Talking about all the cool things at a convention like WorldCon is difficult. The list of amazing people that I spoke to is very long and if I attempted to list them all I would be sure to miss someone. The temptation is just to hoard the memories in my own head, but I know if I do that I will forget some of them. So, in no particular order here is a list of some convention Highlights:
…
Throughout WorldCon my mind was much occupied with the creation of importance. My primary reason for being at the event was because Howard had been nominated for an award. And yet I found myself pondering the very nature of awards. They are of themselves hollow things. Awards only carry importance because a group of people believes in their importance. The larger the group of people, the more prestigious the award becomes, and the more value it has. That value is real. It is a vote of confidence from those who hand out the award. It is a measure of accomplishment. Awards are simultaneously extremely valuable and completely empty. Throughout the convention I got to watch as the science fiction community co-operated to create community and to lend importance to the interests that they all share. The entire purpose of the convention is to state that the genre matters. And it does. I love it. I love the things I’ve gotten from it.
But somehow in the course of helping create value for the awards and for the genre, I inevitably ended up measuring myself according to these standards. The result was sufficient to make me feel very insecure. My one professional short story sale looks very small when compared to the writers with multiple novels. It is hard to feel anything but insignificant when you’re attending a high-powered genre publishing party and your only claim to fame is being the wife of a self-published cartoonist. The people who knew me were kind and gracious. The people who were introduced to me were kind and gracious. Our friends sought me out and made my heart glad. But to the majority I was irrelevant. The delightful conversations were like islands in the swamp of irrelevance. When I describe it this way, it sounds like I had a horrible time. That isn’t true. I had a marvelous time. But I also know that I am not the only one who feels small or irrelevant at conventions. Everyone always blogs about the marvelous moments, but I also believe that everyone who is not A-list and followed by an entourage, also has moments where they feel insignificant. I frequently felt insignificant during the convention. I resolved it by either starting a conversation with someone or by taking a break away from people to gain some perspective. And I truly did have a marvelous time. The good far outweighs the negative.
Looking back I can see how much stress is inherent for the professionals at WorldCon. This is IT, the important convention. People win or lose big awards at this event. Contacts are made, deals are begun. As a result, few pros or intend-to-be-pros are relaxed and ready to make friends. I felt the pressure of this myself. I knew I should not waste any minutes. I should be walking through the dealer’s room talking to folks at press tables. I should take advantage of the Hugo parties that Howard’s nomination gave us invitations for. I should be working the room, talking to everyone. Because you never know which contact will lead to another contact which will lead to a business opportunity. I felt all of that, and I was attending just as the spouse of a nominee. If I had been trying to forward my own work, I can only imagine how stressed I would have been. The pre-Hugo party was full of pre-award jitters. The post-Hugo party was full of complex emotions of elation and disappointment from both winners and losers. When I look at it that way, it is not surprising at all that I failed to connect with people with whom I would have liked to sit down and talk for hours. It really isn’t about lack of interest, or my insignificance, it is about stress responses.
At the convention I found myself spinning plans for writing stories, for creating work that would gain me recognition from the science fiction community. I plotted ways I could put myself forward, the best methods I could use to get noticed for a Campbell Award nomination. Then, in the airport on the way home, the parts of my soul that I had stowed away, unfolded. I realized that there are large parts of myself for which the WorldCon measures of value are completely irrelevant. My success or failure as a person can not be contained by a science fiction award or the lack of it. I can not be alone in this realization either. Because when everyone blogs about attending conventions, they also blog about how glad they are to come home. It is as if conventions exist tangentially to real life. It is easy to get caught up in the spirit of the convention and lose track of the rest of who you are.
And so like many bloggers before me, I say “I am really glad I went to WorldCon, but I’m really glad to be home.”
We are still travel lagged and tripping over suitcases, but all is right with the world because the kids are back home. I’ll admit that I was not thrilled about 6 hours of driving on the day after 14 continuous hours of airplanes and airports. But three hours of driving turned out to be the perfect amount of uninterrupted time for me to unpack all the random convention thoughts and sort them into orderly piles to be dealt with later. The three hours of return trip turned out to be just enough time for Kiki and I to talk over our separate trip experiences. Also there were hugs from children glad to be going home and that makes any amount of driving worthwhile.
