conventions

Life The Universe and Everything Symposium 2014

By / February 12, 2014 / 2 Comments

Beginning tomorrow and running through Saturday I’ll be at the Life The Universe and Everything symposium in downtown Provo. If you’re local, I highly recommend it. Attendance is FREE to anyone with a student ID. If you’re at LTUE and looking for me in particular, you should pay special attention to the Friday items. I’m giving a solo presentation and doing a reading. I’ve not yet determined whether I’ll be available for the mass signing that is scheduled for Friday evening. Here is my schedule:

Thursday 11:00am:
Why Economics Matters
Why do people build cities where they do? How do your protagonists make sure that they will be able to eat? Basic economics and how it impacts the world of your story.
Orson Scott Card, L. E. Modesitt, Jr., Dr. David Ferro, Eric Swedin, Robison Wells, Sandra Tayler

Thursday 1:00 pm
Writing Children
Aaron Johnston, J Scott Savage, Patricia K. Castelli, Lehua Parker, Sandra Tayler, Tristi Pinkston

Friday 11:00 am
Building a Community Among Your Readers
Sandra Tayler

Friday 12:00pm
Reading: Sandra Tayler

Saturday 9:00am
Self-Publishing Pros and Cons
Aneeka Richins, Fiona Ostler, Jaleta Clegg, Pendragon Inman, Sandra Tayler

Saturday 1:00pm
Using Games in the Classroom
Games can be used a teaching tool in a variety of situations. This panel discusses ways that teachers can use games in new ways, and the importance .
Karen Anne Webb, Sandra Tayler, Jaleta Clegg, Heather B Monson, Revan, Flagoon

Saturday 4:00 pm
Writing Children’s Books
Chad Morris, J Scott Savage, Mikey Brooks, Sandra Tayler, Patricia K. Castelli, Tiffini Knight

Returning Home from ConFusion

By / January 20, 2014

It is Monday. I’ve returned from ConFusion and none of the worries which kept me awake Wednesday night have come to pass. I hope that someday my brain will accept that my departure does not create dire consequences, but this trip was not that someday.

“How was your trip?” My mom asked after we walked in the door this afternoon. It is not an unreasonable question considering that she traveled 800 miles and spent five days watching my kids so that I could go. The shortest answer is “good” but that is an unsatisfying answer. The next shortest answer which is also still accurate is “Not easy to summarize.”

This was a trip that Howard and I chose rather than one we were offered. It was one I knew I wanted a year ago and that I’ve put effort into being able to afford. The cost of the hotel and airfare are part of the expense, but more critical, Howard and I had to adjust our thinking in such a way that we allowed ourselves a trip whose primary purpose was personal enjoyment rather than business. We are very fortunate that our chosen vacation trip looks very similar to a business trip. I think this means that we’ve chosen the right business.

We chose ConFusion because last year it collected a large contingent of people we really like. This year it was the same. I reconnected with long-time friends and made new friends. I even made one new old friend which is a story that requires a blog post of its very own. We flew below the radar, not announcing that we were coming until just before, because we weren’t certain we could until just before. The fantastic Con Com and programming staff gave us good things to do and discuss. When all was said and done, I had nine items of programming and each one added good things to my experience. Looking back, I realize that I miss the fan-facing interactions which come from us spending time in the dealer’s room, but I am so very glad that we had one show where we had time to think “what do I feel like doing right now?” instead of feeling pressure to be “on” every minute of every day. Howard and I love the GoH gigs, but we are always conscious that our hours there must belong to the convention and its guests. These hours belonged to us and I liked that. I like even more how similarly we spent those hours to how we spend hours when we owe them to someone else. That is a good thing for us to know and I think it will increase our enjoyment of future conventions

I don’t know when we’ll be able to do another show the way we did ConFusion. I’d certainly like to be able to afford it again, but I have to do the math carefully. We certainly can’t do more than one per year, probably not even that often. This trip meant a lot to me, which is probably why the anxieties were out in full force on the night before I left. Yet here I am on the other side and there is not much about the trip that I would change. Given my choice I would have skipped the part where I was coughing and hoarse during the whole trip. I felt fine, but sounded awful and I worried about transmitting germs to others. Beyond that, anything I imagine different would have to displace something good rather than displace something bad. This trip was beginning-to-end a true joy.

