Does This Make Me Urban Fanty?

Today, Shaun Duke, co-overlord of Skiffy & Fanty revealed…

 

SKIFFY AND FANTY 3.0!

*Thunderclap*

*Maniacal laugh*

 

Yep, this means that I’m going to be a regular at Skiffy & Fanty, both the podcast and the blog – this includes author interviews, ongoing columns, the Shoot the WISB movie/TV discussions, Torture Cinema, and more. I really like the S&F folk, and it’s been a pleasure working with them already, plotting and scheming. You’ll see a lot of S&F content coming through here in the near future.

10 Rules for Getting the Most Out of Conventions As a Writer

Attending a convention as a writer can be a ton of fun, but it’s also work. You’re putting on your public face, asserting yourself as a working professional, and forging connections that could become an incredible asset in the short, medium, and/or long-term.
Here are some general pieces of advice for professional development and self-care at conventions:
1) Be genuine. Being the best, most generous and excited version of yourself is probably the best support you can give your career in terms of activities at a convention. If you’re naturally shy, you don’t have to put on false airs and try to be a social butterfly, but try to be the friendliest version of yourself. If you excel in small groups, find and build small groups and have those great in-depth conversations. If you’re the life of the party, be the life of the party. But remember that you’re a professional. Each community and con is going to have its own tone, and try to match that tone – some conventions are more academic, others more fannish. Sometimes the enthusiasm will need to be more reserved to fit in, other times you can squee all over the place.
2) Be positive. You’re at the con because of a shared passion for narrative. The people you meet will very likely be your tribe – they’ll get more of your jokes, have read more of the books you love, and should, in general, be ‘Your People.’ That’s really exciting, and it’s great to be enthusiastic.
The back edge of this rule is that I don’t recommend spending much if any time throwing shade or trash-talking other authors or their work. Best-Selling Author’s writing may be drivel in your informed opinion, but that person is a peer, trying to make a living in the same career you’re building for yourself. Plus, it’s bad Karma to cast aspersions. And if you trash-talk in public or in small circles, people may associate you more with that negativity than anything positive, especially if they happen to love Best-Selling Author’s work. Thoughtful critique is fine, especially in small circles of colleagues/peers.
3) Take care of yourself. This ranges from making sure you eat enough (recommended two meals a day minimum, or whatever you need to function, whatever is greater), taking pride in your hygiene, dressing to impress (assume conventions are business casual until told otherwise, and ask whether there’s an awards ceremony or banquet. If you’re going to go to either, pack something a step up from your default wear). Taking care of yourself also means making sure you get alone time to de-compress when you need it. Conventions are very taxing, and if you need to skip a panel to take a nap, or just take a breather, then do it. If possible, figure out times that you can use for solo relaxation ahead of time, so you know when you have breaks available.
4) Eat socially. Meals are some of the best opportunities you will have at conventions to make real, lasting connections with people. If possible, invite a new friend you’ve made during the day to dinner, and assemble a dinner posse of a size that’s workable for your temperament (love small groups? Get a small group for dinner), and head off for some food and fun.
5) Enjoy the Bar-Con. Most genre fiction conventions have a designated Convention Bar. Writers and publishing professionals often congregate there in the evenings. You’ll see editors holding court, authors entertaining their colleagues and/or fans, and aspiring pros trading tips and making friends. You most certainly don’t have to drink, but BarCon can be a great part of a convention experience, and buying someone a drink is a solid invitation to a chat (especially if you make it clear that said drink is not the start of a pick-up attempt). As indicated above, if you’re at a convention, you already have something in common with your fellow attendees, and chances are, they will be excited to talk to you.
5a) But don’t over-indulge. Everyone has their limits, and you should know yours. If you’re effective socially when tipsy, that’s fine. If you go directly from drunk to sick, that’s bad. Or if you’re an angry drunk, that’s also bad. Know your limits, and remember that you’re being a professional.
6) Know how to open a conversation. I’ve developed a series of stock questions that serve as conversational openers at cons.
In the first day or two of the convention: “How was your trip in?” “Did you get in today?” “Are you on panels this weekend?”
Anytime: “How’s your con going?” “What are you working on these days?” (works for writers, editors, and some other publishing professionals) “What have you been excited about lately?” (this can be books, projects, movies, etc.) “Any panels you’re particularly excited about this week?”
If this is your first time at a given convention: “This is my first time at <Con>. Is there something I absolutely shouldn’t miss?”
Towards the end of the con: “How was your con?” “Were you on panels?” “What was your favorite panel?” “When are you headed home?”
7) Talk about your work when invited. Chances are, you’ll end up talking to other writers. In those cases, shop talk is expected. Ask people about their work, and they’ll probably ask about yours. When talking to readers, reviewers, booksellers, editors, etc., it’s fine to talk about your work, but do so briefly, and try to limit it to when you’re invited to talk about your work or when you’ve already talked about something else for a while. Hand-selling your book to people at conventions is not a way to make a living, and if you’re obnoxious about it, then it could have a net-negative effect of turning someone off. As with many things, there’s a balance to be found between wanting to get the word out there and not being too pushy.
8) Be generous. Praise the work you found inspirational and exceptional. Compliment people when they excel on a panel as a participant or a moderator, or ask an insightful question. Thank your servers. Tip well. Thank booksellers for supporting your work. Thank fans for reading your work. Thank reviewers for discussing your work and for supporting the genre. Thank everyone for their time when you talk with them. Wish people well and support their endeavors. The more robust sales in your genre are, the better a chance your work has of succeeding.
9) Take business cards. I still use business cards a lot at conventions. Whenever possible, I take notes of where I met someone, so that when I go back over my stack of cards the next week, I can put names & Faces to conversations. “John Steele – Talked about Indiana Jones at Sushi.” “Gina Chen – dinner on Sunday, writes Middle Grade Horror.” This way, you can follow up with all the cool people you met, sending them short emails and/or Facebook messages to say how much you enjoyed meeting them and talking about <X>. This helps cement short-term acquaintanceships into burgeoning friendships.
10) Think about making friends, not networking. If you want to be in the writing business long-term, you’re going to be around the same people for decades. So why not regard your community as a group of friends who are also business associates, rather than thinking about people first and foremost in terms of what they can do for you as connections.
#SFWApro

