Complex Numbers

Con, Day 2

This morning was a different writing workshop, led by the same moderator. While this is a s-f/fantasy/horror/other geeky stuff convention, the principles were rather universal: character, plot, setting (I will not speak of the "literary" genre of writing which lacks character, setting, plot, and readability). We didn't actually write much, instead spending most of the time discussing everyone's brief writing. Useful. Tough crowd, but useful.

My work wasn't the best, but it was far from the worst, so that was encouraging.

What wasn't encouraging was the next thing I went to, a panel discussion on getting your short stories published. "There's only three print mags left," one guy said - referring, of course, to spec-fic markets. "And maybe seven legitimate online publishers."

Great.

Well, I was never intending to do this stuff for a living.

Afternoon brought a "Watching the Watchmen" panel discussion, where it became clear that a) everyone who liked the graphic novel also liked the movie; b) Nevertheless, there are things we'd all do different with the movie; and c) I knew more about the storyline than anyone else, which I suppose makes me either well-read in geek circles or a loser - amounts to the same thing, I suppose.

The best part, though, was a small group of Something*Positive fans gathered around a table with Randy Milholland listening to him talk about the comic and asking him questions. Turns out nearly every character in S*P (I linked it yesterday) has a real-life inspiration. That frightened me. And amused me, simultaneously. Randy's a good guy, even though he likes to fuck with his readers' heads - I got a signed Choo-Choo Bear sketch and a copy of the print version of Super Stupor.

There's not much that interests me tomorrow, so I'll probably go to a writing workshop in the morning, then head back home to my cat-diminished house and, well, hopefully do some writing...

Oh. And this

http://myfirstdictionary.blogspot.com/

is hilarious.