Thank you to everyone who came over and took part in the Bitter (Easter) Con on my journal. I hope you enjoyed it. I certainly did.

For the record,

Friday's programme item is here.
Saturday's programme item is here
Sunday's programme item is here.
Monday's programme item is here

I've just posted the latest programme item at my journal if you care to come over and join in.

The latest instalment of Bitter (Easter) Con is now up on my journal. Click here to see.

I've been writing, in one way or another, since before I ever discovered fandom. I can't say my teachers were any help, and I still wonder how Babel-17 ended up in the school library. I did my share of juvenile Mary-Sues, and re-wrote the everybody-dies endings of some TV series. Back then, video recordings were rare and exotic, and it was rare for something to be repeated. The Prisoner? I recall seeing one episode of The Avengers when at a holiday camp in Norfolk. I think it was Emma Peel.

We will now pause for comments from Yorkshire.

A few months ago, I had some original stories put upon somebody else's website, and I wrote a complete novel for NaNoWriMo. If I wish, I can get a bound copy made, and it will cost less per copy than those fan-fic zines of my distant past. But I'm not a proper author.

Not yet. What NaNoWriMo showed me was that the large-scale structure is hard, and it's not what you need to know to pass school exams. Not the doing, at least. What I'm getting out there on the web, it's garnering fan mail.

The world has changed.

Whether I'm a writer depends on how you define things. How many of us might be called writers?

Yesterday's item seems to have been very successful, and is still going on here.

Today's item has just gone up here. Feel free to come over and join in.

The first instalment of the Bitter (Easter) con is now in progress on my own LJ, here.

The programme for the UK Eastercon is now online.

I'm intending to host several informal discussions based on items from the literary programme on my own journal during the weekend (topics not yet decided as I've not finished reading the programme yet), so do feel free to drop by and join in. I'll start the first topic Friday, early afternoon British Standard Time (GMT + 1 hour).

Hoe to see some of you there.

For those who (like me) love cons but rarely can afford to attend one, flycon2009 has been organized.

Here's the brief version of the explanation: Flycon will be an online convention planned to have activities during the peak hours of every time zone. It will begin midnight, Friday 13th in March 2009, in Australia and roll with the sun. We are looking for panelists, authors and editors and agents to host discussions, podcasts as readings, volunteers, and for people to spread the word through the blogoshpere. We will be having a couple of sites host forum and chat space, with everything co-ordinated through this Live Journal community with rss feeds, updates and eventual archiving. We will be running IRCs as well as bulletin boards, so that every time zone is covered.

Panels are still open for volunteers (just check back through the most recent four posts) and we're open to suggestions. We're trying to overcome the tyranny of travel and cost--and reach as widely as possible.

I"m going to be blogging on several of the Windycon panel topics over the weekend in my own blog starshipcat.

This year's theme at Windycon is military science fiction.

so, will there be you-tubing mythcon?

The Dead Dog Party is going on here, with wine, food, a photo and discussion.

Doing mean things to your characters--how do you bring yourself to it? You would never kick a puppy or arrange a lethal trap for a pack of heroes, but your villain does, and loves it. How do you get into the mindset of your darker characters, and deal with the consequences? Discuss here

w00t!!!

We're toasting her right this moment! Pictures later, and congrats to Bear!

Here I ask why there are more stories about stopping an apocalypse or living through one than rebuilding after the destruction.  Some discussion earlier jogged my mind and I thought I'd bring the topic up.  Why is destruction more interesting than creation?

There's been a lot of talk in this con so far about YA. YA has been described elsewhere in Bittercon as a bridge, a safe place to go when you've outgrown children's books and aren't yet ready for adult books - though, as mrissa pointed out, lot of us of all ages do read both YA and adult books - I have, from about age 10 to the present. In one comment thread, someone took issue with my contention that Peg Kerr's The Wild Swans is *not* YA (despite two protagonists who are in fact young adults) so I thought I'd bring the question up here.

