Day in the Life of an Idiot

 I'm cuddled up in a queen-size bed in a swank hotel room right now, nibbling on complimentary mixed nuts and trail mix.  I feel kind of like a rock star.

Let me tell you, my friends: Minicon knows how to treat their GoHs.

An old colleague of mine, Laramie came up to me after opening ceremonies and asked, "Did you ever imagine, all those years ago in Wyrdsmiths, that you'd end up here?" I think I said, "Being a guest of honor at Minicon has been on my bucket list since forever, yeah." Because it has.  Minicon use to be 'con,' back in the day. It was the biggest and best show in town for SF/F writers, long before the fan war in 1998 that broke it (or, some might say "began the intentional scaling back of attendees.")* I'm not trying to bring up old wounds. I only mention it because when that dream went onto the bucket list, Minicon was a very different con. I met my future agent at the Minicon hotel restaurant back when I'd hoped he be my editor... I cut my teeth on paneling at Minicon, and, really, it was the con where I learned about capital-F Fandom and sat at the feet of giants.

Minicon was critical to my science fiction writing career.

So, hopefully, I'm giving back a little of what they've given me not only this weekend, but also over the decades.

My first panel today was "Is This the Cyberpunk Future We @ere Promised?" which was actually a really interesting discussion. My old friend Greg Johnson moderated it, and he did an amazing job. We touched on everything from how people treat sex robots to current concerns about Russian hacking and Facebook, to amusing conversations I've had with my Alexa (a.k.a. the Amazon Echo.) We also, of course, talked about the cyberpunk genre and whether or not it died when William Gibson announced its death, or if it's still continuing.  

Opening Ceremonies was up next and included the first appearance of the puppet that will be playing Tate Hallaway in the interview tomorrow.



There was a very silly bit of theater of Tate and I having arguments with ourselves (which was all me... very surreal.) At any rate, much fun was had. Afterwards, I did feel a little badly that I didn't get a chance to tell Minicon how honored I was to be a guest there. Ah well. Hopefully, my entertainment factor made up for that.

The final panel of the evening was "I am Not Chuck Tingle" wherein the panelist discussed the phenomenon that is Chuck Tingle.It was a very silly, off-the-wall discussion, which culminated with Stephen Brust suggesting that, while one of us might be the real Chuck Tingle, all of us have a tiny piece of Chuck Tingle somewhere inside us." To which most of the panelists instantly added, "In the butt."  It was fun and funny, and I was glad to have shared a panel with Rachel Swirsky, because, as I have been saying non-stop, she is awesome and you should buy all her things.

Tomorrow is my busiest day, so I should probably go to sleep soon.

Goodnight! I will report more tomorrow evening!


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*It's interesting to try to find something written about this event which I remember quite vividly being a 'fan war' between the 'literary' element and the 'media' fans.  The only official place that sort of touches on this bit of fanfare that I found with my feeble googling skills is on CONvergence's archive page, which makes sense, since both MarsCON and CONvergence spawned out of that war.