Baycon Day 3 - World-Building and Sex in Space

Sunday was a day of panels and networking for me. The first was a schedule panel, Sex in Space. I asked to be on it because (a) sex is interesting and fun to talk about; (b) I know a little about it, having attended Launch Pad Astronomy Workshop in 2011and read various materials from NASA -- not about sex; they aren't confirming any direct knowledge -- but social psychology stuff. You can read my previous discussion here:

Sex in Space:Part One: How Do We Manage To Do It?
Sex in Space: Part Two - Things That Can Go Wrong
Sex in Space: Part Three: No Babies, Please

People Are Sexual, Even In Space

Of course, I was moderator. The panel was a challenge, given the tension between "dirty old man" prurience oh-how-hot-to-screw-in-zero-gee and plodding, overly technical scientific details about the inner-ear birth defects mice develop when gestated in a space station.All in all, the panel went splendidly, with each panelist contributing -- and listening to one another. I think one of the most difficult things about a panel like this is not the subject material, but how hard it is to really listen to one another. So many people are guarded in one way or another about sexuality, all too often retreating into off-color jokes or clinical detachment. Is it possible to talk about sex in space without it turning into an R-rated peep show? How do we include emotions and relationships in our discussion? And leave egos -- our need to appear hip and experienced and oh-so-suave -- aside?

Baycon - the Extremely Abbreviated Commuter's Version

Baycon is my local science fiction convention. It's in San Jose and I'm an hour's drive up in the mountains, and it always seems to be me a good (not to mention thrifty) idea to commute from home. Actually, it's an excellent idea to sleep in my own bed, surrounded by my own cats, and have time every day to get some work done. (Of course, many writers, including myself, bring laptops or netbooks to conventions -- you'll find us in odd corners or up in our rooms when everyone else is partying, pounding out our daily quota of words.)

Commuting from home has its price. It eats up 1 1/2 - 2 hours from my day, and it means a fairly firm departure time and no alcohol. (Twisty mountain roads at night are not a good setting for excessive fatigue.) I've never been much of a party-goer, being (a) a morning person; (b) happily married; (c ) not at all interested in getting drunk. There are parties and then there are parties, however. I've made some wonderful connections, mostly at publisher's parties and early enough so actual conversation was possible. By commuting, I pretty much rule those out. And most concerts, some of which I'd really like to attend.

Speaking of connections, here's a mini report of yesterday, along with The Highlight Of The Day. I had 2 panels -- Women in SF (with Ann Wilkes, Sandra Saidak and Sarah Stegall) and YA Fiction: More Than Blanking-out the Sex (with newly-published YA author Ingrid Paulson, Sarah Stegall, editor Daniel Hope, and Irene Radford). Both had lovely moments and genuine give-and-take conversation. And good moderators. The first panel asked questions like: what is a strong woman character? What is strength? Is it easier for women to be masculine than for men to be feminine? Can we envision sfnal societies without gender bias? One of the first things we did on the YA panel was to dispel the notion that you can't have sex/sexual-thoughts/sexual-feelings in a YA novel. What's the difference between a YA novel and an adult novel with a teen character or protagonist? Will you lose sales if you depict your teen characters using four-letter words? How has literature for tweens/teens/college age kids changed? What's the effect of social media on how YA readers hear about books and how have the ways they're reading changed?

Now for the highlight. After my second panel, I sat down at one of the tables in the mezzanine, where fan tables  are set up -- the area itself has tables and chairs and is a general hang-out  place. One of the people from the audience, a bright and earnest young woman, was there, and we struck up a conversation. The topic quickly switched from the panel itself to writing and then became one of those magical interactions, a chance to pay forward for all the support and advice I've received over the years. She'd taken time off from her day job to concentrate on writing; I told her how I managed to write either when I had an infant at home or when I held a full-time job as a single working mom. What writing issues she was struggling with; some different ways of looking at them; what makes a good critique group and what she needs from her beta-readers (and how to connect with good critiquers). Books and blogs that have helped me. Connecting with a fellowship of writers.

It was the High Point for me because I love teaching and the conversation was exactly the right one at the right time. Yes, it's ego-boosting to meet hordes of fans (although I have yet to experience hordes) but it's in many ways far more satisfying to have these one-on-one talks where both people are fully present, there's a give-and-take, and I walk away with the certainty that it has been meaningful to both of us. I need to remember that I too was once a beginner trying to figure out this writing business. I've made my share of mistakes, but I've figured out what works for me and I've heard a lot of stories about what works for other people, too. We don't have to re-invent the wheel if we're willing to be generous with our knowledge.