I still need to write up all those thoughts which I’ve sorted into piles. Some are blog entries. Some may be essays. Some are emails. Some are tasks. I’ll tackle all of that starting tomorrow. Today is for home and family. And for preparing Howard to leave again. I’ll be really glad when he is back home and we can all settle in a regular schedule again.
And here we are dressed up for the Hugo awards. The picture does not show how swishy and fun the skirt is to wear. The motion of the skirt was what made it beautiful. I got several compliments, which made me happy. In fact I find I am loathe to take off the pretty clothes. As soon as I do, it will be bedtime and then the convention will be over. We wake early early and board a plane for home.
I was not nervous about the Hugo ceremony until Howard and I arrived at the rehearsal. Somehow being in the room with the lights and the tech crew scurrying around really brought home the possibility that was in front of us. Then we saw the Hugo unveiled and it was beautiful. We walked into the theater and both Howard and I were full of jitters. I couldn’t even sort out what I was feeling. I’d thought that I was reconciled to losing because Joss Whedon was in the category, but I found that all the what-if possibilities clouded my brain. I alternated between picturing Howard winning and soothing my nerves by assuring myself that surely Joss would win. When they announced that Girl Genius by Phil and Kaja Foglio had won the award, all of the jittery possibilities vanished and I was left with relief and Joy. It was such a relief that Howard did not win. It would have felt wrong for Howard to get this award before Phil and Kaja. They have been doing this for so much longer than we have. Their story is fantastic and their art is beautiful.
Phil and Kaja are not here. In fact, they were so sure that Joss would win, that they did not even send acceptance speeches. The award acceptors created speeches for them. I remember last year when Phil did not will the Best Professional Artist award. Both Phil and Kaja radiated disappointment, and yet they were wonderful and gracious to everyone around them. We sat with them and laughed while Howard and Phil tossed jokes. I rejoice for them because I know how happy they are going to be when they hear the news.
Howard feels the same way that I do. We are both honestly happy and relieved that Girl Genius won. Hurray for Girl Genius.
Trying to capture Worldcon in writing while it is still going on is difficult. There is this sense that every minute I spend writing I will be missing something else. This is true I suppose because every hour is packed with options. But I must face the fact that I need down time in between the events. I need time to ponder and absorb all the new thoughts, experiences, conversations. Conversations are the best. I love getting the chance to visit with intelligent and creative people. We’re a full two days into the convention now. This means that people are settling and and have more time to sit down and talk for longer periods. We also have more fodder for conversation since we can all discuss panels that we’ve been on or that we have been to. It helps that there are about 8 of us here from Utah, so we have some familiar friends to talk to. The overwhelmed, insignificant, lost feelings have subsided. This is not because we’ve become more significant, but because I’ve become more settled and feel more confident.
Capturing Worldcon in writing is also difficult because the only places that I can connect to the internet are public. This means that my attempts to compose my thoughts are invariably interrupted by someone stopping by to chat. It is happy to have so many people who know us well enough to stop and talk, but it does fracture my concentration. This means that the resulting blog entries are not composed as well as I would like.
I also notice that I keep jumping between first person singular and first person plural during this entry and probably during the other Worldcon entries. This is a reflection of my odd state of mind here. I am here primarily as an annex to Howard rather than on my own merits. I am Howard’s wife, assistant, publisher, manager rather than being Sandra Tayler by myself. My value here is measured by his achievements. Most of the people here only know me as I am attached to him. This is correct for this venue and particularly on this occasion with him being nominated for a Hugo. The last thing we need is for me to try to define myself as separate or to compete with him for attention. Our efforts here are focused on promoting Howard Tayler and Schlock Mercenary with a side order of XDM. I suspect that this is part of what added to the feelings of insignificance early in the convention. Howard would be introduced and maintain the attention of the people. I would slide from notice as soon as my name was done. Over repeat meetings and extended conversations this is not true, but it is definitely true when we first meet people. Except Schlockers. Schlockers are already emotionally invested in us and they have all been kind and glad to meet me as well as Howard. This is very gratifying to my vanity.
