When Words Collide 2015

So apparently I haven't blogged since early January, which is sort of shocking. But when you consider in that time I've graduated from university with a double major, successfully orchestrated a conference, turned CAFE's (the Calgary Association of Freelance Editors) social media into a vibrant internet presence, gotten a summer job, and done a million other things as well, it's not that surprising that SOMEthing had to give, and this blog was it.

Photo by Teresa Rehmann Photography

But now that school is over (for now...), the youth conference is in the past (although I still have a lot of paperwork to sort out), and this past weekend was the fifth annual WWC (When Words Collide) conference here in Calgary, it's time to blog again. I've been going every year since it started, and it's grown to 600 people, which makes me both happy and sad. Happy that it's so popular and such a quality event, but sad that there are so many people! It's an introvert thing. :)

WWC is five this year, and my business is almost there! In my first blog post about the conference, I mention working on starting up my business. How far we've come! In 2012, the second year, I was ambitious enough to do a post each for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. 2013 was a good year, and in 2014 I was sick, but still got a lot out of it.

Friday:
Registration felt more scattered than it usually does. Something had gone wrong with my registration, and I wasn't on the list, even though I'm on the list of members on the website. So I had to fill out some paperwork and they had to make me a name tag, and I kept getting lost in the shuffle because I'm too polite to be pushy. Sigh. #Canadianproblems

My traditional first panel at WWC is the Early Bird Live Action Slush, which is a mixture of genres. I always pick up lots of interesting tips from the panellists. Basically what happens is that writers submit, anonymously, the first page of their manuscript, and a reader reads the page. The panellists put up their hands when they want the reader to stop, and when there are three hands up, the reader stops and the panellists give their feedback about what they liked or didn't. Occasionally the reader will get through the entire submission without being stopped, which is actually happening more frequently as the years go by, so clearly the writers are becoming more practiced at their craft, which is really cool to see.

As our second panel we went to Subtext in Foreshadowing, which was interesting, but even though we were there early, there weren't any seats left, so we had to sit on the floor. I've gotten too old to sit on the floor, and my bum went numb. I managed to make a few notes, though. :) Our third panel was in the same room, so we managed to snag chairs, which helped! The panel was called Crafting Magical Worlds with Extra Credits' Mario Theory. The idea is that the game design logic applied to creating Mario can be applied to creating fantasy worlds in fiction. Really interesting, and based on this video:





At 4pm on Friday there were a few things that were interesting, but I ended up going to a workshop by ZEDS Comic Communication about public speaking and using a microphone. I was moderating a panel on Saturday, and what with applying to grad school and probably needing to teach in the future, public speaking is something I'm becoming more interested in learning about. The session was really good, super useful, and had some tips I did successfully apply to the panel the next day.

Next up we went to a panel on research, which was good - I love research, so I enjoy hearing about it from people who geek out about it as much as I do. At 6pm was the event I'd been waiting for all day - an hour with Diana Gabaldon. Although, really, it was only 50 minutes, and only a fan would be counting. :) She read an excerpt from Outlander book 9, which she's currently writing, and took some questions. So awesome.

Friday evening at 7pm is always the WWC keynote speaker addresses, which I enjoy. I knew Diana would be great, but I didn't know any of the other authors. I was totally taken by Faith Hunter and Brandon Mull. She looks a little scary/intense in her author photo, and I'd seen one of Brandon's book covers, which looked really dark, and it hadn't done anything for me. But the were both so funny and enjoyable, and such great speakers, that's I'll definitely be checking out Brandon's books. I got started on Brandon Sanderson's books that way last year, and I haven't regretted it. I'd check out Faith's, too, but I just can't do urban fantasy. But as Gwen Hunter she writes mysteries, so I'll add those to my list.