Here's a possibility. See if it works for you. I've heard it said that writing cannot be taught, but it can be learned. That learning does not have to occur in isolation. After all, when I encourage and educate a new writer, I contribute to there being more wonderful books for me to read!

Deborah’s Excellent Nebula Awards Weekend Adventure Continues

Saturday did not begin auspiciously. The Nebula Awards hotel is in downtown San Jose, which is not noteworthy for the adequacy of its public parking. After visiting one full public lot after another and having various adventures which left the paint of my car considerably worse for wear, I surrendered to the inevitability of having to pay a significant fraction of the national debt in order to leave my car somewhere. However, with the sympathetic reception of my tale of aggravation, I determined to leave that particular episode safely ensconced in the past…at least until I have to get my car out of hock.

As a consequence, I caught only the last part of the SFWA Business Meeting, and I wouldn’t have been able to report on what transpired anyway, it being SFWA-Sekrit. However, during the discussion of pirate websites, a couple of points arose that bear repeating and are nonspecific enough that nobody is going to track me down for indiscretion. If your traditionally-published books appear on a pirate site, notify your publisher, who are, after all, adversely financially affected and often have the legal departments, etc., to deal with it. Also, some of these sites do not actually sell pirated copies of books – they are scams for collecting credit card numbers. This latter notion boggles the mind with its likelihood.

Fast forward through lunch and various conversations to the panel on Writing For Young Adults (with Leah Bobet, Sarah Beth Durst, Steven Gould, and E.C. Myers). Herewith my notes:

Don’t be boring (especially for kids). Write well if the subject matter is difficult, and make sure every element is there for a reason. This advice strikes me as being rue for all fiction.

Nebulas, first day, afterthoughts

I didn't take a lot of notes during the panel on Shared Worlds that I was on, for which I expect to be forgiven. It seemed more important to pay attention to what everyone was saying. However, I did scribble down something Robert Silverberg said about collaborations, and it strikes me that every writer who is considering this and aims to build a professional career needs to consider it. When you sell a collaboration (to a publisher, remember this is old-school writing career model) you need to get an advance that is at least twice what you would have gotten individually.

(My own thoughts) -- There are many reasons for embarking on a collaboration (as opposed to a novel that's basically ghost-written, with the senior author's name added for sales shiny-ness). Saving time isn't one of them. A good collaboration is not half the work of a solo novel. It's at least twice.

It behooves us all to pay attention to whether we are good collaborators and if so, under what conditions. Sometimes, what makes us good writers (we're visionaries, we answer only to our inner muses, we are pig-headed and recalcitrant, much like our cats) can make it challenging to Play Nicely With Others. Others of us find inspiration and creative nourishment in the process of working together. With some people -- but not others. Pay attention. Play to your strengths.

Tomorrow, the second day (with better notes, I promise!)

Deborah Waves Hi From The Nebula Weekend

The 2013 Nebula Awards Weekend began rather spectacularly for me with a panel (typically, if you get to be on a panel at all at the Nebs, it's only one -- and it's a big deal, at least for me, because the audience is professional writers). My panel was Writing in Someone Else's Universe: What are the rules? How can you push the boundaries?

My co-panelists were (takes a deep breath) Robert Silverberg, John Scalzi, Terry Bisson, and William C. Dietz. The discussion was amazing, ranging from writing in established universes (whether literary, film, or games) to shared-worlds that are created by a group of authors to collaborations to fanfic. Silverberg shared about working with Randall Garrett in the days of John Campbell's Astounding magazine, when he (Silverberg) was a "youngster" and still a student, and with Asimov at the very end of Asimov's life. Dietz writes not only his original fiction but video game tie-ins; he talked about what it's like working with a committee of mostly very avid but very young game designers. We veered into a discussion of copyright with John Scalzi's adventure in a modern take on H. Beam Piper's Fuzzy stories (the first of which is in the public domain, but he asked for the approval of Piper's estate anyway). Terry Bisson has done an amazing range of writing, including novelizations (as opposed to tie-ins, which he has also written). One of the points that emerged over and over was the importance of your own creative vision, that some writers have the temperament and ability to Play Nicely according to a pre-set list of rules, but others will take the rules as a challenge and "do their own thing." Silverberg said that for a shared-world or sequential anthology, he preferred to write either the first story (the set-up) or the last (the wrap-up). And I held forth with my usual brilliance about both my Star Wars story and my Darkover collaborations. A great time was had by all.

