Day in the Life of an Idiot

 My deepest apologies. I've been busy doing the things I do, including the podcast.  

I did a lot of TTRPGing since the last time we chatted. I ran a D&D game on Saturday, played in a somewhat disasterous Star Trek: Adventures game that same night, and ran a Thirsty Sword Lesbians game Tuesday night. I don't game nearly as often as this list makes me seem. I just swear to all the gods that whatever day my D&D group has agreed to play that month, I also have Star Trek game that same night. Likewise, the TSL group will just somehow fall in the same week. I literally play/run at least TWO of these three games MONTHLY. How they all end up clustered like this is, indeed, a mystery. 

I'm also in the last few hours of nominating for the Hugo's. I pulled the trigger and bought virtual tickets to Seattle WorldCON at the same time. When I virtually attended Glasgow's WorldCON, one of the tech guys told me that they'd be using a lot of the same program/technologies and I hope that's true. I found the virtual version of that con particularly robust and, perhaps more importantly, decently inuitive to use. 

I should also report that part of my lack of communication/updatery here is the fact that Mason is home for Spring Break. He's currently off at a coffee shop working on his senior thesis, so, if y'all are so inclined, I'm sure he could use white light and thoughts and prayers. ;-) My understanding of his thesis work is the intersection of science fiction and environmental justice. I mean, pretty cool stuff!  And perfectly aligned with his majors, which are, in fact, English and Environmental Studies. 

Otherwise, how the heck are you all? 

 I had two panels yesterday. I moderated "The Immersive Possibilities of Horror Podcasts" and was on "Everything We Love (a Little or a Lot) about Fan Fiction."

One of these was a disaster. Can you guess which one?

No! The one I moderated went smashingly!  I had a brief moment of panic when I showed up to the panel at the proscribed twenty minutes ahead of time and it was just me and Jennifer Brozak. Jennifer kindly reassured me that, worse case scenario, we could just squee about the various horror audio dramas that we love (which, while I was not prepared for that, I agreed would probably work out fine.) Then another panelist showed up--one who had not shared his e-mail, so once he got everything working, I briefed him on the proposed agenda, my moderating style (hoping for freeform, but, because this was online, might nudge who to go next if no one seems sure who should). Then, when it was still just us three ten minutes to, I sent out a follow-up email saying, "Hey, please log-on if you haven't already. We're about to start!" I did this because Jennifer had been having a very hard time with the time zone calculations and missed a number of panels, including one she was meant to moderate. At any rate, the nudge worked! It prompted a fourth panelist to show up. We went live with the four of us, but not even before introductions were finished, our final panelist came on, profusely apologizing. They were in California and had nearly overslept. 

But, after that, we filled our time perfectly. The questions and answers went well, I think, and, because I had listened to everyone's podcast at least a little, I was able to speak directly to some of the kinds of audio work they did (and remind audience where to find the various shows). I kept a close eye on the time. In fact, I had everyone wrap up so fast that we ended up just shouting recs at the end, which was kind of adorable--at least to me.

It had, I think, the perfect combination of "these people are clearly knowledgeable about their work" and "also real people."

The disaster panel was "Everything We Love (a Little or a Lot) about Fan Fiction." 

I am not going to name names here, but this year's WorldCON seems to have an overarching theme of "there are some Big Names who think the rules don't apply to them." The person on this panel was not as big a name as GRRM, but they were the person on the panel that it's likely most of the audience had heard of, in terms of books sold, current-ness of publications, etc.

But, so, I showed up, as is requested in all of the materials sent out to panelists, at LEAST twenty minutes early. The reason for that is so, like with one of my panelist on the podcast panel, all technical difficulties can be ironed out before the broadcast goes live onto RingCentral. In the case of my previous panel, it took the second panelist a good ten minutes to fully connect properly. He had try something, have it continue to not work, and then totally reboot his entire computer, etc., before it all sorted itself out. He showed up in plenty of time, however. Which is good, because once things go live, the technical support person really has no way to talk to the panelist in trouble, except through the private chat (which you can only see, if you're logged in correctly) or via email. 

But, so, back to the fanfic panel...

When I come on, the technical support person asks me if I've done a panel like this before. I assume (correctly) that what she means is, "Have you used Steamyard yet at the con?" I say, yes, in fact, I just came off a Steamyard panel that I moderated. She asks if I had any technical issues during that panel, and I say, I did not, one of our panelist did, but it was all sorted before we went live, thank you all for your amazing work (<--like you do.)