Saturday:
Our first panel of the day was actually a panel of one: Brandon Mull. And we were late, because we'd gotten there early to do some book shopping in the vendors' room, and then got talking to people. We got there just as he was talking about this race he'd invented who had a seed in each of their brain stems that allowed them to re-grow after they died, so they were basically immortal. Apparently that really made an impression on me, because that night I dreamed about a whalers hunting whales for their brain seeds, like rhinos are hunted for their horns, or something. It was a very vivid dream - he's a very articulate and creative speaker. He was inspired as a child by Narnia, and as an adult by Harry Potter. I REALLY LIKE HIM.

At 11am my friend went to eco-fiction, which looked interesting, but I really wanted to go to the Editing Tricks panel to get a feel for what writers were asking about editing as research for my CAFE panel later in the afternoon. One of the panellists brought up CAFE, which was really great. But again I had to sit on the floor, so it was hard to see who said it. But it was interesting to sit in as an editor, and I appreciated it. At noon there were a whole bunch of interesting things, but we ended up going to YA and the Tough Stuff, which was interesting, but maybe not very enlightening. I'd love to see some actual young adults on these panels, rather than just 30+ adults who write what they think they YA audience wants/needs. Sigh. I've been frustrated with the YA panels for a couple of years now, so next year I might just skip them.

At 1 we couldn't actually find anything we wanted to go to, so we took a nice, quiet lunch break in one of the seating areas. We were actually having a really intense conversation about YA books and how they portray families when one of the panellists came and sat near us, so my friend asked her about it, and we had a good conversation. That's one of my favourite things about WWC - the unscripted, unplanned things that just happen.

Our next panel was On Writing with Gwen Hunter and David B. Coe, which was really good. I really wish I'd taken notes, but I was distracted by the fact that Diana Gabaldon was sitting at the other end of the row, and the fact that I was getting nervous about moderating my first panel in an hour! They are each good conference guests on their own, but when you put them together, it's magic. I'm really kicking myself for not paying more attention.

At 3pm I was in charge of moderating the Editing Explained panel, and four of my fellow CAFE members. By the time I got there I wasn't nervous anymore, and I think it went REALLY well. It was a lot of fun, and the panellists were great, and so was the audience. There were TWO other editing-related panels at the same time, which was really too bad - it would have been nice to have more people there. Immediately after we hosted writer/editor "speed dating", which was a chance for writers to talk one-on-one for a few minutes, and I met a bunch of interesting people who are excited about writing, which was fun. While I was doing that my friend went to Your 20 Second Opportunity, about honing your elevator pitch, and she said it was really good.

Venue:
WWC was at a new venue this year. The bathrooms were REALLY nice, and the chairs were the comfiest hotel conference chairs I've ever sat in. There were also lots of seating areas with armchairs and couches. The dash back and forth across the street between buildings, or else up three or four floors, across the walkway, and then down three floors, was a bit much, but at least I got my exercise and it was nice to be forced to get some fresh air. The hotel staff were really friendly, but the service in the Atrium for dinner was SO. SLOW. It took us three hours to have dinner on Saturday, and while the fish was good, the chips were bland, and the dessert was really disappointing. Oh, and it was freezing in the restaurant. They gave us the dessert for free because of the slowness of dinner in arriving, but I wasn't impressed by the gesture or the lacklustre dessert. The conference also keeps moving further away from where I live, meaning that I don't stay as late, which is kind of saddening. But it could also just be that I'm getting old...

Sunday:
We started off Sunday morning going to the historical live action slush panel, which was one of the best slushes I've ever been to. Diana Gabaldon was one of the panellists, and the other three were all good, too. There were lots of great submissions and lots of great feedback. And so much laughter and humour - I really enjoyed it.

At 11am we went to "Science Fiction and the Future", which was interesting, but it was SO HOT in the room, and we were near the middle of a row. There was a guy sitting next to me who really suffered from 'manspreading' to the point where he actually stepped on my foot once. He also elbowed me and crowded me with his shoulders to the point where I was either going to have to leave or have a panic attack. Thankfully the panel ended before I had a total meltdown, and we were able to move to the end of the row for the next panel. It was still hot but at least I wasn't putting up with unwanted physical contact. Even if they'd spaced the chairs a bit further apart, it would have been better. Anyway, the noon panel was on historical license, and it was phenomenal. Great mix of panellists and discussion, and so interesting. I love historical fiction, and so wish I'd taken more notes. Note to self for next year: take more notes!

