My Dinner with... well... Near Neil Gaiman

It was like having dinner with Neil Gaiman! Only he was sitting two tables away and talking to someone and I could only sit and watch casually because I didn't want to stare or do something crass like going over to interrupt him to start gushing about his work.

French-Canadian food. Great little restaurant and as soon as I remember the name, I'll put it in here.

But it was cool to see him! Wish I'd gotten to his signing, but I was running around like a mad creature pushing books and doing panels. Too bad. He seems like a neat guy, though he has a strange fascination with bees and bell jars.

So this is my six-day late-WorldCon wrap-up piece. Work has been busy as all get out and I've been too tired to do anything except edit a little bit and get to bed. Today, however, the house is mine, and I wanted to post about what an excellent time I had hanging out and going to panels and doing panels. It was all cool.

I spent a great deal of the convention hanging out at the Hades Publications table. Met Brian and Anita Hades, and had good talks with them. Excellent folks who run a fine publishing house (and I don't just say that because the publish Small Magics through their Dragon Moon Press imprint).

Also got to hang out with my soon-to-be editor Gabrielle Harbowy, who will be doing the edits on Cold Magics in the near future. Good woman, excellent editor, and fun to hang out with. She was also present during my dinner with near Neil Gaiman and can attest to the fact that he was two tables away and we didn't go over and act like idiots in front of him.

I didn't make it to any of the parties except the Tesseract book launch because exhaustion had its way with me. Work has been long and busy and home has been the same. Plus there's the writing which I need to finish ASAP.

The panels I attended were fun, and the ones that I was on were more so.

Panels I Attended: The Function of a Cover (sell books), Podcasting (get professional help), Elizabethans and fairies (didn't talk about fairies much, but lots about Elizabethans and magic).

Panels I was On:

Research and Writing (with Aliette de Bodard, Darlene Marshall, Mindy Klasky, S.M. Stirling -- ever feel like you're outclassed?). This was a great panel. The other panelists were extremely well-versed in the topic, and very well spoken. I discovered I was the moderator when I walked in the room, but managed to pull myself together to ask intelligent questions of the panelists and answer some of the audience questions fairly intelligently myself. Cannot say enough good things about this group and the audience we had. Thanks to everyone.

Also, met a woman from the audience who was the spitting image of someone with whom I went to high school. No relation at all, but a professor down in the USA (If you happen to read this, send me the name of your book [it was an academic study of on science fiction] I want to get a copy).

Martial Arts Primer for Writers (with Sean McMullen and Walter Jon Williams -- remember that outclassed thing I mentioned before? Here it is again!). This one was a hoot. Nothing like putting three martial artists on a panel and letting them go. Got put in an armbar by Sean, got to demonstrate some cloak and dagger fighting with help from an audience member's cloak, talked a whole bunch of martial arts and even managed to be occasionally on topic. Lots of fun.

I did two other panels: The Morning Workout with Birgit Houston on Saturday to which no one attended but myself and Birgit, who is a lovely woman and an excellent martial artist. And Fitness for Geeks with Nancy Louise Freeman (whose name I kept geting wrong. Sorry, Nancy!) which was all right, but under attended. Nancy was a great co-panelist and excellent to work with.

I was supposed to do another panel, but had to get on the highway instead.

And that's my time at Anticipation/WorldCon 2009. Great fun and maybe I'll get back to Anticipation next year, if I've got something to show (like a new book!)

UPDATE: The restuarant was the Restaurant Vallier. Great food. Try the halibut BLT (Yes, halibut. Welcome to Quebec). Thanks, Gabrielle!

Good Tips of Being on a Panel

Five days until I arrive at Anticipation (AKA WorldCon 2009), and I am prepping for my panels and getting my materials together. I'm getting all sorts of excited, first because it's WorldCon, which is going to be huge and great fun, but because it's Montreal, which is one of the most beautiful cities in Canada.

Meanwhile, my friend and editor-in-chief, Gabrielle Harbowy, is writing clever things on her blog about what to do as a panelist at a convention. It's a good little list and one that I will try to remember and no doubt forget and I wander around, enjoying the whole thing.

Look forward to seeing folks there. Now, I'm going to go do some of that editing on Cold Magics that I'm so far behind on.

Polaris!