Big Name swans onto the panel five minutes ahead of launch. The tech assistant who is still on the screen at this point asks very nicely to Big Name, whether or not they've done this kind of online panel before. They fully misinterpret the question and seem vaguely insulted to be asked, as there is a hair toss and, "This ain't my first online con rodeo."

WHELP. 

Maybe you spoke too soon, Big Name.

Because almost immediately Big Name starts having technical problems. They seemed to kind of have it working, we go live, but then--of f*cking COURSE--proceeded THOUGHOUT THE ENTIRE PANEL pop in an out or be distractedly mouthing swears, etc., etc. 

We tried to carry on?

However, any time we'd start to get a thought going, Big Name would be there with an "Ah! I'm back!" seize a few seconds, and then, inevitably, drop back off. Or worse, come on and bring with them this terrible beeping sound that caused at least one of the other panelist to have to remove their headphones (as I think they were particularly noise-sensitive and so the sound likely physically hurt them.) 

You know how this could have been solved, Big Name?

BY ATTENDING THE ONLINE TRAINING SESSION LIKE THE REST OF US.

I lost sleep in order to go to one of these. I got the time wrong and ended up staying up late only to realize that 2 am in Glasgow Monday, was actually a time in my time zone on SUNDAY--so I'd missed the training by a full day. Apparently, a lot of other people made this mistake, and so Glasgow kindly sent out another set of options for training. I carefully did the calculations for that and attended just so someone could walk me through how it would work and to get tips like, "Steamyard really plays best with Chrome, so if you don't have it, please consider temporarily installing it," etc., etc. 

And, yeah, one of the things they "trained us" on was Zoom, which many people are sure they're fully comfortable with, but I knew that Zoom was only for the hybrid panels and every single one one of these proprietary online meeting spaces, like Steamyard, has some kind of special foible, so I was there to learn about Steamyard... and, yeah, as it happens, it's also simple enough, but I'm still glad I went. I feel that not only did my attendance show respect to the tech folks, but it also gave me a chance to to listen to all of their specialized knowledge and to be able to ask question directly about how hybrids would function, what was good to know about Steamyard and all of that.  I also just, personally, feel less nervous knowing that I've done all I can to make sure my end of the con goes smoothly. 

Maybe Big Name really is all that busy and couldn't make any of the half-dozen training sessions. Okay, then. SHOW UP AHEAD OF THE PANEL WHEN YOU WERE ASKED TO. They built in thirty full minutes between online sessions in a single room so that problems like this could be fixed well-ahead of going live. 

I don't know who Big Name is blaming at the end of the day, but I'm sure if they are complaining it's in the vein of, "The tech side of WorldCON was a mess! Why do these cons always have to have a different system for their online things!!??" like this isn't ENTIRELY their fault. 

Fill out the form if you want to be on programming, George.

Go to the tech sessions, if you want your online experience to be smooth, Other Big Name.

It's not that hard, people. In fact, it's the LEAST you can do.

 
Image: Me, on a panel at Glasgow WorldCON (hopefully not being too ridiculous.)

First, I have to say that the technical folks behind-the-scenes at WorldCON are INSANELY competent. I'm sooooo impressed. Getting into the panel was seamless. I was really impressed with how, on Zoom, we were able to not only see our fellow in-person panelists, but also a shot of the live audience (so that we could gauge reactions.)  Technically, it could not have been better. I'm sure there will be various technical snafus as the con continues, but this one went off in a way that seemed effortless--though very clearly that just meant well orchestrated. 

My first panel was "Let them Eat! Food in Anime." It went very well--at least from my perspective. I don't think I talked too much. This is a problem/bonus of being on a panel with me. I'm very much a cooperative overlapper, who will get excited and build on what has been said, but, in some ways, Zoom makes it easier for me to 'behave." I can put on the mute and nod along and make my "uh-huh" noises silently, and not be as tempted to leap in. Or if I am tempted, I can just mouth things to myself. I did re-watch a bit of the replay which is available on RingCentral and I *think* I did okay. 

I really loved everyone on the panel. They were all very knowledgeable and I loved that An wore her bear ears! I was telling Mason afterwards: THESE ARE MY PEOPLE.

Plus, I got to have an actual squee moment when someone in the audience mentioned Mr. Villain's Day Off, which I freaking LOVE. And my insane enthusiasm made the audience laugh. So, there is that. 