But now I need to rest and see if I can convince my voice to come back. I appear to have left it behind in Michigan.

Legendary ConFusion Arrival and Schedule

By / January 16, 2014 / 3 Comments

We have arrived at ConFusion. The real programming will begin tomorrow afternoon, but the visiting has already begun. Sometimes I am able to blog in the spaces of a convention, other times I go quiet online for the duration. This is one of the heaviest scheduled conventions I’ve ever had, so quiet seems likely. I am truly excited for each of these program items. They did a fantastic job scheduling me. If your at ConFusion this weekend, I hope you’ll take time to say hello.

Bechdel, Mako Mori, and the “Strong Female Character”
Sandra Tayler, Mike Underwood, Brigid Collins, Rae Carson, Christian Klaver
6pm Friday – Southfield
A female character is not strong just because she can kick someone in the head. What are the limitations of the Bechdel Test (2 female characters have a conversation about something other than a male character)? How does the Mako Mori test come into play? And when did the notion of a “strong character”–meaning a rounded character with agency and a backstory–get replaced by simple physical strength? How does all of this apply beyond female characters and move into representations of other marginalized groups?

Covers and blurbs for the self published
Sandra Tayler, Janet Harriett, J. C. Daniels, Laura Resnick, Rich Morris, Gretchen Ash
10am Saturday – Erie
One of the benefits of working with a publisher is all that they do to promote the book. Blurbs, reviews, and cover art do a lot to sell a book. When seeking to self publish, these aspects are just as important. This panel will discuss some of the best strategies for getting the most out of your options with marketing your work.

SodaKlatch
11am Saturday
Join these authors for a reading of their work and a Q&A session, Rae Carson and Sandra Tayler

Hybrid Publishing
Lucy A. Snyder, John Klima, Sandra Tayler, Howard Tayler, Tobias Buckell
1pm Saturday – Southfield
Self-publishing is here to stay. Traditional publishing is still going strong. What do the people who who do both have to share about their experiences?

Why is Wonder Woman so tricky?
4pm Saturday

Writing Realistic Children with Sandra Tayler
9am Sunday – Warren
Join Sandra Tayler for readings and discussion on the topic of Writing Realistic Children. Sandra will begin the hour by reading a few examples of children in fiction, those done well and a few not so well. Then Sandra will lead a discussion about writing children, what works, what doesn’t, developmental stages, and how all of these things should affect your plot. Bring your best thoughts to share.

The Writing Family
with Ron Collins, Brigid Collins, Sandra Tayler, and Howard Tayler
11am Sunday – Rotunda
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in a family of authors? Stop by and ask. How does having someone so close in the same field make things easier? More difficult?

Will Work for Food
Laura Resnick, Wesley Chu, Sandra Tayler, Ron Collins, Sarah Gibbons
12pm Sunday – Southfield
Writers can be an easily exploited group. Unscrupulous people sometimes prey on that fact, asking for free work on the promise of exposure. Why do people make that assumption, and why are they often able to find people to buy into it? Why has the professional per word pay rate not risen in decades? What do people generally just not understand about the value of writing as work?

Scheduling for 2014

By / January 6, 2014

Howard just posted his appearance schedule for this year. Most notable: he will not be attending either LTUE or Worldcon because both have direct conflicts with other events. My schedule is much less populated than Howard’s. My currently scheduled public appearances are:

January 17-19 at Legendary ConFusion, Troy, Michigan. They’ve given me some fascinating programming and I’ll likely be spending the rest of my time hanging out where ever the writers are congregating. Though we’ll also spend some time in the Vendor’s room where our books will be on sale.

February 13-15 LTUE, Provo, UT. I hope that I’ll be teaching things there, but I’ve yet to see a schedule. I’ll be running a table in the dealer’s room where my books will be available. I’ll have Howard’s books too. Sharing the table with me will be Nancy Fulda, who is fun and writes things worth reading.