After that, I entered decompression mode for lunch, attended a panel on What Happens to Your Novel After You Turn It In? which could have been about book production but kept veering into what the author can do for publicity, as several of the panelists had major chops in this area. The cool thing, for me anyway, was that this was not the "Publicity 101 For Beginners" but a serious discussion of changing role of publishers/distributors/wholesalers.

The evening's event was a mass autographing. Authors Of Note were assigned strategically-placed spots and the rest of us set up our tent cards anywhere we liked. So I hobnobbed with friends and was pleasantly surprised when a number of people brought books for me to sign. Signings, like readings, are impossible to predict. I see both as "paying my publicity dues" and a chance to meet my readers. Or reader. And in this case to also cheer the long lines for the better-known authors -- the fans waiting so patiently are buying books! and reading them!

And surely that's a good thing for everyone.

Needless to say, if you ever have a chance to attend SFWA's Nebula Awards Weekend, grab it. You don't have to be a member to attend (you just can't attend the SFWA Business Meeting, but the panels and awards ceremony are open to registered peeps).

Convention report

I occasionally write up my notes from a convention. What I remember, that is. For those who enjoy such reports, BayCon 2012 is here.

Loscon: Book View Cafe Panel And Driving Home

The Book View Cafe panel went smoothly, although in a much livelier fashion. The person-we-didn't-know-but-who-was-supposed-to-moderate never materialized, so I stepped in. Not everyone is comfortable moderating (and some people that want to do it should be politely but firmly discouraged0, but I am and I know I do it well. If I have a weakness, it's that once the discussion is going, I tend to take a hands-off approach and I'm perfectly comfortable with other panelists acknowledging questions from the audience. We roped Dave (Trowbridge) into participating (he's a yet-unlaunched BVC member), so we had a range from Maya (Bohnhoff, a founding member) to Dave, who has yet to debut but has been doing much work behind the scenes. I've been on BVC panels at other conventions, and this was the best-attended so far. A few people in the audience seemed to be looking for a publisher (not appropriate as BVC is a cooperative of established professional writers), but most wanted to know more about what we have to offer, what the future holds, and how BVC came into being. A few had suggestions of what they'd like to see on the website.

Loscon: Saturday Morning's Deep Listening

Saturday morning, Dave (Trowbridge, my husband and fellow writer) and I met with Sherwood (Smith) for a planning-breakfast in preparation for the deep listening panel. We had no difficulty rearranging the chairs in a circle, and were gratified by how many people turned up for a 10 am event.

After a short description of what we were going to do, the three of us went first, to model both speaking and listening. We had chosen the subject -- a book that changed your life when you were still of an age when a book could do that -- so that most everyone would be able to share a meaningful experience. Indeed, it would be unusual for an attender at a science fiction convention to not be able to name one (or many) books that were significant. In thinking about this beforehand, I ran into the problem of having too many books come to mind, until I realized that I was restricting myself to works of science fiction and fantasy, which I had not discovered until my high school years. Once I softened my concept of what the book had to be -- it had to be sf/f, right? since that is what I write professionally -- a very different sort of reading experience emerged from the mists of childhood.

I remembered vividly the summer between second and third grades, when reading suddenly made sense to me. Before that, I'd slugged along with how reading was taught in the mid 1950s, neither catching fire nor lagging behind the class. But that summer I did catch fire. I sat in my rocking chair in my bedroom and devoured a third grade reader. Illustrations in bright, almost luminous colors adorned the pages, and although I didn't care for every story, enough of them hit just the right tone for me. One of these was an excerpt from Understood Betsy, by Dorothy Canfield. The story was about a thin, anxious city girl who goes to live with country relatives and discovers her own strength and resourcefulness. I was very like that girl, growing up in a family that was the target of a McCarthy-era investigation, and in Betsy I saw that my life didn't have to be that way, that I too could become assured and competent.

As story after story unfolded in the circle, I heard the echoes and variations of this theme. At some point in our young (or not-so-young) lives, a book showed us that our lives could be different -- richer, more powerful, filled with fascinating things to learn and people who shared our passions. What separated this experience from any other gathering where readers compare their "gateway" books was that each speaker had the undivided attention of the whole group, and each listener had only to listen, knowing that when his or her time came, that respectful silence would be theirs.

Afterwards, I'd hoped to hear former astronaut Rick Searfoss, but word was that he was stuck in freeway traffic; he might have showed up later, but I had my own panel to get to.