I'm currently listening to one of the livestream panels "Book Bans and Moral Fascism." 

I was inspired by my positive experience to get my questions and agenda together for the panel I need to moderate, so hopefully that will help them as much as Ryan's outline helped me.

Okay, not much else to report! More tomorrow!

PART ONE.

 The first part of which begins like this. I'm going through my online calendar just to make sure that I have all my WorldCON panels sorted out and in the right time zone, when I look at "The Immersive Possibilities of Horror Audio" and I happen to notice...

...I'M THE MODERATOR. 

I'm pretty sure that I had checked that I didn't really want to be a moderator, but, just to be clear, I don't entirely mind. I clearly approved it? And, in many ways, I'm the perfect person to do this since I am NOT a podcast producer. Even Jennifer Brozek, who I'd initially thought was "just" an author, (like me) does a horror flash fiction podcast called Five Minute Stories.

BUT. It feels really weird to moderate a panel if you haven't at least heard of some of the work that the panelists have been involved in? So, I now have a "listening list" (like a reading list, only for podcasts) that includes: Call of Cthulhu Mystery Program, "Mother," She Wrote, The-Channel-Show, and Five Minute Shorts. One of the other people on the panel who didn't include his email seems to produce dozens of award winning podcasts of things like Murder on the Orient Express, Long Night in Egypt, etc. 

Specifically, I am supposed to be discussing the immersive possibilities, which are described thusly: Eerie, unsettling, and spooky tales are a perfect fit for audio dramas. Our panelists converse on modern horror audio dramas, like The Lovecraft Investigations, The Magnus Archives, and Old Gods of Appalachia, and how they use clever sound design, ambient audio, and other audio techniques to immerse their audiences in the world of their stories.

Audio techniques.

Wish me luck, y'all. I know jack all about audio techniques!  But, I suppose that my ignorance is where I will start. What are the basic audio techniques you might use to create atmosphere in your horror podcasts? Why are wind chimes inherently spooky and lonely sounding?

But, so that's kind of the stuff of nightmares. 

Luckily, my panel isn't until Saturday and I can spend some time listening to the various podcasts and thinking up my questions. I do also hope to talk to the panelists about the actual podcasts listed since I'm a huge fan of all of them.


PART TWO.

It's not just WorldCON that is haunting me this week. Let me just go down everything I have to do. Tonight, Monday, at 6 pm, I'm going to be attending a ConFABulous programming committee meeting that I foolishly volunteered to be part of. Actually, I did this last year, too, and it was fine. Unfortunately, I have been feeling incredibly brain dead when it comes to panel ideas for a GLBTQIA+ (mostly gaming) convention. In fact, in desperation, I looked at what is being offered at WorldCON this week, in the hopes that it might at least clue me into what the hot new queer books/podcasts/movies/TV are this year. Alas, WorldCON has a number of queer-focused panels, but.. they don't name their sources!  So, like they're going to talk about Queer Characters in YA Fiction, but they don't say, "like so-and-so in such-and-such." So, I need to spend a least part of today trying to put my finger on the pulse of what people might want to talk about at a queer gaming con. IF YOU HAVE ANY IDEAS, PLEASE COMMENT BELOW. 

Okay, moving on. Tuesday afternoon I have a "how to" training session for WorldCON online. I am also meeting a friend for an online chat later, but that's fun and not work. That will be the carrot to the stick, if you will. I suspect the first will be tedious, but necessary. I always attend these, if possible, because there's always some secret that they forget to tell you in their written instructions that is both obvious and easy to miss. Like, where on the right hand side of the screen the whatever button is. (And we all know how crucial the whatever button is.)

Wednesday I might have started back up with my problematic D&D group because they are running an all warlock mini-campaign, which just sounded too fun to resist. Do I want to talk about this? Maybe, but not today when I'm generally feeling overwhelmed. I promise to post about it in a filtered/locked post.

Thursday, I have my first WorldCON panel at 7:00 AM, and then, exactly twelve hours later, I host my writers' group in-person at my house. My writers group, in their infinite wisdom, has decided that we need to meet in-person again (Congratulations! There's currently a surge in COVID cases across the nation!) I agreed to this with much grumbling because 1) see above (the grumbling), and 2) there has been a lot of noise throughout the years since we had to pivot to Zoom about how hard it is for people to concentrate online, etc., etc., and despite the fact that this has never been true for me, I do believe that it's a real issue for other people and I legitimately want to respect that (the agreeing).   

