Okay, Steven, then I guess I had better get going...
I was up early Saturday and scoured up some breakfast in the Green Room. At 11am I moderated the "Evil but Organized" religion panel. The other panalists were Catherine Raymond, Paul Estin, Robert J. Sawyer, and Catherin Shaffer, all of whom had interesting thought-out things to say. I played "traffic cop" and attempted to make sure that everyone got to say their piece. It was a lively panel, with a lot of audience participation. Most were polite enough to raise their hands and wait their turn, but we had one woman who seemed to think that the rules didn't apply to her and would jump in whenever she wanted and I had to cut her off so others could get their fair turn. When the topic is religion and you have only 55 minutes and 30-40 people, it's hard to make sure everyone gets a chance to speak.
A new convention attendee panel followed immediately. We had three first-time attendees and one guy for whom this was his third panel. I always like doing these panels, but there's not much to say about them.
I sat in on the story telling versus style panel. The overwhelming opinion was that story telling ability was
more important for commercial success than writing style. Jim Frenkel put forth the opinion that while writing skill can be learned, good story telling is a talent and not something that can be learned. Some of the books that Jim held up as successful examples of story telling in spite of poor writing style are books that I cast aside after a few pages because I couldn't stand the writing, but I have to agree that those books are very successful. I'm not a style-over-writing person, but I do have a minimum level of writing quality I will tolerate. (Or, probably more accuratly, the worse the writing, the better the story telling has to be for me to be able to ignore it.) "Lit fic" folks have a long history of writing for themselves stuff that no one else wants to read, but now it occurs to me that many popular fiction/genre writers, because they care about the writing, might also find their literary tastes at odds with what the general public likes.
My final panel was the 3pm "Weirdness Tour" of the Dealer's Room with Fan Guest of Honor Geri Sullivan. We had about 6 or so people join us. I suggested that we vote for our top "weird items" and have them mentioned in the convention's on-site newsletter "InFusion", and Geri did a wonderful write-up that appeared in InFusion #4. My personal favorite weird item was the Anakin Skywalker Collector Watch. To see the time, you flip up Anakin's plastic-molded face. (eww...)
From 4pm - 5pm, Sarah, Steven, and I retired to my room to talk and rest a bit. That hour passed far too quickly. Then at 5pm, Joe and I had dinner with Anne and Steve at a wondeful Vietnamese restaurant in Royal Oak.
When we returned, we caught a bit of the masquerade. The demon thing with the huge horn (sorry, don't know the name), took best of show, but perhaps the most spectacular costume was the rainbow fairies. Some nine young women decked out in beautiful fairy costumes, each one a different color. The costumes were rather risque (showing more than what you usually see at a Michigan con), and it wasn't long before a non-convention hotel guest complained. The hotel requested that the fairies stay out of the public areas of the hotel.
At 10pm the dance started. The Gaylaxians did a great job decorating and setting up the dance, and seemed to do a pretty good job running it. I didn't hear my favorite dance tunes, but I only stuck around for the first hour. Tim and I danced a few tunes before we both mutally decided to bug out. I wanted to do some more room parties, but I was exhausted. I landed in the Penguicon party again and I didn't budge until I went to bed. Tracy Worcester gave me a lovely shoulder massage. She does massage professionally, so if you see her set up with her portable massage chair at a convention, buy yourself a 10-20 minute massage. It's well worth it.
Coming soon... Loose Ends on Sunday
Comments