Weekend Update
Feb. 15th, 2010 08:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sinanjuI attend RadCon in Pasco, WA over the weekend with my lovely and talented wife snippy (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
snippy). It was our first time at RadCon. We drove four hours to get there, and though it was a long trip we had a lot of fun on the drive as well as at the convention; getting out of the house and away from the constant low-level awareness of chores is good for us.
RadCon has its roots as a gaming con, which was obvious. It had RPG gaming, card gaming, console gaming (PSP, Wii, and XBox set-ups), and at least two different LANs, both of which were constantly nearly full of guys (mostly guys) playing first person shooters of various sorts.
RadCon skews considerably younger on average than Orycon, which we attend every year. The dance (we skipped it on Friday night to hang out with friends instead, but went on Saturday) was a hell of a lot more fun than the dances at Orycon. Of course, RadCon has a budget for the dance--they hire an actual DJ who brings music, sound equipment, lights, the whole nine yards. The dance floor was packed from beginning to end and resembled a rave more than a mere dance (or so I'm given to understand--I've never actually been to a rave). Almost all the dancer were wearing or carrying a multitude of light sticks, light bracelets or LED sticks. One thing that did carry over from the Orycon dance is that they played "Time Warp" at midnight, followed by "Rasputin". I'd heard that Time Warp was traditional at RadCon just like at Orycon, but was surprised--and pleased--by Rasputin (I like that song).
There were plenty of panels to attend, and attend them I did. Panels on writing, on publishing, on various topics having to do with science, science fiction, media properties, costuming, fandom, and the like. Many of the panels were held in actual rooms (not conference rooms but guest rooms with most of the furniture removed and filled with chairs). I thought was odd--especially since guest rooms have no overhead lights and they'd removed most of the lamps as well, so the rooms tended to be dim, and during the day light from the sliding glass doors behind the panels made for...interesting lighting effects on the backlit panelists. But since most of the hotel's publc spaces were given over to gaming, I suppose that's not surprising.
We went, in large part, to renew my enthusiasm for writing by getting a booster shot of fandom and of contact with other writers, and editors, and of course, my writing gurus, Kris & Dean. And it worked.
Speaking of which, I received an email rejection on a story on Sunday. I printed out a new copy and got it all ready to mail today and then realized this morning that today is a holiday. So I'll take it by the USPS tomorrow morning when they reopen. But it's ready to go. I also wrote just over 3,000 words on my novel today. That's my goal for this week--3,000 words a day. And maybe a little more next week, so I can trim out the now-irrelevant scenes and get it whipped into shape for sending out queries by the end of the month in just under two weeks.
I also have another round of edits to work on this week for each of my two upcoming Cobblestone stories--"Fast Friends" and "The Wild One". It's gonna be a busy writing week this week. I like it.
Project: Strange Attractors
Words Written Today: 3,060
Stories in Circulation: 10
Rejections: 30
Stories Accepted: SEVEN
Stories to Resubmit: 1 (will go out tomorrow when the USPS reopens)
snippy (snippy). It was our first time at RadCon. We drove four hours to get there, and though it was a long trip we had a lot of fun on the drive as well as at the convention; getting out of the house and away from the constant low-level awareness of chores is good for us.RadCon has its roots as a gaming con, which was obvious. It had RPG gaming, card gaming, console gaming (PSP, Wii, and XBox set-ups), and at least two different LANs, both of which were constantly nearly full of guys (mostly guys) playing first person shooters of various sorts.
RadCon skews considerably younger on average than Orycon, which we attend every year. The dance (we skipped it on Friday night to hang out with friends instead, but went on Saturday) was a hell of a lot more fun than the dances at Orycon. Of course, RadCon has a budget for the dance--they hire an actual DJ who brings music, sound equipment, lights, the whole nine yards. The dance floor was packed from beginning to end and resembled a rave more than a mere dance (or so I'm given to understand--I've never actually been to a rave). Almost all the dancer were wearing or carrying a multitude of light sticks, light bracelets or LED sticks. One thing that did carry over from the Orycon dance is that they played "Time Warp" at midnight, followed by "Rasputin". I'd heard that Time Warp was traditional at RadCon just like at Orycon, but was surprised--and pleased--by Rasputin (I like that song).
There were plenty of panels to attend, and attend them I did. Panels on writing, on publishing, on various topics having to do with science, science fiction, media properties, costuming, fandom, and the like. Many of the panels were held in actual rooms (not conference rooms but guest rooms with most of the furniture removed and filled with chairs). I thought was odd--especially since guest rooms have no overhead lights and they'd removed most of the lamps as well, so the rooms tended to be dim, and during the day light from the sliding glass doors behind the panels made for...interesting lighting effects on the backlit panelists. But since most of the hotel's publc spaces were given over to gaming, I suppose that's not surprising.
We went, in large part, to renew my enthusiasm for writing by getting a booster shot of fandom and of contact with other writers, and editors, and of course, my writing gurus, Kris & Dean. And it worked.
Speaking of which, I received an email rejection on a story on Sunday. I printed out a new copy and got it all ready to mail today and then realized this morning that today is a holiday. So I'll take it by the USPS tomorrow morning when they reopen. But it's ready to go. I also wrote just over 3,000 words on my novel today. That's my goal for this week--3,000 words a day. And maybe a little more next week, so I can trim out the now-irrelevant scenes and get it whipped into shape for sending out queries by the end of the month in just under two weeks.
I also have another round of edits to work on this week for each of my two upcoming Cobblestone stories--"Fast Friends" and "The Wild One". It's gonna be a busy writing week this week. I like it.
Project: Strange Attractors
Words Written Today: 3,060
Stories in Circulation: 10
Rejections: 30
Stories Accepted: SEVEN
Stories to Resubmit: 1 (will go out tomorrow when the USPS reopens)