May I just say? Despite this insistence, we have yet to have an in-person meeting where everyone actually shows up. At least two people have been (or will be) missing every time we do in-person meetings--we've only had one so far, and, to be fair, at least one of the absentees this time is from someone who will be in Glasgow, so I suppose I must forgive. However, I suspect this trend will continue because MOTIVATING YOURSELF TO GET OUT OF THE HOUSE IS HARD. This was my number two reason for not wanting to go back to in-person. (#1 being that COVID is not over, despite how much we want to think it is.)  Luckily, I grumbled loudly enough that we are actually only meeting in-person for half of our regularly scheduled meetings. On the second Thursday of every month, we are in-person, but on the fourth Thursday we are still Zooming. I think that second bit (the Zoom meeting) will actually ensure that our group continues to actually function. We also all agreed that, should it just be easier (snow/weather emergency or what-have-you) we can just shift to Zoom. 

Who knows? Maybe I will press that button Thursday if I feel overwhelmed. 

Friday, thank god, I have nothing on. But then Saturday is my big programming day (including the one I'm moderating!) and I have one panel each, Sunday and Monday of next week. 

AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!

I mean, I am actually incredibly chuffed (as one might say in the UK) about my WorldCON schedule. I'm very pleased and feel very, very lucky to be taking part in so many wonderful panels, but I like to really prepare for panels, so I am feeling like it's finals week, you know?

Okay. I'd better go off and try to figure out what the queer youth of today are up to!

 Mason has left the building.

This morning was like old times. All three of us were up before the crack of dawn and bundled into the car. I took Shawn to work first and then, instead of taking Mason to Washington Tech, like the old day, I took him and his backpack (and duffle bag) to the airport. Any minute now, he'll be winging his way back to school in Connecticut. 

We'll miss him.

Per my previous blog, one of the things we did this last weekend was go out to Tavern on Grand, as it will be shuttering some time this year (early June is what the papers said, I think.)  The place was packed, which was a little freaky for us, since we are still avoiding crowds as a general rule and masking in most public places. We decided we really wanted to do it, anyway, so we we masked as much as possible, and managed to have a decent night out. Hopefully, we did not tempt fate. Fingers crossed.

Otherwise, it was a quiet weekend around chez Morehouse. I'm still working on finishing up my gaudy Valentine's quilt. There is so much glitter, so many hearts. I will be surprised if anyone wants this thing when it's finished. But, it is kinda cute? I should have it pieced fully by tonight, so perhaps there will be in-progress pictures tomorrow.

Tonight is going to be a long one. Shawn has a Friends of the Ramsey County Library board meeting tonight that she can't skip. As I am the family chauffer, I will be in attendance as well--just skulking around the stacks, looking for manga to read. I just finished a couple of first volumes. Last time I was stuck hanging out at the library, I was in the grown-up section and picked up Mieruko-chan by Izumi Tomoki, which... I'm uncertain why it ended up shelves with adult materials. The horror elements are reminiscent of Ito Junji, who somehow, always ends up shelved as adult. My biggest guess is that the art style is fairly ecchi? There's a lot of fan service--but, like, not all that much more than you might find in standard shounen manga, many of which are shelved in teens. I really wish I could be a fly on the wall for some of these decisions. I mean, I'd be fine with all the fan-service stuff being shelved as "adult"? or all as "teen"? But, be consistent is all I ask. I mean, maybe something very ADULT is on its way in this series, but volume one was very typical of "girl sees horror stuff."

The other manga I picked up and read the first volume of was a very strange series from the 1970s called Orochi by Umezu Kazuo, I say it's weird because our titular heroine doesn't appear to be human, and clearly has some supernatural powers? Like, she has the ability to reanimate the dead, but isn't aware enough of human nature to understand why this might be a VERY BAD IDEA. I picked up two volumes of this one and will probably try to read the second before I pass too much judgment on it as a series. The library had all five volumes, so if I decide I like it enough to continue, I can read the whole series.

I'm also still doing a few things for Cheryl Morgan at Wizard Tower, but given the Chengdu blow-up, I suspect she's not in a hurry to hear back from me.... https://www.cheryl-morgan.com/?p=29370

As I think I've previously mentioned, I changed from attending Chicon 8 / 80th WorldCON in-person to virtual. I really waffled long and hard about this, but two things factored into my decision to go virtual. First, the pandemic, despite our wishful thinking, rages on. Secondly, this weekend is the same weekend that Mason heads back to Wesleyan University to start his second year of college. Even though my son is a fully grown and capable adult, I would still have been sad to not have been able to see him off to the airport.