April 17-19 Salt Lake City Comic Con FanExperience, SLC, UT. I’ll likely be there, but I’ll be in full booth support mode rather than author/teacher mode. More details as we have them.

July 3-7 Westercon, SLC, UT. I’m not sure yet whether I’ll get to be on programming or if I’ll be playing support staff. But I’ll be there.

Sept 3-6 Salt Lake City Comic Con. More thoughts on this one after we see how the one in April goes.

Putting together an event schedule is only part of the organization that Howard and I have been doing in the past few days. Howard has come up with a system where he separates his work into creative chunks. The goal is for him to get at least two chunks done per week. This is pretty important because right now we have 102 chunks lined up for the year and more than half of them need to be done by June. Hopefully quantifying the insanity of our schedule will help us actually accomplish most of it. It may work because both Howard and I are motivated by lists.

Howard’s chunk system doesn’t quite work for me, at least not in a straight port across. What I’ve done instead is portion out the hours of my days. I’ll spare you all the hourly details. The part which most closely matches Howard’s creative chunks is that I have two blocks of time per day which I’m declaring to be Project Time. That is ten work blocks per week. At first I’m going to devote 3 of them to warehouse/shipping tasks. I’ll assign the others based on what I’ve got going on. This week I’ve got design blocks and editing blocks. I may discover that I don’t need quite so many warehouse blocks, but I’m still sorting out and setting up over there. Spending some extra time now will have benefits for the rest of the year. Some of those project blocks are going to be given to writing or to doing things which fill my brain with writing thoughts.

At the end of January Howard and I will re-evaluate. This is an important part of setting up new systems and goals, there need to be check points where we decide what is working and what needs to change. Right now, on the first full work day of the new year, things feel good. We’ll see what tomorrow brings. I’ve often found that days 2-5 are more difficult than day one.

How You Walk Matters as Much as What You Wear

By / September 8, 2013

I spent three days helping run a booth at SLC Comic Con. There were lots of people in costumes, everything from professionally created and modeled down to made at home by a ten year old. I quickly discovered that some of the costumes impressed me while others did not. The difference did not lay in the quality of workmanship, nor whether the body shape of the person who wore the costume matched the character portrayed, though those things did have an influence. What consistently caught my eye was how a person walked while in costume. There were many people dressed as Loki who passed by my table, some of them in full kit with the horned helmet, but the core element of the Loki character is his arrogance. He honestly believes he should rule the universe, this means he must walk like he owns the floor. The very best Loki I saw was a woman shorter than myself (I’m 5’3″). She did not have the height to be imposing, yet people got out of her way. She had Loki down. Lord Vader is another character whose clothes are actually ridiculous, but when the person in the suit stalks, then ridiculous transforms into ominous.

The importance of body motion holds true even when the costume in question is that of a doctor, or sales clerk, or writer, or parent, or any other set of clothing. When you walk confidently, people assume you have authority. If you hunch a little bit and don’t meet people’s eyes, then you’re more likely to be able to pass unnoticed through a crowd. There are dozens of things you can do with your body to either draw attention or deflect it. The really cool thing is that body control is a learned skill. Though during the process of learning you will have stages of high self-conscousness, eventually the different ways of presenting yourself become like clothes that you put on when needed. At comic con my role was to be a booth support person. I was also pretty stressed by the sheer quantities of people at the event. I focused my energies on sliding through the crowds or staying in the background at the booth. Sometimes I stepped forward into a sales role where I needed to be personable and meet people’s eyes. At other events I am a presenter and author, then I dress and walk in ways that draw attention and make people more likely to listen to the things I have to say. Then I go to church and my job is to be a connected and supporting part of the congregation. Each of these roles requires different clothing and different personal presentation. If I just put on the clothes without changing the way I walk, I halve the effect.

