Update: so, that was tiring

Long drive, long weekend, long drive. Five hours, but that’s long enough to feel it! I enjoyed the convention, certainly, but it was still tiring.

Also, the weekend provided (largely unnecessary) confirmation that fast internet is not conducive to getting work done.

I didn’t attempt to work on Silver Circle because I just didn’t. It was not something I felt like working on at all, what with one thing and another. Instead, I wrote parts of various Tuyo-world stories that will go in the newsletter. I started the one about the boys who climbed the rainbow, but got mildly stuck because I’m not sure what they find up there. So I switched to the one about Ryo, as a boy, stealing the tiger pelt from an inGeiro warrior. That went well and is about half finished. It will lead into the story about the inGeiro boys who steal it back, and then into the story about Ryo trying to steal it once more and not quite succeeding.

In both cases, the stories are going to go longish, probably. The story in the previous newsletter went to 6500 words, which was fine, but that’s a lot to do on a monthly basis, especially when I’m trying to focus more on other things. I believe I’ll break stories into pieces at natural scene breaks and put a 3000 to 4000 chunk in each newsletter. That should be more sustainable as something to do every month. I’m still figuring out how to handle that, I guess.

Meanwhile!

One of my favorite panels was about the influence of Heinlein’s fantasy on the genre — I like “history of the genre” panels. I know something about SFF history, but not that much, so it’s interesting to hear experts discuss this sort of thing. I guess I hadn’t remembered that Heinlein wrote a good number of short stories that were fantasy, though I’ve read them all, probably. The panelists made a pretty decent argument that Magic Inc. was a precursor for the type of fantasy that eventually led to UF, a complete contrast to the type of fantasy that grew out of Tolkien’s influence.

The other panel I liked the best was the cozy fantasy panel, for obvious reasons. More on that one later because I actually took notes.

The convention itself obviously offers a chance to meet and hang out with people I don’t see very often. Sharon Shinn and I got caught up — I went to breakfast or lunch with various people — also, I met long-time commemter David H in person, and let me add that if any of you happen to be at a convention where I am, definitely say hi! We can go to lunch or something!

Oh, and at one point Sharon said, “this is xxxx, an aspiring writer, she should talk to you,” but there was no time right then, so if that person looked me up and is reading this, email me, I would be happy to chat!

Okay, more later, got to go finish a Tuyo world story so I can get back to Silver Circle!