Baltimore Book Festival

When I moved to Baltimore, one of the first cool things I heard about was the Baltimore Book Festival. So I was incredibly excited when I got an email via SFWA inviting me to attend and participate in programming for this year’s festival, which will be held September 27-29th.

The website for the Baltimore Book Festival is here, for those interested (don’t worry, I’ll wait).

 

Cool, right? The SFWA has a full track of programming, and I’ll be there all weekend, soaking in the literary awesome, plus participating in a few panels.

You’ll find me at the following:

 

Friday, September 27:

1:00PM A Look at the Fiction Industry From the Publishing Side

Hear what authors who have also been editors have to say about the publishing side of the business. The industry has undergone dramatic changes in recent years, with genre blending, new technologies, and multi-media projects. What are editors and publishers looking for? How does the industry look from their side of the table? Find out what’s new and what’s tried and true.

Panelists: Danielle Ackley-McPhail, Michael Underwood

Moderator: Catherine Asaro

 

Saturday, September 28:

6:30-8:00 SFWA Reception

Come party with the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America at our annual Baltimore Book Festival Reception. We have an exciting event planned, combining this year with Dark Quest Books in their launch of the YA novel, The Unexpected Enlightenment of Rachel Griffin, by L.Jagi Lamplighter. Meet the authors, enjoy quiet jazz by The Greg Adams Trio, and partake of our delectable (and free) snacks. The party is free and open tothe public, and all are welcome.

 

Sunday, September 29:

12:00 How to Come Across Like a Professional Writer When You’re Starting Out

Talk to our expert panelists on how to get a good start in the writing industry. What to do and what not to do.

Panelists: Michael R. Underwood, Laura Anne Gilman

Moderator: Catherine Asaro

 

I hope to see you there!

#SFWApro

Announcing ATTACK THE GEEK!

