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Readercon 21 - Day One
Jul. 8th, 2010 09:52 amHotel internet is 13.76 a day. Though they claim if you charge it to the room, that they'll only charge you once even if you're two (or more) people with two (or more) computers/devices. For those keeping track, that's 76 cents more than last year.
Internet worked without a problem. Key card worked without a problem (so far). 4.50 if you'd like to drink their fancy water in a shampoo bottle. The coffee fixin's are in a little wooden box. Swanky. They tell you to hang up your towels if you don't need them washed, but then only provide one small towel rack, in the shower. We're on the top floor at the end of the hall, but noisy people wake us up! First someone hacking up a lung. Then kids yelling. Then people talking. Then an argument. All before 9 o'clock. Ugh. Maybe the party floor, where they originally wanted to put us, would've been quieter!
I ate at the hotel bar, because the hotel restaurant is insanely priced. For a restaurant that prides itself on serving produce it grows itself, you'd think there'd be more vegetarian options. Or are they growing oysters and veal back behind the hotel?
The bar is noisy. I really hate that. I think this was my first time going into a bar by myself. There weren't a lot of places to sit, especially for someone alone. So I ended up on a high stool at a bar (but not the bar). I asked for a cheese sandwich, then she was asking me all these questions, so I decided it'd be easier to ask for a turkey club without the turkey. Or the bacon. But with cheese. She said she'd have to charge me for the turkey club. Well, of course she would. Then she asked me if I wanted chips? Fries? I said sure, yup. Chips? Fries? It really took about 3 repetitions before I realized she wanted me to make a choice! The menu had said fries, so I just thought she was calling them chips! In the end I asked for fries.
And she brought me chips.
Well, he did. Because the women take the orders and give you the check, but the men bring the food. And I told him I'd asked for fries. So he went back to get me some. And they never appeared. Until I flagged him down and was like 'Fries?'. So, eventually I got my fries. (But no ketchup, so I had to snag some from a nearby table.) So it took me a full hour to eat a sandwich and fries!
I was just in time for the start of Barry Longyear's.. presentation? Lecture? It was about how to feed the writer's imagination. But basically it boiled down to how he organizes all of his research and novel notes. I was confused about why he kept photos in a spreadsheet. And he did say some and demonstrate (and had a handout) some interesting things that I might use at some point. Though it seemed far more useful for a novel than a short story. He told about his revelation that you could actually talk to your characters, that they were real people, that you could trust them to finish the story for you. I guess anyone who's been roleplaying since they were a teenager already knows that.
Some of what he said sounded time-consuming, money-consuming, and indulgent though. We can't all travel to the places where we want to set our story, and collect books and various paraphernalia that will help us out when we're writing. As much as we'd like to!
Well, and so that was billed as a discussion, but the discussion part didn't start until an hour into it. And other programming started then. Including programming that some of the discussion participants were in! Brilliant, that.
I ducked out to go to the speculative poetry workshop.
It was going from someone who was super-organized to something that felt ad-hoc. But that was okay. I believe the presenter was Mike Allen. He read a bit from Cat Valente's lj post about SF poetry. And then we all wrote several short poems. Then we picked one (or a mashup) and expanded on it. Then some people read what they're written and people offered feedback.
I still don't know what to think about poetry in general. I really like Jabberwocky and The Raven. And.. not much else. Although that one with the guy who saws off his arm is an image that sticks with you. Though I don't remember any words from it, or the name. Read it in junior high or HS.
If SF poetry is an outline, a pretty outline, of a story. Then.. why not write the whole story? In prose? The reader would get more time to spend with it. (Like the benefits of a novel versus a short story. Or a series versus a novel.) Plus, more lucrative.
Maybe I don't feel that I have such a surplus of ideas that I can 'waste' one in a poem. Can you do the same idea in a poem that you do in a short story? Is it okay to expand a poem to short story length, like some people expand a short story to novel length? Because I do have a story I was working on that could make a very good poem, actually. If I was at all skilled at turning it into one.
Maybe I'd better stick with what I know.
Then it was after 10:30, so I went upstairs. Finished my 500 words, because all the poetry writing only amounted to 300-something. Diddled on the internet for a bit, then read Makers on my e-reader until I fell asleep.