I made the switch to virtual just as they were sending out programming. I got an AMAZING initial, draft, in-person schedule:


Image: my initial draft schedule.

I took a screen shot of it because I figured that when I switched to Virtual that late in the game, it would be beyond hope to be accommodated. I felt that was reasonable given how much WorldCON volunteers have to juggle, I should note, though I was very sad at the prospect. So, I thought, "I shall snap this picture of what could have been and be pleased that I was in the running for so MANY super-cool looking programming items." I was especially sad, at first, imagining that I'd lost the opportunity to talk about anime film director and mangaka, Kon Satoshi.

As I posted a few days ago, I actually have a very robust virtual con schedule. I was inordinately pleased to see that the Kon Retrospective had been shifted fully to virtual. That panel is first thing tomorrow morning and I am psyched. So, I should say that going into this convention I was/am in high spirits.

Yesterday was a bit up and down for me, though.

I was able to attend the "Dress Rehearsal" for programming participants a week ago. Chicon has chosen a new-to-me online conference hosting software called Airmeet. It seems to have been specifically designed to deal with a large volume of conference attendees, and it has a couple of fun features, including a private "backstage" option for panelists to hang out in, pre live panel, to talk. My only frustration is that a new software means a large learning curve for the majority of the attendees and tutorials have been hard to come by. The session I attended, I think, tried to do too much. A lot of us writers had very specific questions about their needs and the staff tried to answer to all of them, in specific, before a general sense of how Airmeet works had really been established. But, it's mostly intuitive to the moderately internet savvy, I'd say?

But, so, okay, my con experience so far...

My virtual con yesterday was a mix of soul-crushing and uplifting, in that order, at least. Thus, I actually ended the day feeling okay about it all?

My Table Talk was the soul-crushing event. I ended up popping into one of the "lounges" that Airmeet has set up for people to gather. There is a specific kind of "help desk" one, labeled: Info. Table Talks are extra confusing on Airmeet, because they are not listed on the on-line schedule. The reason is, of course, that they're not actually PUBLIC events, per se. They're sign-up only. So, anyway, I was a little uncertain how they worked, technically, so I dropped in when no one else was in the Info room/lounge and asked the woman working there if there was anything special, mechanically, that I needed to do.

It was explained to me that when the Table Talk was about to start a notification would show up under "my meetings" and then you could click to join. That seemed very reasonable and so I asked if there was any way to tell how many people had signed up from her end. The Info Woman said no, but an automatic email would have been generated if no one had signed up at all.

Okay, I thought, there's a relief. I hadn't seen one of those.

My publisher from Wizard's Tower Press, Cheryl Morgan, saw me online and popped into the room and complained a bit to Staff Lady about the fact that she had, in fact, tried to join my Table Talk, but the sign-up closed before she could get to it. Apparently, you have to sign up ahead of time by a full day, which mostly makes sense, except apparently the online con stuff wasn't fully available early morning Wednesday. Also a lot of people just coming in did not realize that they should have done so earlier if they wanted to get on Thursday Table Talks. (Cheryl implied but didn't say that this also clearly put international fans at a disadvantage, because a reasonable time to be awake and checking one's con schedule on UK time is very different than Chicago time.) Staff Lady said that they were trying to deal with this by dropping low-attendance Table Talks into the public lounge spaces so that people might be able to spontaneously join the day of, just like you can in-person.

Okay, this is all very important because: no one but Cheryl ended up at my Table Talk.

DEMORALIZING.

BUT I also did not get any kind of email saying that I'd been cancelled, so I have no idea if there were no shows or if people didn't get the joining email when they shifted me to public--because they clearly did. I waited and waited for my "join my meeting" notification to show up and it NEVER did. Eventually, in my panic, I happened to see it materialize in the public lounge spaces, so I was able to join. So, I don't know what happened there. I should have been informed if there were ZERO attendees, and the system shouldn't have counted Cheryl because she missed the official sign-in. Did the shift to public mess up some notification that everyone, including me, should have gotten? I have no idea.