My Day at SLC Comic Con in Tweets and Pictures

By / September 7, 2013

8am: For as long as I’m having to wait, I hope this is the breakfast burrito of champions

10am: Half the effectiveness of a costume is in how you walk when you wear it. Lord Vader looks ridiculous unless he stalks like he owns the floor

11am: My inner introvert is very glad we have booth space into which the crowd can not intrude. Comic con is packed today.

12pm: Yup. Really really glad to have the booth to shield from the crowd. Fun people watching though.

1pm: I found Waldo!

1:30pm: Cutest Dr. Who cosplay ever.

2pm: I’ve been told the fire marshal is regulating entry to the building. No one goes in until someone leaves. Line still around block.

2pm: Some of the announcements over the loud speaker must have stories to explain why they’re necessary. So glad I’m not security at this event.

2pm: Every thirty minutes the announcer is pleading with parents not to lose their children. The rest of the time is lost person announcements.

3pm: Dealers room aisle becomes impassible at 10 min past the hour. At half past it flows slowly. Clogs up again at quarter to. #ConTrafficReport

4pm: It appears that running a booth at comic con brings out my inner tweeter. I’m noisy today.

4pm: I’ve now seen two attractive red headed men who could have rocked Captain Carrot costumes. Lost opportunity.

It appears that most of my tweets were focused around the crowds. It was crazy crowded, but there was other amazing stuff too. I’ll have to write up a more considered post when I’m not quite so tired.

A Few Thoughts from Mid-Salt Lake City Comic Con

By / September 6, 2013

We’re halfway through Salt Lake City Comic Con. It is being a good show. The crowds and energy are good. I can tell that we’re going to break even. I can tell that we’re reaching into a new market with people who have never heard of us before and might be interested. From a business standpoint it is exactly what it needs to be. I wish I wasn’t already exhausted.

Howard still hasn’t properly recovered from WorldCon and SLCC is a real marathon effort of meeting and greeting. I’m still tired from running the back end of both GenCon and WorldCon. I’m tired from planning all the logistics and from carrying all the worry to make sure things go well. He’s staying in a hotel in SLC because that is the only way for him to be rested enough to give his energy to the fans for twelve hours per day. I’m commuting from home (an hour drive each direction) because someone has to tell the kids to go to bed and to get them off to school in the morning. Next week I’ll have to figure out all the homework that has been ignored in the last few days.

Tomorrow I’ll be at SLCC from 7 am until 7pm when the dealer’s hall closes. Then I’ll stay however-long after that to help break down the booth and haul everything home. Tomorrow is my son’s 16th birthday. I probably won’t see him all day. He’s a great kid and very understanding, but I wish I could do better for him than asking him to watch his siblings while I’m gone. So today I’m at home trying to set things up so that the birthday can be happy here at home. I’m disappointed in myself that so many of the solutions involve sugar. I’ll try to fix that some other day, today I’m too tired to change bad habits.

Today I am also incredibly grateful for the kind people who have given their time as booth help. It is hard to ask people to spend grueling hours on a show floor, because I know how exhausted it makes me. Yet they come, and I’m glad.

I’m grateful for my son, who has calmly and willingly told me it is okay. We’ve planned a proper celebration for next week with his friends. He is such a good person.

I’m grateful for the all the friends and fans who stop by the booth to say hello. They are the reward, the reason that all this effort is worth something. They are glad to see us and make us glad to be there even though we are exhausted.

Onward.

This is a Day of Very Little Brain

By / September 4, 2013 / 2 Comments

Last night I joked on twitter that I wish I could stick a crow bar into the middle of this week and stretch it out by a couple of days. Howard could really use those days as recovery time. He arrived home from WorldCon at 8am this morning after several nights of very little sleep. He’s completely burned out. What he really needs is two days to just sleep and stare at the walls. Then he needs a week of quiet work to catch upon the buffer, after which he’ll be excited and ready to tackle Salt Lake City Comic Con. Instead the booth has to be set up tomorrow. I’ll be handling that part. Howard will be at home, hopefully doing the sleeping and recuperating that he needs. Thursday the show begins. Both of us are excited for the possibilities of SLCC, neither of us wants to face another show so soon.

