5 Things I Already Knew That Were Confirmed at Denvention 3
1. Science fiction is going to be just fine. Science fiction is all about change, and not in a Barak Obama "Let's make it so we're no longer dependent on foreign oil" sort of way but in a "Let's make it so we're no longer dependent on biology any more." We have few constants to cling to: Women in space will need only the protection of tin foil underwear, David Langford will win best fan writer Hugo, and science fiction is dying. It's been dying since the beginning and it's never stopped dying. But I'm afraid it might take a while, what with new authors jumping in all the time with works like The Unincorporated Man and the Milkweed Triptych. The real mysteries here are (1) how did Eytan and Dani Kollin manage to co-write The Unincorporated Man without killing each other and leveling half of Southern California in the process? and (2) how did Ian Tregillis learn to write so pretty while getting a PhD in physics? (It couldn't have been Clarion, could it?) I met these authors and quite a few others on the way up to the big show. Science fiction will just have to die later.
2. I have a strange sense of humor. It all started with a joke that Ian Tregillis told at the Tor party. I laughed, no one else did. The next day Warren Hammond blurted out the punch line at dinner and shook his head, still trying to figure it out. So I had to repeat the joke for everyone else at dinner. And they didn't get it. And so on. Everyone we ran into, I ended up telling them the joke and no one of them laughed. So, it's me. And Ian, but that's his problem. I won't repeat the joke here because (1) it's the kind of joke you have to say out loud and (2) it really isn't that funny. Sorry, Ian. I had three beers in me and I barely chuckled. So, for everyone I told the joke to this weekend, I'm sorry. Here is a better joke to make up for it. Sam told me this one this morning:
What do you call a fish with ten eyes? (Just highlight to see the answer, although it probably won't work on RSS feed.)
A fiiiiiiiiiish.
3. Cowboy boots are really uncomfortable. I bring them along to cons because (1) they look cool and (2) I like the way they sound on a big open tile floor like they have at convention center and hotel lobbies. But just four hours in those torture devices leads me to a new understanding of how the last couple of electoral maps ended up with so much red in the west. You can't jam five toes into a space built to accommodate one without developing a bellicose foreign policy and a disinclination to mollycoddle the malingerers.
4. There ain't no justice. When I heard that my good friend David Louis Edelman had not had to subject his shaven skull to the Campbell Tiara, I wanted to do that Captain Kirk thing and shake my fists up at the sky and curse the name of the dastard who had robbed him of his due. And then I found out the winner was Mary Robinette Kowal and, you know, you can't curse her. Because she's the nicest human being on the planet, that's why. I still haven't found an appropriate target for my rage. So you'd best not cross my path.
5. I will not make it as a writer unless I quit my day job. John Scalzi and Paolo Bacigalupi mercilessly ground my ambitions into the carpet of the Hyatt bar the very first night I spent at the con. Scalzi looked me straight in the eye and told me I didn't have what it takes, and Paolo completely belittled the so called "job" I was once so proud of. Well, since I'm not going to quit my day job, and since I don't plan to mope around the rest of my life, I'm just going to have to re-write my definition of "make it as a writer." I'll probably have to delete "win a Hugo" from that description. I'm just being realistic here. Look at this document (in pdf, sorry) and scroll down to the novel nominees. And look what you see in last place. Patrick Rothfuss's Name of the Wind. I'm sorry, that should be Patrick Rothfuss's New York Times Best Seller Name of the Wind. In last place. It's a long crawl to the top of that pile if you have to climb over New York Times Best Sellers.
So, I'm working on a new set of career goals, realistic but challenging. I appreciate all the good conversations I had at the con (including the first one with Paolo and John, who obviously assume I have a thick hide or that I'd wake up remembering nothing (a safe assumption after my third Maker's Mark)). I'd especially like to single out Kristen Janz and Camille Alexa, two writers just now breaking into the short fiction arena. I can only imagine the herculean effort it must have taken for them to listen to me talk about this without balling up their fists, placing them under their eyes and twisting them back and forth saying "Oh, boo-hoo, a Tor novellist is having a hard time figuring out what career success looks like." I doubt I would have resisted the urge had I been on the other end of that conversation ten years ago.
Oh, and here are five more bonus things I already knew but were confirmed by Denvention 3:
1: Vampires are made of money.