But, on the other hand Cheryl Morgan and I had a lovely talk. In fact, we were able to do some business. She was wondering if I wanted paper copies available for the e-books, and I was like, "Hell yes, why didn't we do it from the start?" So, that's something we'll be doing, which is wonderful. Then, you know, we generally caught up on each other's lives, learning Welsh/Japanese via Duolingo, and all sorts of various mundane things like that. I really like Cheryl as a person? So, even though we were both staring at each other hyper-aware of the empty "room," it wasn't a total waste of time.

My reading, on the other hand, went really well. When I pressed the "go backstage" button, I discovered that my technical assistant was the Airstream Tutorial person, a person named Gail. Gail, it turns out is a HUGE fan of mine, and basically gushed at me about how awesome I am and that was EXACTLY the pick-me-up that I needed after the empty room fiasco. Also, she could tell how many people came to the reading and it was about a dozen, which is, for me, an absolute crowd. I also told Gail that she could record the reading, so if people want to check it out later, it will be available. So, if any of you reading this report are attending virtually or have access to the virtual option, feel free to check it out. 

Afterwards, it occurred to me that the short story I read at the reading should have probably come with some trigger warnings (there's sex work and implied abuse and violence), so I reached out in chat to Gail so that she could at least add those to the recording of the reading and we had another lovely back and forth and I asked her to send me her snail mail so I could send her something, like a signed copy of a favorite book, as a thank you. She was OVER THE MOON. When I got the snail mail address, it came with another lovely, long email telling me all the things she loved about my writing.

So, ultimately, this was very gratifying for my bruised ego.

I would say, in fact, that it all came out in the wash. Because the lack of a crowd at the Table Talk seems to have possibly been the result of some technical error, I don't even REALLY feel all that badly about it.  I notice right now, in fact, that hardly anyone is taking advantage of the lounge option in Airmeet. I've been occupying a table in the so called "Coffee shop" hoping that someone will notice me and drop in, but just sitting here hasn't resulted in anything. I suppose if I want to chat, I'll have to drop a DM to someone in Airmeet and see if they want to virtually hang out. That seems more intrusive than I want to be, however. 

I'm hoping other people will post con reports because I am definitely having a case of FOMO (fear of missing out) over all of this. It would actually help me to hear other people's stories of how it's going for them.

 
Image: Willow sees something out the bedroom window.

So, I am planning on going to Chicago WorldCON. For one, Chicago! For two, naomikritzer is up for a Lodestar this year (the YA Hugo) for her novel Catfishing on Catnet, and she is my friend and I would love to see her win again (or, you know, hold her hand, if she doesn't.) 

I've been feeling very lucky to have gotten past the various hurtles to be considered for programming. Chicon has announced its first wave of programming participants and... I'm not on it. APPARENTLY, the email I got that sent me to a list to frantically check for my name, implies that there's still another chance for me to be on paneling. So, I guess I am still in the running? I am crossing my fingers.

But, you know, I am disappoint.

Like one is.

Plus, I did not manage to get my novel done by the end of May, so I am feeling generally loser-ish. 

And it's gray and threatening rain, but not actually raining. (The worst!)

WHINE.

So, here are pictures of my cats.


Image: sleepy orange boy, Buttercup.

Image: NOT NEW ZEALAND. Instead, this is a picture from a scenic overlook near Stillwater, MN, of the St. Croix River.

I spent most of the day both yesterday and the day before, NOT "attending" WorldCON. In fact, when Mason admitted to feeling a deep yearn to go on a short road trip, I literally had him put his finger down as I flipped through a new book I bought called "Day Trips From the Twin Cities."

By chance, his finger hit the entry on Taylor's Falls, a town that we had spent some time near on our trip, last year, to Michigan. We'd stopped at the Interstate State Park there. We remembered the landscape as pretty and since Mason did not want to get out of the car at all, it seemed like a perfect destination.

So, we zipped up 35E to Highway 8 and followed that to Taylor's Falls. For those unfamiliar with my lovely state, Taylor's falls is only about an hour away. We crossed over into Wisconsin briefly to try to see if it was possible to see the falls of Taylor's Falls from the car, but it was not. So, we started down the river back towards home, but had a much better experience once we crossed back over and followed highway 95 through Marine-on-St. Croix down into Stillwater.


Image: old school "screenshot" with my phone because my asus was being a butt.

Exactly what we needed.

