Month: August 2011

Input Overload at WorldCon

By / August 20, 2011

I am not currently reading anything off of the internet. Unless the News is big enough to enter the convention chatter, I will not hear about it until the middle of next week. My regular round of blogs are stacking up and it will take me some time to get through the pile. I’m only checking email and Twitter, both from my phone. This is not unexpected. Conventions are so full of conversations and new experiences that the last thing I need to do is shove more thought-fodder into my brain. I’m already spending at least an hour each night laying awake in the darkness while my mind sorts and files the day. What I want to do upon falling in bed at 1 am is to drop immediately into a deep sleep. Unfortunately the nightly brain sort is fueled by caffeine. I’ve been consuming far more of it than usual to combat the sleep deprivation, which is a little ironic.

In previous years at WorldCon I’ve had quiet moments at the booth where I can do a quick sorting of thoughts. This year I know far more people. There are fewer down times. When I do have them, I often spend the talking with Sal and Caryn who are helping us run our booth and whom I see far too seldom. Part of me worries that the lack of processing time is going to cause me to lose track of thoughts and things which I would otherwise have written. I just have to trust that what I’m doing is accumulating a wealth of raw experiences from which I can pull later. This year I’ve not suffered from the out-of-place feelings which plagued me during the Montreal WorldCon. Although sometimes I am so far outside my normal context that a part of my brain stands up and says “What are you doing here? Is this really what you should be doing?” When I arrive at these thoughts I do a quick check to make sure that I’m not doing something which I’ll feel bad about later. (Not so far) Then I shuffle those thoughts out of sight as quickly as possible, because following that trail of thoughts leads to the part of my brain in which my parenting thoughts are stored. If I delve there I will end up actively missing my kids, which leads to tears.

Tonight is the night when I get to wear my dress and go to the Hugos. Yes I will have pictures later. Sal has an excellent camera. It may be a day or two until I have time to acquire them from Sal and put them up. We have a plan which lets us leave the booth before it closes, change, snatch a quick dinner, and then arrive at the pre-Hugo reception only a little bit late. I hope the plan goes smoothly because the lovely heels I’m wearing are not great for running.

Quick Friday Worldcon notes

By / August 19, 2011

I had two panels today. I was not an expert voice on either one, but I was able to contribute constructively. Both panels were graced with solid professionals who had no agendas other than giving good information. It was a pleasure both times. After the panels I had people come up to ask me various questions and I had reasonably useful information to provide.

One of the coolest moments from last night was when I got to introduce my friend Sal to Eric Flint. Sal loves Eric’s books. Eric quickly discovered that Sal is extremely expert in history and swordsmanship. They exchanged cards and agreed to talk further. Introducing people to other people is becoming really fun for me. I like to think about what facets about each person would appeal to the other and give them fodder for conversation. It is a technique I picked up from watching Mary Robinette Kowal.

Speaking of Mary, I got to witness her puppet show. It was delightful and full of highly memorable memorable moments. I need to do a full write up on it when I’m not moments away from heading out for dinner.

Notes from the first two days of WorldCon

By / August 18, 2011 / 1 Comment

When I’m working a booth, I have to be radiating energy. I need to be alert and watching for people who need help or have questions. I try to remember names and faces because in a five day show many of those people will come back to the booth. I also need to assess new people to figure out what flavor of patter will best engage them and be comfortable for them. Some people want to browse in peace. Others are brightened by having me talk to them and explain what they are looking at. I was not doing any of that yesterday morning. It puzzled me until I realized that lately I’ve been in a retreat and re-group emotional state. Running a booth is very much an outreach event. I poured a can of caffeinated soda over that realization and suddenly I was able to be fully involved in all the booth running.

It helped tremendously that so many familiar people are here. I love turning around and seeing someone I haven’t seen for months or years. Each day is full of a dozen little catching-up conversations. They are like little appetizers. Hopefully I can find some of those same people in the evening hours when I can sit down to really talk. I did exactly that last night. I found groups of good people and reveled in conversation. The night was capped off when Howard and I were among those who found John Scalzi’s forgotten laptop bag. We went on a quest to return it to him and succeeded. As a suitable reward for this effort, Scalzi bestowed upon us SFWA guest stickers. This means we have weekend long access to the SFWA suite which is full of lovely people and food containing nutrients rather than preservatives.

As is usual we ended up being a meeting place for friends and sometimes a bag repository. We planned for this, deliberately trying to create a space big enough to invite folks in to sit. Having our own little lounge space means that we have people to talk to when there is a sales lull. Sometimes it seems like WorldCon is made of talking. My head gets a little over full, then I step away from the booth for a bit and talk to no one. Or I pull out a notebook and scribble down thoughts. If I pin them to paper they won’t get away and I can stop trying to hold them in my poor overstimulated brain.

