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michaeldthomasI'm sitting on the couch with a purring kitten on my lap. My brain is finally coming back to reality. It's always disorienting to return from the SF bubble. We had a phenomenal WindyCon. It was an extremely successful weekend for the Lynne and me.
We arrived at the con with Caitlin on Friday night. After a quick hello to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
shsilver and Eric Flint, we ran off to dinner with jimhines, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-syndicated.gif)
tobiasbuckell, kelly_swails, and her husband krswails at a random mall brewery restaurant. It was really nice to see everybody again.
The Thomas family spent the night at my mother's apartment. It would have been nice to have stayed at the hotel, but we will get plenty of that during Chicago TARDIS. This is a new hotel for both conventions, and it is gorgeous. I think that all of our Doctor Who peeps will be pleased in a couple of weeks.
The next morning was the Writers' Workshop. I survived. :)
After the workshop, I had a very nice lunch in the consuite with fellow survivor/aspiring writeramberdine and jimhines, while Lynne went off to have lunch with Jody Lynn Nye. We had a lot of fun continuing our conversations from the workshop. This is why conventions are so important to me. I learn so much about writing and the business.
After that, I was on a panel withtobiasbuckell and some other wonderful people called “Better Than the Book” about films that surpassed their source material. I drew the moderator straw. It seemed to go well. After the panel, I managed to spin around the dealer's room. I ran into eeknight, and J.J. From Odyssey Con. It's getting hard to be anonymous at a convention. I also finally met kosmo34 as he was hanging out with kelly_swails.
Our next panel was “What Books Should I Have Read This Year?” withecbatan and some other fine folks. It was late, and the audience was sedate. I once again drew the moderator straw.
That evening we had dinner with a literary icon and spouse. I was very nervous about this meal. I greatly admire the works of this author. As it turned out, the author and spouse were sweet and charming. It's always a wonderful thing when your heroes don't disappoint you.
Speaking of disappointing, dinner was followed by a hallway bubble of friends telling tales of an author behaving badly. It's a shame when you find out that somebody really is just like their jackass reputation.
I barely slept that night. My brain finally started to process the workshop, which kind of kicks my insomnia into high gear.
Since I was exhausted, Sunday went by in a blur. Lynne did her archiving panel witheeknight, Eric Flint, and another librarian. It went well. I also got to talk some D&D with Donald Bingle. The next panel for me was the “Virtue and the “Best” Novel of the Year” with shsilver and ecbatan. After forcing the moderator duties onto shsilver, the panel flew by. I think we could have talked amongst ourselves for another 3 hours. At that point, John O'Neil from Black Gate magazine stopped by. It was nice to see him again.
We then ran out for a quick lunch with Eric Flint, his wife, and some of their friends. We all had a wonderfully fun conversation about the true identity of the author of William Shakespeare's works.
The con finished off with a “My Favorite New Author” panel. I moderated again. Since we were able to set the “new” to "first published after 2000," we pretty much just pimped our friends. This is pretty easy for Lynne and me since we actually prefer contemporary authors. We found out later that some people actually bought books based on our recommendations.
After saying many goodbyes, we picked up the girl from my mother's (thanks again, Mom!). Somehow, we managed to fill the car with all of our gear and the tons of boxes of archives for NIU.
Overall, it was an amazing weekend.
We arrived at the con with Caitlin on Friday night. After a quick hello to
shsilver and Eric Flint, we ran off to dinner with jimhines, tobiasbuckell, kelly_swails, and her husband krswails at a random mall brewery restaurant. It was really nice to see everybody again. The Thomas family spent the night at my mother's apartment. It would have been nice to have stayed at the hotel, but we will get plenty of that during Chicago TARDIS. This is a new hotel for both conventions, and it is gorgeous. I think that all of our Doctor Who peeps will be pleased in a couple of weeks.
The next morning was the Writers' Workshop. I survived. :)
After the workshop, I had a very nice lunch in the consuite with fellow survivor/aspiring writer
amberdine and jimhines, while Lynne went off to have lunch with Jody Lynn Nye. We had a lot of fun continuing our conversations from the workshop. This is why conventions are so important to me. I learn so much about writing and the business.After that, I was on a panel with
tobiasbuckell and some other wonderful people called “Better Than the Book” about films that surpassed their source material. I drew the moderator straw. It seemed to go well. After the panel, I managed to spin around the dealer's room. I ran into eeknight, and J.J. From Odyssey Con. It's getting hard to be anonymous at a convention. I also finally met kosmo34 as he was hanging out with kelly_swails.Our next panel was “What Books Should I Have Read This Year?” with
ecbatan and some other fine folks. It was late, and the audience was sedate. I once again drew the moderator straw.That evening we had dinner with a literary icon and spouse. I was very nervous about this meal. I greatly admire the works of this author. As it turned out, the author and spouse were sweet and charming. It's always a wonderful thing when your heroes don't disappoint you.
Speaking of disappointing, dinner was followed by a hallway bubble of friends telling tales of an author behaving badly. It's a shame when you find out that somebody really is just like their jackass reputation.
I barely slept that night. My brain finally started to process the workshop, which kind of kicks my insomnia into high gear.
Since I was exhausted, Sunday went by in a blur. Lynne did her archiving panel with
eeknight, Eric Flint, and another librarian. It went well. I also got to talk some D&D with Donald Bingle. The next panel for me was the “Virtue and the “Best” Novel of the Year” with shsilver and ecbatan. After forcing the moderator duties onto shsilver, the panel flew by. I think we could have talked amongst ourselves for another 3 hours. At that point, John O'Neil from Black Gate magazine stopped by. It was nice to see him again.We then ran out for a quick lunch with Eric Flint, his wife, and some of their friends. We all had a wonderfully fun conversation about the true identity of the author of William Shakespeare's works.
The con finished off with a “My Favorite New Author” panel. I moderated again. Since we were able to set the “new” to "first published after 2000," we pretty much just pimped our friends. This is pretty easy for Lynne and me since we actually prefer contemporary authors. We found out later that some people actually bought books based on our recommendations.
After saying many goodbyes, we picked up the girl from my mother's (thanks again, Mom!). Somehow, we managed to fill the car with all of our gear and the tons of boxes of archives for NIU.
Overall, it was an amazing weekend.