I did a little "attending" last night, however, since naomikritzer was up for a Lodestar (as, of course, was yhlee .)  I will tell you that was also somewhat of a disappointment. I mean, Naomi won! YAY!!  But, there were technical difficulties: https://watch.thefantasy.network/the-2020-hugo-awards-livestream/https://watch.thefantasy.network/the-2020-hugo-awards-livestream/  and so she had to stop and restart, and it was like that a lot last night? Plus, following various social media snark, I wasn't alone in thinking that George RR Martin went on a bit too long about the good, old days in between announcing the winners. If you have the patience to watch this whole thing, power to you. I didn't. I wandered off and did several other things, while checking into the Discord server now and again to see who was winning. By chance, I popped back on in time to see another Twin Cities denizen, elisem  win (yay!)

If you're curious who else won what last night, check out https://locusmag.com/2020/07/2020-hugo-lodestar-and-astounding-awards-winners/

After that, I stayed awhile to follow Naomi around to various parties, but I think many of us have forgotten how to people... or all the good conversations happened after I pooped out and went to bed (which, to be fair, again is pretty typical of my in-person WorldCON experience.)

 Some time ago, I registered for CONZeland, the 78th World Science Fiction Convention.... which begins today in North America, because it is already tomorrow in New Zealand.  

I spent a surprisingly large portion of the day yesterday trying to figure out WHEN things were happening and how to sync my Discord account to their Discord channel and get set up with their other concurrent systems.

I was hoping to be able to download my schedule into my Google calendar so everything would show up completely in CDT, (GMT-6,) but if that was possible, I never figured it out. In fact, I just wrote down everything, translated to my time, on a piece of PAPER. Because, while they *did* have a way to show your time on panel descriptions, the problem was that I could never get the full schedule to appear that way. If I wanted to see *my* time zone shown, I'd have to click through to each full panel description individually. I mean, I'm glad it was there AT ALL? 

Still, this means the list under "my schedule" is pretty useless as something to quickly refer to.  And the time slots, even translated to my time zone, all appear in military time, and, as someone whose dyslexia also effects numbers, I can not easily remember what time 1800 hours is, even if you're just saying,"D'uh, Lyda, subtract 12!" That just doesn't happen easily in my head, I have to write it down to do the math, by hand, each time.

So now I have my scribbled notes. 

That should work just fine. 

This is only important because I have ONE thing that I absolutely MUST attend tomorrow (my Wednesday, New Zealand's Thursday) my UK publisher, Wizard Tower Press, is hosting a party for their authors, which includes me, and I am doing a reading for them at 2 pm (CDT.GMT-6).  IF you are also attending WorldCON, please come? 

My publisher's press release, regarding the event: https://www.cheryl-morgan.com/?p=28097

I will be reading from my newest release, Unjust Cause, which you can buy here: https://wizardstowerpress.com/books-2/books-by-tate-hallaway/unjust-cause/ or anywhere fine books are sold. This book can come to you as paper, hardcover, or e-book. /advertisement.

I have actually not yet checked to see how the party rooms operate. Are they Zoom? Are they Discord voice/video channels? This is going to matter because I'm going to have to figure out which computer to use, because not all of mine have the same processing power. If there is more than one "room" in a Zoom meeting, it has previously (at the Nebula parties I attended)  not been possible to navigate independently from my iPad, whereas it is/was, when I use Mason's old computer (which, technically, is one of mine now.)

Ah, virtual cons. 

I mean, I have really loved them? I really loved the way the Nebula parties were structured and WisCON was a blast. but, there is always this tech adjustment to be made at the start.

Hope to see you there!

Catherynne M. Valente has weighed in on the Puppies and the Hugos this morning (edited to add: apparently this came out awhile ago but was being passed around FB yesterday). I haven't read all the words because I'm suffering a bit of Hugo neepery burnout. That doesn't mean I've stopped thinking about it. In fact, I'm having some thoughts about it that are probably... I'm not sure what, but no one on my "side" is talking about it as far as I can tell.

Obviously, everything about what the SP/RP did to this year's Hugo was wrong with wrong sauce. But, I've been thinking a lot about why anyone sympathize with them, ever, under any circumstances. I don't think it's as simple as a lot of people want to paint it. It's super-easy to decide the whole lot of them are racist (and in Beale/Vox's case, that's not at all unfounded.) But, if that were the only motivator, I don't see how they'd have quite as much traction. Okay, maybe I'm being naive here. Clearly race relations are broken in the US, so maybe that's enough to fuel this kind of thing... but, okay, really? I just want to talk about ANOTHER aspect.