Last night was the first night for Polaris 23 and a load of fun as usual. Attended the Blastoff party and got to speak with Matt Frewer, who is a very nice man and told me some interesting things about Doctor Doctor which he did in the 1980's and which was brilliantly funny.

Also got to meet Michael Hogan, another fine actor from Battle Star Galactica and many fine TV series including CTV's Cold Squad. Good actor.

And, finally (among the actors) got to meet the lovely Claudia Black who is as beautiful in person as she is on the screen and a lovely to talk with.

Saw and spoke with various other writers there, too: Douglas Smith, Julia Czerneda, Lesley Livingston, and Adrienne Cress.

Did my first panel at 11 p.m. and had great fun with it, but I didn't get to bed until 1:30 a.m. and my little girl got be up at 7:30. Man, am I tired.

Will be heading over there at noonish today. Looking forward to a good afternoon of schmoozing and book selling.

I'll be doing my reading at 7 p.m. tonight, and panels at 10 and 11 p.m., so do come out if you are in the area. My signing is tomorrow afternoon at 4 p.m.

Now, time to figure out which bit of Cold Magics I should read. First time reading any of it in public, too. Hmmm...

Erik at Ad Astra

Was looking around the web one day...

All right, I was looking to see how many mentions there were of my name. This is a valid marketing exercise and should in no way be construed to be me desperately attempting to stroke my ego by finding signs of my popularity.

Really.

No, really.

Anyway...

I discovered Nick's Musings, which is a blog by a literature student from Waterloo. On there I found this post about Ad Astra, which featured some great pictures of panels, including this one of me:




















Nick, great photo. I especially like that you caught Small Magics in the shot, too.

Polaris Day 2

I had forgotten how much fun panels are to do. Yesterday I did panels on avoiding procrastination when you write, getting from writing to being published, and an expertise panel, where those of us who know something offered info for those who don't.

I also taught my "Things That Make You Go EEEWWWW!!!!!" course which was all about joint breaks and eye gouges and all that fun stuff. A good time was had by all three participants,

Sigh.

But I heard a rumour the "Instant Kung Fu!" if going to be fairly well attended. I hope so. I want to give the convention their money's worth.

Also held a reading and had more than twice as many people attend this year as last year (that means five people came). And three of them bought the book right there! Yay! I sighed them and then people asked to have their pictures taken with me. It was so cool!

And then I went home.

I should have attended the constellation awards but God's truth I was exhausted, and the house was empty so I ate homemade pizza, had a beer, and watched "One Upon a Time in Mexico."

All right, I watched most of it. Then I fell asleep. So I went to bed. Ain't I exciting?

More to come...

Polaris 21

Some time ago I said I'd talk about how Polaris 21 went. And now I am.

When we last left our bungling hero, I was stumbling around the house until 3:30 AM the night before, having gotten the dates for Polaris 21 completely wrong, and now was desperately scrambling to get organized. Finally, I succumbed to exhaustion at 4:30 AM.

Up at 7:30, I finished getting the stuff ready and them proceeded to call my assistant way to early to see if he was available. Of course he wasn't, so I went by myself.

And I had a blast.

There were great costumes, wonderful displays, great merchants (I bought a Bokken!). I sat on five panels ranging from the effects of TV, Film and Video game violence to how to manage using technical talk in your sci-fi writing without completely driving off the reader. Met some great people including Tanya Huff, who's vampire books (blood line, blood ties, and many others) are being made into a TV series. Good for you Tanya!

Both stage combat workshops went well and were reasonably well attend (though scheduled at the same time as Tanya Huff's and Barbara Hambly's signings, dammit), and the two people who showed up for my reading both said they liked the book very much and would buy it as soon as it comes out. And one of the people who was coming in to kick us out for the next group, said what he heard sounded really tense and interesting.

And if you figure that that makes three people who were there and three people is a crowd, then there was a whole crowd of people at my reading and everyone in it loved my book!

And if you're reading this, guys, go here to get an advanced copy!

Oh, well, that's what happens when you get put opposite Marina Sirtis signing autographs. I wouldn't have been there myself.

I'm on the clock in three minutes, but I wanted to end by saying I had a great time and thanks to David at Polaris for inviting me, and to everyone I met, played with, and talked with.

See you next year!