ApolloCon 2012 report

I enjoyed ArmadilloCon so much last year,
I thought I'd try out Houston's version.

After driving to Houston and getting checked in and typing up my last critique for Saturday morning's Writers Workshop I was pretty wiped, but I managed to make it to a couple panels.

Friday
Of Blood Spatters and Fingerprints: Clues to Fool the Savviest Fan
Martha Wells, Patrice Sarath, Bill Crider, and Ramirez 
A discussion of how mystery writers work clues into their stories without telegraphing the ending. It's tricky walking the fine line between believability and predictability to create a satisfying mystry. All writers being different, many approaches were discussed.

Cue the Evil Laugh: Lessons Learned from Evil Geniuses
Tanya Huff, Rosemary Clement-Moore, Rhonda Eudaly, and A. Lee Martinez

 All about evil villain stereotypes and how smarter villains make for a better story. This was a lively panel where villains and villainy were discussed. Personages mentioned ranged from Thantos to Wile E. Coyote. Everyone agreed that good heroes need strong villains, and villains need to be relatable (you have to understand their motivations). Martinez has the theory that villains are often likeable because of their committment to their goal and their crazy ways, like how the riddler MUST frame everything in a riddle even when it makes things more difficult for him. Interesting. Glad I stayed up for this one!

Saturday
Writers' Workshop

I spent the morning in the Writers' Workshop led by Martha Wells. It was a good solid critique session with three other participants in our group. We had time, after talking about our stories and chapters, to talk about some of the larger issues regarding world building and publishing.  Very worth my time and you can't beat the price!

I spent the afternoon on the science panels. Being in Houston, a couple NASA people were kind enough to grace ApolloCon with their expertise.

Saturday Science with Paul Abell 
Dr. Abell is the lead scientist for Planetary Small Bodies assigned to the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Directorate at the NASA Johnson Space Center. Wow! What a title. He gave a really interesting talk about the study of NEO (i.e. asteroids), and he brought slides!

100 Year Starship
Al Jackson, Stanley Love, Paul Abell, and Todd Caldwell

He was dressed slightly more casually for the con.

This panel took a little while to find its feet, but once it got going there was an interesting discussion about the science and challenges and rewards of interstellar travel.

Enter the Dragon: SpaceX and the Future of Manned Spaceflight
Al Jackson, Paul Abell, Stanley Love, and Scott Padget
A discussion about how private space companies will shape the future of crewed spaceflight and space exploration. This was a lively panel with some real world information and anecdotes from the people who make it all happen.


I finished off the afternoon with Austin (both Jane and Texas!) author Patrice Sarath. She read an excerpt from The Crow God's Girl, her stand alone novel of the Godarth Wood Series. The excerpt sounded quite intriguing, so I have yet another book to load onto my Kindle.

I made sure to stop by ArmadilloCon's Party since I'll be seeing them next month!

 Sunday
Writing 101 
Tanya Huff, Kerry Tolan, Bev Hale, and Julia Mandala
Billed as tips from pros on how to get started, stay motivated, and how to see your Big Idea through to the end. The wide-open topic seemed well suited to the first panel of the morning. It was fun with lots of real world writing advice and encouragement.

The Best YA You and Your Teen are not Reading
Patrice Sarath, Bev Hale, and Katy Pace
Well attended and in a small room, which happily encouraged more of a group discussion. Very enjoyable and now I have another long list of books to read - I may have to delegate some of these titles to my daughter!

Authors and books mentioned included (but were by no means limited to):

The Iron Fey series by Julie Kagawa
Divergent and Insurgent by Veronica Roth
Scott Westerfield (Uglies, Leviathan)
The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson
M. T. Anderson and Paolo Bacigalupi

Countdown to ApolloCon 2012

The show that spawned a million conventions.

I have my reading list for the last of May, and I'll post it eventually, but today I'm on deadline to finish (a revision of) a story for the ApolloCon 2012 Writers Workshop. I am excited to be able to attend not one but two con workshops this year. I'll be going to both ApolloCon in Huston in June and, attending my home con ArmadilloCon here in Austin in July. I'm looking forward to comparing these workshop experiences. After going to the ArmadilloCon Writer's Workshop last year, I'm hooked! I'll be doing these workshops and going to as many conventions as I can get my hands on for the foreseeable future. Why do I love them so you might ask, here are just a couple reasons:

• You can't beat the price, compared to most writer's workshops, these workshops are generally well under $100, and that's with 3-day convention badge included.
• Getting feedback from pros and other writers who are unfamiliar with my themes and quirks (as opposed to feedback from my regular critique group, which is also good but in different ways).
• Geeking out at the hotel bar with other writers and scifi/fantasy genre types.

Han Solo says, "Enough talk, get back to writing."

A Story A Day in May

my short story short list

Check out StoryADay.org, where you can commit to writing a story a day for the month of May. I just found out about this a couple days ago via Nicky Drayden, who's just crazy enough to try such a thing. It sounds like Nanowrimo (which I completed once a few years back), like a kick in the butt with potential for mining several diamonds in the rough while loosing lots of sleep.

I am tempted. I seriously thought about signing up, but I've got some other goals and deadlines to pursue this month. Namely, it looks like I'm going to be able to attend both ApolloCon and ArmadilloCon this year, both of which have writer's workshops. I want new stories to send into the workshops in early June, and they need to be in decent shape since I get the most out of workshops/critiques when I submit my best work.

Then I read Sci-Fi/Fantasy author Marshall Ryan Maresca's post about the value of reading, and it really got me thinking. He mentions an anecdote that Stephen King reads four hours a day and writes four hours a day (wow, nice work if you can get it). I realized that while I've been successful at shoe horning some amount of writing into my life, I have sorely neglected my reading. If I expect to keep returning to the well, I think I'd better get back to that 1:1 ratio of reading to writing.

So, I'm committing to reading one story a day in May (and beyond with any luck). Sounds pretty pithy next to the idea of writing one a day but life is all about balance and baby steps after all.