A while back, I made some noise about a new 3-book deal with Pocket Star – 2 of the books being in a new series titled YOUNGER GODS, and the other being a novella in the Ree Reyes universe, set after CELEBROMANCY.

Now that I have edits back on the novella, we’ve settled on a title for the novella: ATTACK THE GEEK. This book will be about half the size of a Ree Reyes novel, and focuses on one Incredibly Bad Night (TM) at Grognard’s, featuring Geekomancers new and old, magic curses, whacky monsters, more romantic tension between Ree and Drake, and the on-screen return of everyone’s favorite Grizzled Geekomantic Mentor, Eastwood!

ATTACK THE GEEK will be available on April 7th, 2014. Set your calendars now!

You can see it even now on Goodreads, and pre-order on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iTunes. Other links to come. (N.B. the final price will be lower than $5.99, since it’s a shorter work).

w00t!

Never Forget – How Could I?

On 9/11, I was a brand-new Freshman in college. My adulthood has been formed in a number of ways by that day.

I remember waking up and checking news on a Legend of the Five rings blog site and thinking it was a hoax at first. Then spending hours going down internet rabbit holes, needing to know more.

My one class that day spent the first 60 minutes just trying to process what had happened, and our teacher, excellent as she was, wove it back into the subject of the class, on international relations (The West and China, in the class’ case, but it worked).

That night, the dorms at Indiana University had impromptu group grief counseling sessions. Walking back to our dorm, I remember talking with a group about how if we don’t want this to lead to a war, we should contact our representatives, tell them to find a peaceful solution. That didn’t exactly pan out.

Not long after that, I borrowed The Hero With a Thousand Faces and The Power of Myth from the library, which set me on the path of designing my own major (Creative Mythology) out of a need to tell stories, perhaps derived from a desire for some kind of control, to be able to make sense of the world. That major then put me on the path towards becoming a novelist, of going from ‘I want to write fiction some day’ to ‘I am going to start doing this thing, now.’

Would I have still become a writer without 9/11? Probably. But that day, the effects it had on the USA as a country, psychologically, socially, politically, economically, have created the world that I live in.

“Never Forget.” I’m part of the 9/11 generation. How could I ever forget? All I can do is try to move on.

Justin Landon’s Call to Action

At WorldCon, I had the pleasure of meeting Justin Landon, the man behind Staffer’s Book Reviews. Justin is, for my money, one of the most astute and rigorous reviewers active in SF/F right now, and while that terrifies me as a writer, I think he brings a great deal of passion and insight to the community.

Justin and I were both on a podcast recording about WorldCon, and after the mics turned off, the talk turned to action items – what we as members of the community can do to move forward, to embrace the changes in the makeup of an expanding and evolving fandom.

I’m very glad to see that Justin has already started moving on the ideas. Please head over to Staffer’s Book Reviews and check out his post-WorldCon/Hugos post, and especially the part at the end.

Embrace the Constraints

OR

“The Folly of the Journeyman”

 

So, here’s something I’ve noticed this the last few times I’ve been in a classroom atmosphere *not* as a teacher – I’m becoming something of a bad student.

I’m moving into the stage of my life where the times I’m a teacher are equalling or sometimes outnumbering the times I’m the student. And being a good student requires beginning from the premise of “I don’t know better, I should listen,” which is hard when the rest of the time you’re teaching from the premise of “I know something worth sharing, I should speak.”

This whole post was inspired by a student moment I just had last week, but I’ll go back to an older one, first.

When I lived in Queens, the only renaissance martial arts group I could find was the Martinez Academy of Arms, which has a *very* different learning culture than the one I was used to in the SCA. At the Martinez Academy, you do what the Maestro says, when he says it, and nothing else.

Problem is, I knew enough about fencing already to want to move past the basic stuff and get on to the other, cooler bits. The Maesto had me start with several weeks of stance, walking, and completely constrained plays, despite the fact that I’d been a competitive renaissance fencer for five years. I got no special treatment due to having a background. Yes, I’d already studied historical martial arts. Yes, I’d had success as a competitive fencer. None of that changes the fact that properly lead drilling where the objective and process is well-explained is an important way to develop skills in isolation to later integrate into your overall approach. The Maestro’s way was not my way, and I was paying for the Maestro to teach the Maestro’s way.