Today’s delightful moment which inspired a scribbled note was the moment when I introduced my friend Sal Sanfratello who is former military and a current weapons instructor in Michigan to my friend Larry Correia who has done much the same in Utah. Standing nearby was Ethan Skarsgardt who is current military. Within three minutes they’d covered the sad lack of concealed carry reciprocity in Nevada which meant none of them were armed. But then they all three flipped out their folding knives almost at the same time. The knives all looked the same to me, but they traded them around talking edges and manufacturers. I love it when I can introduce friends and have them instantly get along.

Next I’m headed into another convention evening. I’m not sure if this one will run as long as the other one did. I was up until 2 am last night, which is a wee bit late if I want to be effective the next day. Fortunately it seems to have energized me. I have had a marvelous day and expect to have an even better evening.

Oh, and yes the sales are going well. We’ve paid our expenses and have three days left.

Wednesday morning at WorldCon

By / August 18, 2011

Copied from notes handwritten at 11 am on Wednesday August 17, 2011:
The convention hall is large, like a cavern. There is twice as much open air above us as any of the dealer’s room booths use. The booths themselves are like the stalls at an arts festival or a farmer’s market. Each small space has it’s own focus and flavor. I wander through them and wonder how far the contents of each booth has traveled. I wonder how hard the booth runners worked, propelled by their dreams.

If I close my eyes, I hear the steady rumble of the air handling system. It blows cool, and creates the illusion of a breeze. Above that, bangs and clatters echo as people continue to set up and organize their spaces. Sometimes I can hear the sounds of voices. They blend into a pleasant babble, like a stream. Occasionally a cluster of voices breaks into comprehensibility. Usually this is because someone is angry or frustrated. Booth set up always exposes tools forgotten or problems not previously considered. There is a frission of stress in the air, because the doors will open to the public in an hour. Not everything is ready and no one knows yet if the sales will be enough to cover the pile of bills necessary to transport merchandise and set up the booth. Most of the arguements are simple sparkings of stress, not actual emergencies.

We are not immune to any of these stresses. WE had the emergencies of the wobbly tables, these thumbtacks won’t work, and the forgotten camera cable. We set up the table and display the merchandise. As per our usual pattern we have already rearranged things twice. Each convention space is different and our merchandise changes over time. We always have to shuffle things around. Then I make notes about how we could run things differently and what supplies would be more useful to us.

At huge shows like GenCon, the convention center rolls out carpet and pipe and drape to help define spaces. We have only what we brought, the tables, and some tape lines on the concrete floor. Creating a congenial space is a challenge, yet so many booths succeed. Bare tables turn into book shops, jewelry stores, and craft stalls. Each space acquires its own feel. Witht the booths set up, the shopkeepers have some time to visit. We begin to know our neighbors and the booth starts to feel like part of a small town market rather than a foreign and sterile place. Five days from now, when it all gets torn apart, I will be sad. This market in this configuration will never exist again. I must do my best to savor it while it is here.

Trip Notes

By / August 16, 2011 / 2 Comments

Breaking the 8.5 hour drive into segments helped the trip feel a lot faster. We stopped at the airport to pick up our booth helpers. Then we stopped in Elko for gas. Then we stopped in Winnemucca for dinner. The hardest leg was the last one because it was late and everyone was tired.

Going to bed right after the long road trip proved difficult. The kids had to burn some energy first. I don’t begrudge them. They were marvelous for the whole drive. Fortunately we had some handy grandparents who were delighted to let them play for a bit.

Setting up the booth went really well and quickly. We’ve got the right team. I always have a moment during booth set up when I look around and fear that we simply haven’t brought enough stuff. That is when I have to remind myself that I did careful math ahead of time and we will be fine.

I don’t like casinos. Fortunately there seem to be enough places which are not mid-casino that we can hang with friends. We’ve already begun to run into familiar faces. This is happy.

We left the hotel for dinner and found an wonderful Italian restaurant called Veccia. The food was amazing, if a little on the pricey side. As we were walking over we noticed a building under demolition. It caught my eye because of the mill wheel stuck to the side of the front building, which was still standing. On the way home we wandered back toward another section of building still stood. We looked at the wreckage trying to determine what the building might have been. We suspected a hotel. This was confirmed when there were open doors in the remaining section. We could peek inside and see that it was a themed hotel. We saw an ocean room, a castle room, a caveman room, and one that was so bare we couldn’t tell what it was. The top floor was inaccessible, but we could peer in the open doors to spot pieces of murals which suggested outer space themes. One lone door on the edge of the wreckage said “pirate room.” It was fascinating to look at this building which had obviously been created with attention and care, but which was being removed to make way for something else.