What makes a book not YA to you? Is it just lots of gratuitous sex and violence? A focus on the lives of people who are older, acting in accordance with the lessons learned over time, like a Barbara Hambly character? is it the level of complexity? Or is it something else?

Discussion here.

Does "Urban Fantasy" romanticize life on the streets?

Discussion takes place here.

If we don't want to write Mary Sue or Marty Stu, and we don't want to read them, what are we looking for in heroes? What works and what doesn't when you read or write? link here.

This discussion is available here.

This is a revisiting of a panel I sat on last year for Dragon*Con 2007 in the YA track.  We don't have to stick with YA books for Bittercon, but I thought I would add this panel for another pertinent topic.

From Stephenie Meyer to Cassandra Clare in YA or from Kim Harrison to Patricia Briggs in adult fantasy, books about vampires and werewolves are enjoying a hair-raising resurgence in popularity. Join us as we discuss why they are resonating with readers and learn about some of the new blood in this growing genre.

Vampires and werewolves were already popular before Meyer's books came out, of course, but why do these mythological creatures continue to maintain such interest?  If you read them, why?  If you don't, why not?  What are some of your favorite books or series and why?  Why do so many women appear to be drawn to tales of vampires and werewolves?

Also, why are vampires often portrayed as the upper class monsters while werewolves tend to stay in the lower classes?   

Sartoriashad a discussion about vampires earlier this week on her journal, but this panel can expand upon the topic by adding werewolves to the mix, too.

 

davefreer posts this topic:

I've been reading sf/fantasy for a long time, and worse, was brought up into it - meaning among sf from as far back 1930's. I've noticed how -- in most cases -- the socio-sexual mores of alien societies (and human/alien meetings) actually are mostly just a reflection of prevalent attitudes of the day. From classic patriarchal, through 'free love', to a mixture of that and matriarchal (patriarchal is currently out of fashion;-)). Given that aliens will be alien, and that good sf should be exploratory and yet logical, what sort of socio-sexual mores will we finally find out there? What impact are these going to have on humans, given that our history shows some of us are xenophobic and others decidedly xenophilic? Discuss here

I wrote in response to  sartorias  first bittercon post that I would like to hear more about radio ....  she has encouraged me to lead this, but I feel I'm doing this very much under false pretences, since I have never written anything for radio, produced or directed anything on radio, and wouldn't describe myself as an avid radio listener, just an occassional one!

[ETA: what I had already heard about radio was a presentation by radio producer/director Scott Fredericks (aka an actor - Day of the Daleks, etc.)  I recommend him to anyone organizing a con]

So I am hoping that I will just throw out a few questions and observations, and those of you who DO have knowledge will take it from here.

My first question: so what's the market (or audience?) like, then?

I can answer for the UK that Radio 4, there is an hour or two a day of radio drama.
This week includes a detective thriller, dramatisation of a novel by Pamuk, a drama about retired actors, a thriller set in 10th century Japan, sit coms, serial dramas, play about a cold-war spy, a psychological thriller, a play about a man on death row, and Thursday we have 'Steinbeck in Avalon' (characters include Steinbeck/Lancelot, and the other Round Table regulars).

My second question:
In the Good Old Days, radio plays were recorded in big rooms.  This meant a conversation could go like this:
John: Hello? Anyone at home? (calling loudly, a long way away)
Hero: In the kitchen, John!  Come on in!  (calling loudly, right here on the mike)
John: Have you got that dog with you? (getting nearer all the time he speaks, and reducing his volume accordingly)
Hero: Oh, don't mind Rollo! (somewhat loudly, right here on the mike)
John: Well, last time .... (approaching right up to the mike, voice at normal levels)
Rollo: Bark! BARK! Bark! BARK!!! (fx).
John: Argh!  Gerrof!!  Call your flaming dog, OFF, Hero!!! (loudly, moving fast away from the mike)

Today, John and Hero are both standing right by the mike in a little room, speaking in normal voices, and all that shouting and approaching stuff is done done digitally).  How is it done where you are?  Me, I think it makes a difference (listenting to old recordings vs. new ones).  As writers, what do you do about this? 