The lesson I had to learn there was to stop trying to jump ahead, and to let my focus dwell on the constraints and the focus, not on what might come next. There is value in going over the basics, and I struggled against those constraints, depriving myself of the best learning experience.

And just last week, I was doing a writing exercise in a group class and wrote past the constraint, instead of keeping the constraint in the forefront of my mind. In this case, it was a small violation (we were told to show emotion from a character POV and only use three sentences. I used four), but it was still a failure to embrace the constraint, to let that one variable dominate.

Isolating variables and focusing on constraints is, I think, a great way to develop a specific part of a skill set, whether it’s in writing, martial arts, or whatever. If you can make time to do those admittedly artificial exercises, where you know that it’s not how thing usually work, but you’re doing the drill because it lets you form good habits, I think it can have a great effect. It’s not something I’ve ever been too good at as a student, even though I teach it as an instructor. My brain wants to roll everything together, to always be integrating everything at once.

I need to be better about embracing constraints so I can up my game, both in writing, martial arts, and in training myself into better professional behaviors, interpersonal behaviors, everything.

What constraints to you struggle against that you could be embracing? How do you check yourself when that happens?

#SFWApro

Indies First

Sherman Alexie just proposed something that I think is super-cool, and I might try to pull off, myself.

Read here:

http://www.bookweb.org/indies-first

 

Read it? Cool.

Being a former bookseller, this idea is totally up my alley. When I worked retail, I loved the one-on-one interaction, the fun of getting to know someone enough to learn their aesthetic, or the one they were shopping for. There was nothing quite as cool as finding the exact right game for a family to play at a holiday, or connecting a reader with their next favorite book.

Alexie’s post has a slightly mercenary angle to it, in the ‘if you hand-sell a bunch, you will sell your own book, too’ kind of way. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Thing is, there aren’t, to my knowledge, Indie bookstores in Baltimore that have a SF section substantive enough for me to be useful that also sell ebooks. Only a small # of indie bookstores have partnered with Kobo to sell epub ebooks – the strategy for indie ebookselling is still emerging, since the current math makes it counter-productive for most indie bookstores to spend time selling ebooks when they could be encouraging print book sales.

Alexie’s idea is a sound one, but how well does it apply to me? I’d still love to do it, since for me the main objective is to show my support for indie bookstores, which is strong.

 

But my perspective speaks only for me. This idea brings up lots of questions based on the different roles in this proposed scenario.

To my author friends – Would you do this? What’s your take on hand-selling? Do you like it? Fear it?

And booksellers – Would you have an author come into your store? How would you use them?

And bookstore shoppers – Do you like being hand-sold, or do you like to hunt for books on your own? How would you react to an author offering to help you find books in their genres of expertise?

Madeline Ashby On WorldCon, Age, and Futures of Fandom

Angry Robot author Madeline Ashby made a blog post about WorldCon’s “Greying of Fandom Problem.” It’s very smart, and you should go over and read it if you haven’t.

An excerpt:

Let me put it another way. The demographic shifts faced by WorldCon’s largest customer segment are the same ones faced by the Republican Party. Let that sink in for a minute. Really let it marinate. These are the same people who cheered me when I talked about Canada’s healthcare plan, and applauded Mark Van Name when he blamed rape culture for America’s ills. They want to be progressive, but they’re being blindsided by the very same demographic shifts afflicting the most conservative elements of contemporary society, for exactly the same reason: they haven’t taken the issue seriously. This is why there isn’t a Hugo for Young Adult novels. Because God forbid we reward the writers who transform young genre readers into lifelong customers at a time when even Bruce Sterling says the future will be about old people staring at the sky in puzzlement and horror.

 

 

Read the whole post here.

 

For folks who went to WorldCon – what do you think about this demographic situation? Is this something WorldCon should address? How? It’s easy for writers to say ‘Hey, this con needs to bring in younger people so my writing has a future!’ but what can we as writers do about it? What can bloggers, reviewers, editors, and other industry professionals do?