there for a common purpose.

It's the same sort of feeling I get when I go to fest - just knowing that everyone is there for (generally) the same reason... it's amazing.

I think it's why, sore feet and sleep-deprivation notwithstanding, I don't really feel tired after a con. It's refreshing to me. It reminds me of who I am, fundamentally, at my core. Recharging and reconnecting me to myself.

... it's official: I'm a dirty old man.

Yikes, the jailbait.

BUT! Despite these misgivings (and to be frank, if they're walking around half naked at a con, they're there to be gawked at, so who am I to deny them that gawkery?), it was a good con. GORGEOUS costumes. Dealers' Room was bigger than my grade school. I spent too much, ate too much, and laughed just enough.

Thanks to Ceri, Scott, and Mackay for making it a great con.

Right! Off to Anime North. See you Sunday.