The bleeding obvious about radio:
* you can't see what's going on.  This means radio is very different as a media - as different to TV as TV is to paper. 
Decent writers go with this ... it's radio, not TV with the pictures turned off ... some (e.g Douglas Adams in his Hitchhiker series) use narrators - others ( can't recall any at the moment, someone please prompt me) use something not unlike a Greek chorus.  On Radio 4, I'm not sure who scripts the link person, but they often operate as a narrator "And now, the Afternoon Play.  We join physicist Dr Hero Bollinger in the kitchen of the 18th century Kentish farmhouse she has not left since meeting an alien in 1985 ..."  I don't know who writes these links.  Here is a real example.

On the Greek chorus thing: two people speaking at once is very difficult to listen to.  Which is probably why I can't recollect it ... at the time I thought interesting rather than good.  Many of the really great radio plays seem to be monologues.  The title of this post is nicked from Joyce Grenfell and Stephen Potter.  You can listen to it here.  I am struggling to recall the title of the JG monologue I really want to link to as an example, so will abandon this paragraph for now!

Well, that's enough for now ... fingers crossed the links work ...

Not even ETA: I cannot work out how to post both to my journal and bittercon ... dual threads will result....

Have we outgrown them?  Do we want to cuddle the vampires?  Hosted here. 

Why are some authors selling truckloads of novels, but not winning prizes while others barely scratch out a living while filling their mantles with awards? Would you rather be a popular best-selling author, or garner the critical acclaim of the upper crust? Is it possible to do both?

I tweak the discussion a little, over here

Saturday night, I plan to have my very own Hugo Losers party here on the internets. It will take place in this comment thread in my LJ, and you're all invited.

Especially if you're also (a) not at Denvention and (b) nominated. After all, it wouldn't be a bittercon without a Hugo Losers party!

Unfortunately, it will be BYOB. And BYOS.

Doors open at 7:30 PM Mountain Time (that's 9:30 PM for those of you on the East Coast.) Party runs until somebody goes off the balcony, or hotel livejournal security comes to shut us down.

It's a glamorous life.

Posting here and on my journal--feel free to discuss either place!

How do these two mix, especially (but not necessarily exclusively) in YA? Or maybe I should say, how best do they mix? When I was reading fantasy and science fiction as a kid, most of the stuff I read was pretty serious--there might have been moments of humor, but the overall tone was serious. A lot of the stuff my own kids have read, though, seems to have humor interlaced through it--so much so that I wonder if it's possible to have a story with a serious tone and *not* leaven it with humor.

So, writers and readers, what do you think? What do you prefer? What do you like best?

Some people think the moon landings were faked.

What evidence is there for the existence of a Worldcon?

After all, there is a picture of the Bittercon dealers' room.

How many fairy tales do you really think you can count on being familiar to somone?

Snow White, Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Hansel and Gretel, Jack and the Beanstalk, Little Red Riding Hood, Goldilocks and the Three Bears -- not many more, I think.

And how many hundreds of thousands of fairy tales have been collected?  Not even counting those that vanished with their tellers?

Hosted here.

So far the discussion has been pretty critical of Romance, so if any Romance readers/writers are reading this, please speak up. I really would like to hear your side of the story.
( A bit long... )

ETA: Stuff in response to comments.

Er, the ConSweet?

Every con has a ConSuite to bulk up on calories, soda and beer (if you're legal), so feel free to get up and check out your fridge at any time -- seems to me, a newbie who just discovered BitterCon, that the BitterConSuite is now open 24/7 in all usable dimensions.

To Celebrate

May I propose that you join in Monday 11 August 2008's National S'mores Day? I have a recipe for No Bake S'mores on my blog.

Thanks for playing the home game. See ya 'round.

Dr. Phil

In this post I throw out some ideas about Fantasy of Manners,and the accusations that it's wish fulfillment for those who yearn after the days of yore when everyone knew his place. Or is it subversive, as others maintain?

Or maybe it's neither of these things? Come on over and share your ideas.