After that panel my friend left to head home, and I went to 'Murder - Ancient and Contemporary", but I was tired and hungry, and it was going over a lot of the same ground as the panel I'd just been at, so I snuck out and went to eat my lunch. At 2pm was one of my favourites; pus on by a woman who used to work for Scholastic and who now works for Chapters, it's 50 minutes of suggestions about which YA books to check out. Not that I really need to add anything to my reading list - but it's fun. And this year there was a teenage girl who came and made suggestions too, to that was awesome.

At 3pm there were a couple of things I wanted to go to, but I ended up going to the YA live action slush, mostly because Brandon Mull was on the panel. :) There was a wide range of submissions, and some interesting discussion and it was a good choice for where my attention span was at by that point in the weekend.

4pm was the last hour of panels, and there were a bunch of interesting-looking things. I went to the EDGE book launch, but just couldn't focus any more, so I ended up heading home before the conference even finished. I spent Monday seriously introverting. :)

Things for the future:
Next year I'd love to see a presentation about Scrivener. I've heard the name in passing a few times, and I'm under the impression that it's a piece of software that you buy to help structure your book, but I'd like to see someone with a computer and a projector actually showing us what it is and what it can do. I'd also like to see more sessions for readers - I feel like this year was pretty writer-focused, but writers are readers too (or should be), and it would be fun to see some panels on things like what readers think about their favourite books being made into movies or tv shows, and a discussion of how some things HAVE to be changed for the screen (maybe bring in a screenwriter?). Another fun discussion would be classic authors' influence in modern works, like Shakespeare's Star Wars, or the series of cozy mysteries about a Jane Austen scholar. Or even a panel of authors talking about what they like to read for fun, and which authors inspired them when they were kids.

As always, the WWC committee put on a great, affordable, and accessible weekend of learning and networking. I'm already looking forward to next year, and the dates are in my calendar!

When Words Collide 2014

I first went to When Words Collide in 2011, which was its first year, and I've gone every year since then. In 2012 I was inspired enough to blog each day: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Last year I covered the whole weekend in just one post, and I think that's what I'll do again this year. Every year I come home with notes and handouts and a dog-eared program, and add a whole bunch of books to my to-read list. It's so much fun! If you're an editor or writer in Alberta, I definitely recommend checking it out in 2015.

Unfortunately this year I had a cold. The event's official photographer got this shot of me late on Friday night, and yes, I am as tired as I look, although I wasn't actually asleep...

 

 

 

Friday, 1 pm: Early Bird Live Action Slush

Live Action Slushes are usually my favourite panels of the weekend. It's a chance to hear from publishers/editors about what they're looking for (or NOT looking for...) in a manuscript, which helps me when I'm editing for clients who are going to be submitting their manuscript to publishers. "Watch for wandering body parts" was a great piece of advice from this panel, in reference to a character's "eyes roaming over the deserted city", or something to that effect. The quality of manuscripts submitted seems to get better every year, and I think this year had a new record for number of submissions that were read to the end.

 

I think it would be useful if the organizers posted the rules on the website and on the door of the room so that first-timers would know important things like, only submit one page. Someone submitted two pages, but they weren't stapled together, so the second page ended up being read rather than the first, and everyone was very confused. Also, a manuscript that was criticized in one slush session was re-submitted, un-changed, to another session which had one of the same judges on the panel, and he was not amused (neither was I - at least make the suggested changes first!). Posting some FAQs about slush etiquette would help eliminate that kind of situation in the future.

 

Friday, 2 pm: Writing a Good Pitch/Query Letter

I doubt I'll need to write a pitch or query myself, but I might be retained to edit one, and this was a solid panel with lots of good discussion. It wasn't long enough for all the questions people had though, so this would be a good panel to offer again next year. It would have been really helpful to have a handout for this one, or a list of online resources for good templates and that sort of thing.