This morning when the kids headed out with my parents, I felt myself snap into greater focus. Instead of being split across mother things and business things, I only had one. I wish I hadn’t been so tired heading into the day. It was hard to sleep last night.

But now we’re set up and ready for tomorrow. We’ve had a lovely dinner and an interesting walk. Next we’re relaxing and settling in for a long night’s sleep.

Brief update

By / August 14, 2011

My days have been full of packing, organizing, and cleaning. My evenings have been occupied by connecting with friends, putting kids to bed, and watching the first season of Heroes with my older two kids. (We finished tonight and have happily written our own ending chapters without having to watch any of the remaining seasons.) All of this has not left me much time for the slow unwinding of my thoughts which is the condition most conducive to blogging. Life gets busy, word count goes down. This comes as no surprise to any writer anywhere.

The emotional arcs of the week have been just as tightly packed as everything else. Howard and I both have gone the rounds with self-doubt, anxiety, and pre-convention jitters. Gleek and Patch have both settled back into being content with the fact that they’ll be going to a new school, except I can see the small signs that they’re still a little on edge. Kiki came to me this evening to talk about her pre-trip feelings. She is a homebody and always misses her house and her kitty. Link is the only one of us who is bopping through this week like it is normal.

And yet, it is all coming together. We’re all going to have fun. Then we will move onward again.

Preparing for the Weeks Ahead

By / August 11, 2011 / 2 Comments

My kids start school in twelve days. This means it is the ideal time for me to begin moving bedtimes and wake-up calls earlier. I should be organizing the house and sorting through clothes to see what got unwearably ratty during summer play. My kids need calmness and stability so they can enter the new school year with confidence and a good night’s rest.

I leave for Reno in three and a half days. There are dozens of things yet to accumulate and accomplish in order to meet the various needs of the trip. I must prepare everything so that the booth can earn enough money to pay for it all. I must plan and pack my clothing so that I can present a professional appearance while at the show. I also want to get to wear some of the fun things I own which don’t get aired otherwise. Howard needs all of his things prepared so that he can be Howard Tayler Cartoonist and participate in the Hugo Award Ceremony. The kids need to be prepared and packed so that they can spend 5 days with their grandparents. Those five days are bracketed by long road-trips. The last hours of road trip will end within thirty hours of the first hour of school.

There must be something I can do to make this Reno trip compatible with creating calmness and stability before school starts. Honestly, I haven’t had the time to figure it out. Instead I helped my teenage daughter light a fire in our firepit so that her friends could roast marshmallows. I helped the neighboring mother, who stopped by, to assemble smores for a dozen neighborhood children. Then I let my youngest two stay up past their bedtime playing night tag while I sat and visited with my neighbors. At the end there was a bit of a meltdown followed by a warm snack and a back rub. None of the things I did this evening seem to help any of the things which are coming up, except it feels like I made exactly the right choice for how to spend my time.

Lists and Staging

By / August 9, 2011

This is the week when WorldCon preparations swamps everything else in my life. You’d think that would be next week when I am actually at WorldCon, except that I’ve arranged for everything else to be managed next week. Next week I can give WorldCon 100% attention. This week the preparations are all mixed up with feeding kids, house chores, shipping packages, customer support, and community events. At the moment it feels like I’m not doing any of these things particularly well. We’ve also reached the stage where it is too late. We wanted to create better banners as backdrops for the booth, but there isn’t time to get them made and shipped. We’re going to have to pay more for fliers and business cards because we have to print them locally instead of at the discount place online. I have half a dozen other clothing and sewing ideas, but have neither time nor clothing budget to execute on them.

My major focus for the next week is thinking ahead. I have to make sure that nothing critical is forgotten. I have to anticipate what we’ll need without ever having seen the space in which we will be setting up shop. I have a packing list for the booth, a packing list for me, a packing list for Howard, and I still need to make a packing list for the kids. I also have price lists, inventory lists, and schedules of events. It is all coming together and yet I’m fighting back a persistent feeling that it is all falling apart. To combat this feeling I’ve started piling things up in the front room.

Our front room is often used as a staging area. This time as I accumulate pieces I am stacking them where I can see them. Once I put them in the pile, I can stop trying to hold them in memory. Also I can start gauging how much stuff we have to haul and whether it will all fit into the two vehicles we’ll be driving to Reno. Our neighbors will loan us a car top carrier, which will help, but it will still be tight. My internal volume estimator says it will all fit, but actually seeing the stuff stacked up will help me know that for sure. I’m taking process shots for later blogging.

I think I am doing today what my younger two kids did last week. They each had a day where they cried about going to a new school because they didn’t know what to expect and were worried about it. The next day they were fine and have continued to be fine with only small signs that they still have increased levels of tension. Here’s hoping that tomorrow I can be back to excited anticipation instead of stressed worry.