Howard came home happy. On the drive home and most of the morning, thoughts and stories started spilling out. He’s collected things to tell me for days, but they were all jumbled up together in his head and the only way to find the important ones is for me to listen to all the things. I don’t mind. All the things are interesting, it is just that a few of them are also assignments. This is one advantage of having me stay home. I’m far more rested than Howard is, but I’m still tired and short on sleep.

…In fact the day was one of so little brain that I forgot to complete and post this entry last night. Fortunately Howard pulled together a post that was more eloquent. You probably ought to go read it instead.

2014 Event Wish List

By / September 2, 2013

Last year in September all I wanted was to be at home with my family. I knew it was the last year with all the kids living at home and I was weary. So since last September and now the only time I went away was for four days of the Writing Excuses retreat. The break from events was good, but now I’m ready to go back out again. I want to see my friends who live far away. So this is my convention wish list for this next year. I’m going to have to pick and choose because child care is a limited resource.

January 17-19 ConFusion in Michigan. I have a lot of friends in Michigan. I really want to go visit them. So I plan to shift all sorts of things to make this happen.

February 13-15 LTUE in Provo, UT. This is local. My attendance is almost guaranteed.

May 25-26 LDS Storymakers. I would love to be involved, but they haven’t yet sent out their speaker invitations, so no idea if I will be yet.

July 3-6 Westercon SLC, Utah. This is local. Howard is one of the guests of honor. We’ll be involved.

July 17-20 NASFIC in Detroit, Michigan. This would be another lovely excuse to visit friends. But of the events on my wishlist, this is the one most likely to be dropped.

August 14-18 WorldCon in London. I would love to go to Europe. I’ve never been. I’d like to be with Howard at a WorldCon again. Childcare is tricky because of the length and distance of the trip. Timing is tricky because the turn around to the start of school is really tight. I’m not sure what is possible.

End of September: The Writing Excuses Retreat. I had to miss half of it this year. I really want to be present next year. It is my first choice of where to spend my childcare resources.

So that’s a lot of events to wish for. I feel a bit greedy. I know I am unlikely to get them all, but there is no harm in seeing the wishes.

I must also remember that my wish to have my family always safe and cared for is far more important.

Howard Won a Hugo

By / September 2, 2013 / 3 Comments

Photo by Scott Marlatt

You can see that he was a bit excited by this. I only have bits and pieces of information about the event because it all took place in San Antonio and I was in Utah. I was tracking the progress of the Hugo Award ceremonies via Twitter while I distracted myself from being anxious by doing other things. There was supposed to be a live Ustream of the event, but twitter told me that there were technical difficulties, so I’m glad I didn’t attempt to watch that way. I’d just seen the news that someone other than Schlock Mercenary was picked for the Best Graphic Story category. I was still trying to settle that news in my mind and wondering how Howard was doing when a friend called to let me know that Writing Excuses won. Brandon, Mary, and Howard all got to go onstage. (Dan is in Germany and Jordan in Utah.)

Howard called me later for just a few minutes. He was happy and wanted me to know that he was happy, but couldn’t talk long because he had a job to do. For him the Hugo doesn’t represent a reward for something he completed, it is a responsibility to continue the work that he has only begun. His job for the evening was to carry the Hugo, to talk to people, to give out as much kindness and happiness as words could dispense. I’m pretty sure he stayed out past 3 am doing that.

I spoke with him again today for a little bit longer, but he still has a job to do. Most of the attendees have dispersed, but our booth crew is still there. His time and attention belong to them for this evening, because they are friends and because they took time out of their lives to come and help us. I hope we’ll have time to talk when he gets home, that I’ll get to hear all the stories and happy things that have happened for Howard in the past few days. I was here doing my job, which doesn’t have any particularly fun/exciting stories attached.

I look at that picture up above and I am so very glad. I am so glad that Howard is the good man that he is, that he has such amazing friends who collaborate with him, that his hard work has been recognized, that we get to continue doing all the things we are doing. The Hugo is being shipped to us, I look forward to seeing it in person. Even more, I look forward to picking up Howard from the airport and bringing him home where he can be mine again for a while.