The end.
Now, off to registration and to check out the consuite.
Internet worked without a problem. Key card worked without a problem (so far). 4.50 if you'd like to drink their fancy water in a shampoo bottle. The coffee fixin's are in a little wooden box. Swanky. They tell you to hang up your towels if you don't need them washed, but then only provide one small towel rack, in the shower. We're on the top floor at the end of the hall, but noisy people wake us up! First someone hacking up a lung. Then kids yelling. Then people talking. Then an argument. All before 9 o'clock. Ugh. Maybe the party floor, where they originally wanted to put us, would've been quieter!
I ate at the hotel bar, because the hotel restaurant is insanely priced. For a restaurant that prides itself on serving produce it grows itself, you'd think there'd be more vegetarian options. Or are they growing oysters and veal back behind the hotel?
The bar is noisy. I really hate that. I think this was my first time going into a bar by myself. There weren't a lot of places to sit, especially for someone alone. So I ended up on a high stool at a bar (but not the bar). I asked for a cheese sandwich, then she was asking me all these questions, so I decided it'd be easier to ask for a turkey club without the turkey. Or the bacon. But with cheese. She said she'd have to charge me for the turkey club. Well, of course she would. Then she asked me if I wanted chips? Fries? I said sure, yup. Chips? Fries? It really took about 3 repetitions before I realized she wanted me to make a choice! The menu had said fries, so I just thought she was calling them chips! In the end I asked for fries.
And she brought me chips.
Well, he did. Because the women take the orders and give you the check, but the men bring the food. And I told him I'd asked for fries. So he went back to get me some. And they never appeared. Until I flagged him down and was like 'Fries?'. So, eventually I got my fries. (But no ketchup, so I had to snag some from a nearby table.) So it took me a full hour to eat a sandwich and fries!
I was just in time for the start of Barry Longyear's.. presentation? Lecture? It was about how to feed the writer's imagination. But basically it boiled down to how he organizes all of his research and novel notes. I was confused about why he kept photos in a spreadsheet. And he did say some and demonstrate (and had a handout) some interesting things that I might use at some point. Though it seemed far more useful for a novel than a short story. He told about his revelation that you could actually talk to your characters, that they were real people, that you could trust them to finish the story for you. I guess anyone who's been roleplaying since they were a teenager already knows that.
Some of what he said sounded time-consuming, money-consuming, and indulgent though. We can't all travel to the places where we want to set our story, and collect books and various paraphernalia that will help us out when we're writing. As much as we'd like to!
Well, and so that was billed as a discussion, but the discussion part didn't start until an hour into it. And other programming started then. Including programming that some of the discussion participants were in! Brilliant, that.
I ducked out to go to the speculative poetry workshop.
It was going from someone who was super-organized to something that felt ad-hoc. But that was okay. I believe the presenter was Mike Allen. He read a bit from Cat Valente's lj post about SF poetry. And then we all wrote several short poems. Then we picked one (or a mashup) and expanded on it. Then some people read what they're written and people offered feedback.
I still don't know what to think about poetry in general. I really like Jabberwocky and The Raven. And.. not much else. Although that one with the guy who saws off his arm is an image that sticks with you. Though I don't remember any words from it, or the name. Read it in junior high or HS.
If SF poetry is an outline, a pretty outline, of a story. Then.. why not write the whole story? In prose? The reader would get more time to spend with it. (Like the benefits of a novel versus a short story. Or a series versus a novel.) Plus, more lucrative.
Maybe I don't feel that I have such a surplus of ideas that I can 'waste' one in a poem. Can you do the same idea in a poem that you do in a short story? Is it okay to expand a poem to short story length, like some people expand a short story to novel length? Because I do have a story I was working on that could make a very good poem, actually. If I was at all skilled at turning it into one.
Maybe I'd better stick with what I know.
Then it was after 10:30, so I went upstairs. Finished my 500 words, because all the poetry writing only amounted to 300-something. Diddled on the internet for a bit, then read Makers on my e-reader until I fell asleep.
The end.
Now, off to registration and to check out the consuite.