The experience of being an annex leads me along feminist thought paths. It has me realizing that sometime I want to be in a situation where Howard is introduced as my Husband rather than the other way around. It has happened before. I know it will happen again. Then I think how this little competitive streak in my soul is really not conducive to good business and definitely not good for marital harmony. Howard and I have avoided professional jealousy, not because it never strikes, but because when it strikes we call it out and name it. We see it for what it is and take steps to redress the emotional imbalance. I am very happy to be Howard’s annex this weekend because I know that for him I am irreplaceable.
Montreal is a perfect city for getting the feel of being in a foreign country while still being able to communicate clearly with all the natives. All of the signs are in French first and sometimes (but not always) they have English subtitles. Everywhere I go I hear people speaking French to each other. Most adorable are the small children speaking French with childish mispronunciations. I’ve been here two days now and I find myself wanting to be able to speak French. I want to understand all those words rolling past my ears. I want to be able to order my food in French. I even decided to do it once. I figured I could just read the words off the menu, but as I tried to compose the words in my head I realized that I was not composing French I was composing Foreign which was parts French and Spanish. I realized this would be less intelligible to the Quebecois in front of me than if I used straight English. I’ve always been leery of traveling in a country where I did not speak the native language, but after being here, I can picture myself doing it and happily learning the language in question.
Tonight we ventured out into the city to a restaurant recommended by a local Schlock fan. We walked into Old Montreal which involved walking past some buildings with beautiful architecture. The weather was perfect and then we arrived at a restaurant that served amazing crepes. It was French style service with lots of long pauses between ordering and delivery of food. This was perfect since the point of the event was to visit with Schlock fans. Every time we have a chance to meet with Schlock fans I realize how very fortunate we are. Howard and I send out the comic and the blogs into the world and they find intelligent and interesting friends for us to meet. There is so much more to tell, but the hour is late.
I almost did not go out to the room parties last night. I am very glad that I did. I was reminded again that the best thing about conventions is the interesting people that I have the chance to talk to. The conversations were constantly losing and gaining people because that is the nature of party conversation, but we had fun. There were two particularly heartwarming moments. Lee Modesitt took the time to grab a Locus photographer and as her to photograph us with him. He then made sure she had our card with contact info. It was wonderful of him to take the time. It was lovely meeting his wife as well. The other heartwarming moment was when Jay Lake grabbed us in the hall and said wonderful things about Schlock Mercenary. Got to go.
Written in the afternoon on August 6th. Posted when internet was available:
On the leg from Denver to Montreal it felt like half the flight was folks traveling to Worldcon. We ended up sitting next to a fellow Hugo nominee Paolo Bacigalupi. We had fun conversations for most of the three and a half hour flight. This was wonderful. Those sorts of conversations are what I love best about convention attendance. The down side is that I didn’t do any sleeping on the plane. This led to the sort of fatigue that is so beyond tired that it manifests as an overwhelmed depressive state. Howard and I both elected to stay in the room and we were both asleep by 8 pm and we stayed asleep until 9 am.
Howard’s first panel was at 3:30, which left us at loose ends for most of the morning. Fortunately we had a lunch date and we keep seeing cool people in the hallway. Most of the conversations are brief because everyone is still orienting themselves. It is nice to realize that we do know some people in the vast sea of strangers. Self-doubt is very plaguesome at such a large convention. Because the moments when someone recognizes us are surrounded by long stretches when no one does.
3 hours of sleep
3 airports
2 plane rides
1 cab ride
An unfamiliar hotel and the sinking realization that I do not know where any of the event locations are. I am going to get turned around frequently in the next few days. Also the hotel is full of unfamiliar people wearing badges and most of them haven’t a clue who we are. It is enough to make one feel insignificant. I turned to Howard and said
“Right now it is hard to believe that I’m going to have fun this weekend.” He agreed.
Thirteen hours of sleep later. Things are looking much brighter. We’re about to head out to the convention and fun will be had.