This is something I do occasionally in my LJ, and we've had some good discussions from it: if anyone has a question about writing, my writing or just writing and/or publishing topics in general, comment with it in this post here and I'll try to answer it. Basic beginner questions are very welcome, as those are usually fairly easy to answer. If you want to take a look at questions previous commenters have asked, they're tagged here.

ETA: First round of Bittercon questions answered here.
ETA Again: Second round of questions here.
Third round here.

Heritage is a really common trope in fantasy stories, be it the noble or royal heritage, the dark family secret, magic in the blood, or the hidden past of a famous relative.   Even in more modern fantasies (one of the major criticisms leveled at Harry Potter is the eponymous character's reliance on inherited wealth and connections), this seems to be quite common.  How do you feel about these tropes?  Do you use them?  Do you avoid them?  Do you play with them?  What are some examples of the trope done well or poorly?  Is there a way to write a fantasy  story without interacting with the trope in some way?

 Hosted here.

Here it is. Check regularly for show specials!



(image shamelessly taken from timeportal's flickr stream)

Most conventions have an Art Show.

But lets keep this simple: post a short comment using your favourite LJ userpic.

There's a lot of excellent children's and YA fiction coming out these days. The astute reader will have deduced that therefore there's a lot of YA being sold, which in turn means that publishers perceive that there's a lot of YA being bought and read.

Why?

One theory is that most people are too stupid and/or distracted to read grown-up books. Since I haven't noticed any lack of complication in good YA, I'm not buying that. I think it's because YA isn't afraid to tackle the bg existential questions. What do you think?

Discussion here.

I had an inquiry from a publisher about a dealer room. Sounds like a good idea! Shall I just "set one up"? Maybe we can get some special Bittercon sales going...

In case anyone needs to smoke during this Bittercon, here you go:



Consider this an open conversation thread, much like the smoking lounge at a in-person con.

My eldest son and I were talking this afternoon and he brought up the issue of limits, such as censorship, which can sometimes have the effect of increasing creativity, rather than decreasing it, as writers (and other artists) find creative ways around and through the censorship. He commented that he sometimes wondered if such concepts as stereotypes, or archetypal characters, might not opperate in much the same way, by spurring us to find new ways to make "old" characters "new." It was such a wonderful, thoughtful comment, that I decided to add it to Bittercon if there were no similar topics. Finding none, I will host this one.

The topic is here, so posting may begin at any time, but I'd like to "schedule" it for Saturday and/or Sunday.

Bittercon: Research--Finding the Hard-to-Find Details

This panel is about researching those little details that will make your story's setting feel real. Particularly research for a time and place that's not easy to find specifics about online or in one's local library.

Experts, historians, librarians, and anyone else with awesome superpowers of research will be served virtual chocolate and very real accolades.

Post here.

Hree's my Bittercon topic for today: Writers Groups, Heaven or Hell?

Since this week is InConJunction, the annual Indianapolis science fiction convention, and yet again they simply have not been able to find us tables in the dealers' room, I figured I'd do a few discussions from their programming list in my own LJ blog, starshipcat.

Discussion Here: http://sartorias.livejournal.com/270929.html

Discussion here.

I looked over the scheduled topics for this year's Wiscon, wistfully putting together my own "if I had been there" schedule. This was the panel that really caught my eye. I would even have applied to be on this panel, if I were there. Given how much I hate talking in front of an audience, that's saying something.

( The first speculative poem written by a woman that I consciously read was 'Goblin Market.' )

Friday
Sleep: The Great Restorative?
A practical exploration of the benefits of this oft-neglected activity.

Saturday
Herping in Southern NH
Part of a continuing series of photographic expeditions in search of the common and not-so-common reptiles and amphibians of the northeast.

Sunday
"We are family"
A celebration of one of the milestones of modern American culture: high school graduation. GOH: my cousin CS. 

ETA:
Monday
Shadow Unit Marathon

Discussion here.

(I said the H word. Don't hurt me.)

But now I know you are here I thought I should share this:

 http://time-freak.livejournal.com/197955.html