2: Janiece is a hot chick.
3. James Patrick Kelly knows how to string a few words together.
4: The Brotherhood Without Banners throw the best con parties.
5: It's good to be home.
2. I have a strange sense of humor. It all started with a joke that Ian Tregillis told at the Tor party. I laughed, no one else did. The next day Warren Hammond blurted out the punch line at dinner and shook his head, still trying to figure it out. So I had to repeat the joke for everyone else at dinner. And they didn't get it. And so on. Everyone we ran into, I ended up telling them the joke and no one of them laughed. So, it's me. And Ian, but that's his problem. I won't repeat the joke here because (1) it's the kind of joke you have to say out loud and (2) it really isn't that funny. Sorry, Ian. I had three beers in me and I barely chuckled. So, for everyone I told the joke to this weekend, I'm sorry. Here is a better joke to make up for it. Sam told me this one this morning:
What do you call a fish with ten eyes? (Just highlight to see the answer, although it probably won't work on RSS feed.)
A fiiiiiiiiiish.
3. Cowboy boots are really uncomfortable. I bring them along to cons because (1) they look cool and (2) I like the way they sound on a big open tile floor like they have at convention center and hotel lobbies. But just four hours in those torture devices leads me to a new understanding of how the last couple of electoral maps ended up with so much red in the west. You can't jam five toes into a space built to accommodate one without developing a bellicose foreign policy and a disinclination to mollycoddle the malingerers.
4. There ain't no justice. When I heard that my good friend David Louis Edelman had not had to subject his shaven skull to the Campbell Tiara, I wanted to do that Captain Kirk thing and shake my fists up at the sky and curse the name of the dastard who had robbed him of his due. And then I found out the winner was Mary Robinette Kowal and, you know, you can't curse her. Because she's the nicest human being on the planet, that's why. I still haven't found an appropriate target for my rage. So you'd best not cross my path.
5. I will not make it as a writer unless I quit my day job. John Scalzi and Paolo Bacigalupi mercilessly ground my ambitions into the carpet of the Hyatt bar the very first night I spent at the con. Scalzi looked me straight in the eye and told me I didn't have what it takes, and Paolo completely belittled the so called "job" I was once so proud of. Well, since I'm not going to quit my day job, and since I don't plan to mope around the rest of my life, I'm just going to have to re-write my definition of "make it as a writer." I'll probably have to delete "win a Hugo" from that description. I'm just being realistic here. Look at this document (in pdf, sorry) and scroll down to the novel nominees. And look what you see in last place. Patrick Rothfuss's Name of the Wind. I'm sorry, that should be Patrick Rothfuss's New York Times Best Seller Name of the Wind. In last place. It's a long crawl to the top of that pile if you have to climb over New York Times Best Sellers.
So, I'm working on a new set of career goals, realistic but challenging. I appreciate all the good conversations I had at the con (including the first one with Paolo and John, who obviously assume I have a thick hide or that I'd wake up remembering nothing (a safe assumption after my third Maker's Mark)). I'd especially like to single out Kristen Janz and Camille Alexa, two writers just now breaking into the short fiction arena. I can only imagine the herculean effort it must have taken for them to listen to me talk about this without balling up their fists, placing them under their eyes and twisting them back and forth saying "Oh, boo-hoo, a Tor novellist is having a hard time figuring out what career success looks like." I doubt I would have resisted the urge had I been on the other end of that conversation ten years ago.
Oh, and here are five more bonus things I already knew but were confirmed by Denvention 3:
1: Vampires are made of money.
2: Janiece is a hot chick.
3. James Patrick Kelly knows how to string a few words together.
4: The Brotherhood Without Banners throw the best con parties.
5: It's good to be home.
[shakes fists, looks up at sky as camera pans back] KOWAAAAAAAL!!!!!
No, you're right, just doesn't work. Guess we'll just have to be fabulously happy for Mary instead.
Hee! It was nice to meet you, too.
Glad I didn't get too stalkerish for you.
Restraining orders = bad.
And Mary can read. Seriously. Scary good.
Stalking would be finding me when I don't want to get found. Finding me sitting behind a signing table looking like an abandoned kitten with a pen is not stalking, it's called making my day. Showing up wearing my book cover on your shirt is making my whole con. Thanks for stopping by.