In Larry Correia's back and forth with George R. R. Martin, Martin vehemently denies that there are 'cool kids' in SF/F. He's wrong. Because, of course there are. Whenever you get a group of people together, cliques happen. That's just the nature of humanity and group dynamics.

Correia whines a lot about feeling shut out, and, while I think it all amounts to a load of man pain, I actually sympathize with him a little, on a basic human level.

I GET feeling left out of that inner circle, particularly at somewhere as huge as a WorldCON. I spent all of 1998 Baltimore WorldCON feeling like I was forever just one step from the parties everyone was talking about the next day. You'd go to a panel the next morning and hear Gardner Dozois laughing about how Warren Lapine shot a pickle out his nose (or visa versa) and I'd think: What? Where? When? How come *I* wasn't invited!??

Baltimore, it should be noted, was particularly egregious that year because of some corkage law or other that messed up how and where alcohol could be served and so there were A LOT of rumors of "secret pro parities" where the free beer flowed freely. I was also, it turned out, just on the verge of making my first pro sale, but not there yet.*

But, this happened to me once I was established, too. In fact, the WorldCON I felt the worst at was the most recent ChiCON in 2012, when I had, what, fourteen books under my belt? I was on paneling and, therefor, very much part of the "in" crowd. I also got my very first ever invitation to a secret pro party (a party I later referred to as the f*cking boat) which was a cruise on the Chicago canals/out into Lake Michigan hosted by Random House (which was not even my publisher.) I have never felt more uncool, than I did at that WorldCON, despite everything, and it all had to do with the fact that my career was starting to sour. But, regardless, I felt left out and all the things that Correia complains about (except no one shouted at me that I was a liar and a misogynist, perhaps for obvious reasons. Though honestly? I might have believed everyone hated me, my mood was so foul. I felt very picked on during the one panel I was on, because it was about serial fiction and all my series had failed.)

Okay, so you see? We all feel this.

It's especially maddening when you're just starting out, because you finally broke in only to find that there's still barriers to being in the spotlight, and we ALL want to be in the spotlight.

Look, we're all divas. Correia is just saying out loud what lot of us feel: boo hoo, it's NOT all about me! (Pro tip: most of us don't say it out loud, because we realize how whiny and self-centered it makes us look.)

BUT... yes, okay? I actually sympathize a little with this. To say there aren't cool kid cliques is disingenuous too. There just are.

Also, this feeling of being shut out of WorldCON culture something that has happened to people on the left, too. Not that long ago (but apparently outside of the collective memory), there was a huge controversy around the London WorldCON about a cliquish inner circle of white guys (and GRRM is even pictured!)

Here's the thing I want to say about this: con culture is a thing. It's a thing everyone needs to learn how to negotiate.

I've even talked about this idea before on this blog because I came across someone on Twitter complaining about feeling left out/unwelcomed at a con. The thing I said to that person (who was decidedly on the left), is that we're all responsible for our own con experience. It's not the con's job to make you feel welcome. You have to learn the culture of cons and figure out how to fit in. Some conventions even have panels on the opening days ABOUT how to make inroads and make friends and be involved in a way that will let you leave the con feeling like you were part of it in a positive way. I was lucky because we have a lot of local cons to "practice" on, some of them are HUGE, so you can get something very akin to a WorldCON experience. I know for a fact that I bounced in and out of the first con I ever attended, which was a WisCON: 1984, when Elizabeth A. Lynn was one of the Guests of Honor.

I did that con and maybe hit an early MiniCON and thought, "Eh, not much for me here." It wasn't until much later when I was starting a writing career did I go back and really work to make in-roads by volunteering for panelling, etc.

TBF, the local fan scene is such that you did have to kind of know the right people or at least be known to them. I somehow got on Eric Heideman's radar, and that was panelling for me for life.

So, fandom as insider-y? Hella yeah.

Does it mean the Hugos are broken? I don't think so. Yeah, it's possible they've been out of touch, if only because WorldCON members are aging, etc., but as Cheryl Morgan talks about in her take on Puppygate-Winners and Losers, in many ways the Puppies have brought a renewed interest in the Hugos that you couldn't have bought and paid for, if you'd tried.




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*Out of curiosity, I went to see which WorldCONs I've attended and they are: 1998 BucCONeer (Baltimore), 2000 ChiCON (Chicago), 2004 NoreasCON (Boston), and 2012 ChiCON (Chicago).