The illustration is by Jessie Willcox Smith, from A Child's Garden of Verses, 1905

Loscon: A Friday of Unexpected Events and Regency Dancing

Friday began with the usual "you plan, God laughs" disruption of the natural order. I'd planned on going to a panel on "Believable Pasts and Futures" (with Harry Turtledove, Laura Frankos, Barbara Hambly and a couple of other people) when a writer with whom I've shared panels in the past, VJ Waks, pleaded with me to join her on "When is it proper to use violence in your story" because she was the only panelist listed. This being the first time slot of the convention, no one expected a heavy turnout, but I'm a soft touch, so I sent Dave off to the Pasts/Futures panel with a request to take notes on the cool bits. VJ and I waited until we had 2 attenders, made a circle, and had a lively discussion, mostly about the portrayal of violence in our media, but also about how other cultures view retaliation and reconciliation as affecting the entire community, and some painful and moving personal stories.

I had a lovely lunch with a fellow writer I don't see very often, did a tour of the Dealers' Room (where I succumbed to the usual lure of Buy! Books!), got seduced by one conversation after another, retreated to the hotel room for a little lie-down time, and then dinner with Dave and a friend of his. This took a long time, as had dinner the night before, even though the hotel restaurant was not particularly busy either time. Our poor waiter kept apologizing and thanking us for our patience. Really, the only people who would be affected by our failure to be gracious are we ourselves. And I got to go Regency dancing (taught by John Hertz) afterwards.

Loscon: On Panels and My Schedule

Convention programming varies in structure from basically a single track (one choice of a panel or event for each time slot) to many, none of them heavily attended. Needless to say, there are benefits and drawbacks of each approach. I used to prefer several choices, toward the lower end of the scale, until I attended a single-track convention and loved the sense of community that resulted. I found that the topic mattered less than the shared experience. Likewise, there are many instances where the topic is irrelevant compared to the pleasure of hearing those particular panelists in conversation. This can be true for individuals or for combinations of people with opposing opinions and wicked senses of humor. As a member of the audience, I don't particularly care if the discussion stays on its designated topic, although when I am moderating, I make an effort to keep a modicum of focus. Just because I love conversations that fly off in unexpected directions, with participants running away with each other's ideas, I can't assume the audience feels the same way.

World Fantasy Convention, Part the Fourth - Immortality and Fangirl Squee!

"Aften ved kysten" by Amaldus Nielsen

I've found that attending a convention alone and attending as part of a couple are quite different experiences. Although I relax and socialize, I'm mostly there as a working author. I interact with fans, network with writers and booksellers, and -- depending on the size of the convention -- meet with editors or those writers I edit. Some of this is scheduled, but other parts arise spontaneously. This makes it difficult to plan ahead -- mealtimes or panels I'm not on, for instance -- or to take into account anyone else's daily rhythms but my own. Over the years, my husband -- writer Dave Trowbridge -- and I have figured out some strategies, given the differences in our tolerance for crowds and our needs for meals, when and what kind. It is an amazing pleasure to touch base during a hectic day with someone who understands you well, someone in whom you find a haven of peace. It is also a delight to sit in the audience and bask in your spouse's participation in a panel.

For me, this was doubly true because I'd finished with my own panel and was just beginning to "wind down" from moderator-hood and also from lunch-with-editor. Dave's panel was on Immortality. I took a few notes, but make no claim for their accuracy.

Immortality isn't necessarily the same thing as agelessness;

Holding Forth on Nothing: Giving "Good Panel" at Conventions

Just about every writer I know goes through moments of excruciating self-doubt. When these moments give rise to thoughts along the lines of, "I have no idea how to write. Up until now, it's all been smoke and mirrors and luck, but now that's gone and everyone will find out I've been faking it," that's called The Imposter Syndrome. I've run across it in public appearances as well.

Every time I fill out a programming questionnaire for a convention, I experience a moment of panic. I look at the writing/genre/literary topics and think, "I don't know a thing about any of this." My mind goes totally blank. What would I have to contribute? It's usually fairly easy to talk myself through that moment, to reassure myself that I do, indeed know a thing or two about writing and editing, creating characters and pitching books. Thanks to Book View Cafe, I even know a thing or two about publishing ebooks.

Then I look at the science panels. "I really don't know a thing! And what I do know, I've remembered wrong." Which is ridiculous because although I may not be current on all the cutting-edge discoveries in every single field, I do have a solid background in the biological sciences and medicine. This feeling of incompetence is not rational. It's based on the expectation that I should be an expert on everything. As soon as I demand that of myself, I throw away my strengths and depend on my weaknesses.