1.I guess we might appropriately say Sci-Fi is "undead" then?
2.You do realize it's illegal to talk at length about a joke and then fail to actually put it out there? I'll read it to myself out loud if it helps - it'll go along with my lip moving tendency anyway.
3.Cowboy boots are designed the way they are so your feet don't get caught in the stirrups if you fall off your horse; that implies you spend most of the time on a horse - not ambling about. Why do you think cowboys grimace and walk so slowly?
That's all I got.
1. Given the proliferation of vampires and zombies, safe to say. Seriously, can we move on past the zombies? I have no illusions we'll run out of vampires to alternately kill or give detective agencies, but zombies are done. Done.
2. You asked for it. Two nuns in a bath tub. One of them says "Where's the soap?" The other one says "Yes, it does."
Sorry, everyone.
3. When they designed cowboy boots to be practical, they should have taken care not to make them look cool. It's like a trap. "Ooooh, cool footwear. Aaaah, help, it's got my foot! I can't feel my toes! No, go on without me, I'm not going to make it. So cold. So...very...cold..." *Shakes fists at the sky.* "Cowbooooooys!"
In my defense, I did preface the joke by saying, "This is the only joke I know, and nobody ever laughs when I tell it." (I may need to work a bit on my delivery.) Your beer-fueled almost-chuckle was by far the most enthusiastic response that joke has ever received, to my knowledge. And that makes it all worthwhile.
And, yes indeed, the Brotherhood sure throws a fine shindig.
Your delivery is perfect Ian. You could make a waste management newsletter sound like poetry. You just need better material, or surround yourself with people who have brain tumors.
Aw, shucks.
Better joke material would definitely help. Now I know two jokes, thanks to you sharing the infamous "aristocrats" bit at the Brotherhood's party.
Well that's going to be a hell of an act, the nun joke and the Aristocrats. You'd better make sure the club has a back door before the show starts.
I would have thought you new the Brotherhood threw excellent parties from World Fantasy. Hell, just an hour ago I got to say, "Hey, I know that Brazilian alcohol you're talking about, it's fantastic."
Hey, when I met Scalzi and he found out I was in a professional writer's group he nearly had whiplash. So at least he told you right out, instead of thinking it really hard.
OK, I ought to point out, just in case anyone gets the wrong idea, that John and Paolo were kidding around when they savaged my ego. They were laughing, I was laughing, we parted friends. I'm sure most of you get that, but I'd hate to initiate an internet kerfuffle with a guy who has 25,000 blog readers.
John's humor is excellent. How many people can crack a joke about Gregorian vs Julian calendar systems. John can.
I think he was surprised from all the people who say they want to be writers, but then never do anything about it. I have a feeling since I haven't been published (which hopefully will change before Nov, keeping my fingers crossed) that I was also in that category. It was the first time we had met.
"that he thought I was also in that category."
Shesh. Me write now better than I usta did. Sometimes Engrish fails me.
1: Vampires are made of money.
Actually, I think unless they are in an established series (or a book written by Stephanie Meyers), vampires are passe. What I am getting in the manuscript pile these days are novels about hot, sexy zombies, a subsubgenre I don't think I'd seen even one example of a year ago.
And what do I see on my friends' list?
http://jlassen.livejournal.com/597517.html
I am astounded that in this day and age a publisher actually has to ask for zombie novels. Don't they just sort of shamble in from the night and pile up against the windows until you have to board them up to keep them from coming inside? Having met Jeremy at Denvention, and been at the same dinner where Mario was telling us about "Jailbait Zombies," I imagine this is a stunt of some sort. We'll see.
Zombies are not sexy. I'm working hard to declare the era of the zombie done. I hope I can count on your support in this. We have to stamp it out before it spreads further. I understand fire is effective.
I have to admit I was amazed when I learned the subsubgenre exists. I mean, if I saw a walking flesh-eating corpse shambling towards me, my reactions would not venture in the direction of "You're pretty cute for a girl with maggots peeking out of her".
I have not read it but I note the upcoming existance of Jailbait Zombie.
http://urbanfantasyland.wordpress.com/2008/08/18/cover-art-for-mario-acevedos-jailbait-zombie/
But back to the vampire thing, I will note that the main character of Mario's series is a Iraq vet/detective/vampire.