In good news, we have Schlock Mercenary water bottles to sell at WorldCon. The Writing Excuses badge ribbons also arrived. We now have all our merchandise in hand. Tomorrow I will go shopping to acquire booth supplies and dressings.

Remaking a Formal Dress

By / August 8, 2011 / 4 Comments

Last May I bought a dress. I bought it, not because of what it was, but because of what I could make from it.

I loved the bright color and the full swing of the skirt. It reminded me of all those long dresses that Ginger Rogers used to wear when dancing with Fred Astaire. Or perhaps the fancy dress Grace Kelly wore in High Society. I knew I could make something from it, but first I had to get rid of the lace and ruffles.

You can see that the skirt was extremely sheer. There must have been a slip or underskirt which got separated from the dress. My first step was to solve that problem by adding additional layers of chiffon. I chose a yellow with a hot pink underskirt. The different colors would show through creating shifting highlights as the skirt moved.

I used the skirt of the dress as a pattern. It was pretty simple since the skirt was a full circle.

The skirt was also far too long. Its original owner must have been taller than me or habitually wore seven inch platform shoes. So I trimmed the skirt and hemmed it.

There is a lot of sewing involved when you have three layers of full-circle skirt. Particularly when you have to hem around twice to get the proper narrow roll. The resulting dress was wearable, but exceedingly simple. It was time for me to take some of that ruffle and some of the left over yellow chiffon and make the dress much more attractive.

I played with draping and wrapping the fabric that I had available. The waist of the dress was high, so I knew that I wanted to add a wide belt to create a better silhouette. I also decided that those triangle sleeves needed to go. Unfortunately none of the pieces of orange chiffon were wide enough to make sleeves. So I got creative.

I sewed together two segments of ruffle so that the hemmed bits were together.

I used the sleeve piece from a dress pattern I had, making sure that the seam ran down the center of the sleeve. Once the sleeve was constructed, I slit open this sleeve seam so that it gaps open attractively along the top of my arm only being joined at the top of the sleeve and at my elbow. I’ll try to get a picture of this the next time I try on the dress.

I decided to make long drapes off my shoulders to add interest in the back. Besides I had to do something with all that left over ruffle. You can see the huge pile of it on the floor. I still have a pile of it even after the dress is done. I’ll hold it against future alterations or repairs.

The next steps involved a lot of hand sewing. Most of the things could have been done on machine, but tacking things into place by hand made unpicking and re-sewing much easier. I did a lot as I was figuring out the best ways to accomplish the look I’d hoped for.

I am pleased with the result. I’ll take pictures when I’m wearing it and all dressed up, but for now you can see it on the hanger.

I loved this project. I loved breathing new life into an old dress. I loved taking it apart and re-using the old pieces. My brain is already burbling with ideas about how to do this again, only with a completely different dress. For now I need to put my dress aside until a week from Saturday when I get to wear it to the Hugos.

Sometimes the Timing is Just Right

By / August 5, 2011 / 1 Comment

Howard went off to GenCon and I had a few days where I was done with GenCon planning and not yet into the urgent pre-WorldCon scramble. The kids needed and outing, so we went to the zoo.

We arrived just as some of the early arrivers were leaving for lunch, and so we got a close parking space. We wandered in to the zoo where we found that the baby elephant was taking a bath. I snapped a picture just as she flapped her ears adorably.

We wandered onward to discover that the bird show was due to begin in just moments. We found seats near the front. They weren’t shaded, but when the ranger asked everyone to scoot in, we scooted right into the shade. The bird Show was amazing and I had a couple of perfectly timed shots.

We walked out of the bird show to discover that the carousel had no line. We all found animals to ride, except Link who declared his disinterest in the whole thing with a particularly 13-year-old-boy tone. He elected to sit on one of the carousel benches. I told him to make sure he rolled his eyes a lot as we went round.

We wandered up the hill and had lunch at uncrowded tables because everyone else had already eaten by then. As we were ordering lunch a woman came up to me. She was a Schlock Mercenary fan and recognized me from a presentation I gave at LTUE last February. After lunch, we happened into the small animal house just as they were feeding many of the small animals. This meant that the animals were active and cute rather than sleeping. There we met the Cheshire Cat.

The sign said “Sand Cat” but I know that face. He blinked at us in a very impressive and knowing way.

We exited the zoo just as rush hour was headed into it’s peak. Traffic was heavy all the way home, but despite the truly impressive construction zones we had to traverse, there were no serious traffic blockages. Home was calm and welcoming. Howard called and we talked for a good thirty minutes about the convention and the zoo. Then we wished each other a Happy Anniversary. All is as it should be.