 

Friday, 3 pm: Social Dimension of Reading

I actually can't recall this one at all. I saw several of the people on this panel on other ones during the weekend, and they're all blurring together a bit...ooops!

 

Friday, 4 pm: I had a change of plans

I started out in one session that just was not doing it for me, so I moved to Shawn Bird's session on plot models, which was a good choice. It was a really interesting look at the structure of story, and gave me some ideas of things to watch for in my clients' writing. She had handouts and slides on the screen, which was really great.

 

Friday, 5 pm: Short Stories

Lots of interesting tidbits of information from this session about characteristics of a short story as opposed to a novel.

 

Friday, 6 pm: Criminal Heroes

In hindsight I probably should have gone to 'Ask an Editor', because while the panel had a good mix of panellists and discussions, it was very similar to a panel from last year and I didn't really pick up anything new.

 

Friday, 7 pm: Kill the Parents

This was a panel about parents in YA fiction, and it was totally slanted toward those who thought that parents need to be removed from the equation, either by death or other absence, in order to allow the teen to overcome obstacles on his or her own. None of them thought that parents could be anything other than an hindrance to personal development, and when I suggested otherwise, it was suggested that if that's what I wanted to read, that's what I should write. Sigh. There have got to be good, supportive, understanding parents out there, both in real life and fiction, right?!

 

Friday, 8 pm: Keynote Speakers

The keynotes actually started at 7, so I came in late, which is one of the reasons I ended up sitting on the floor. I didn't see any empty end chairs, and I didn't want to disturb people to get into a middle seat. Plus, being hemmed in by people makes me feel claustrophobic.

 

ANYway, I got there in time to hear Brandon Sanderson, who I didn't know at all except in an abstract way as one of those writers of epic fantasy that I don't really enjoy. I quite liked his style, so I am going to give his writing a chance, if I can find something that's not too epic. :)

 

But my highlight was Jack Whyte, as it usually is. I'd seriously listen to him talk about anything. What a voice!

 

Friday, 9 pm: Laughing at Love

This was about using humour in storytelling, and they started it off by playing my favourite Moxy Früvous song:

 

 

 

I did take a few good notes at the panel, which still make sense even almost a month later, so it was definitely worthwhile staying for, but by that point I was so tired I was getting worried about driving home, so I snuck out early and didn't even bother with the parties, which was unfortunate, because they're the best chance for networking.  

@JordhanaRempel @WWC_Calgary Don't skip the evening parties; they're free and open to all attendees and great networking happens at them.
— Robert J. Sawyer (@RobertJSawyer) August 4, 2014

Sorry RJS, I'll try not to be sick next year! :( I found out later the steampunk social had a solve-the-murder-mystery theme going on, so I was really sorry to miss that. Hopefully they do it again! I heard that there were also problems on both nights with hotel security expecting the late night parties to be over by 11 pm, which is silly. Next year we're going to be a different, bigger hotel, and I have high hopes for the parties there!

 

Saturday, 10 am:  Blending SF and Fantasy

I only made one note from this panel: "When blending genres always be consistent with the rules of the universe." :)

 

Saturday, 11 am: Editing Explained

This panel featured editors from the Calgary Association of Freelance Editors (CAFE), which I'm a member of, so I went along both to be supportive and to hear what kinds of questions the audience had about editing. People had lots of questions about the editing process and various editing roles. One person was confused about editors who edit versus acquisitions editors who work for publishing houses and decide what manuscripts to acquire for publishing, so it's a good thing they did the panel. Hopefully they'll do something similar again next year.

 

Saturday, noon: Live Action Slush: Science Fiction Edition

I think this was the one where the one that had been criticized on Friday turned up again. Also, I think this was the panel where one of the editors was talking about the difficulty in writing believable dialogue, and for an example he used Star Wars Episode One, and I quote loosely; "That dialogue was so wooden I think I got splinters", which really spoke to me.

 

Not only that, at I think two of the slush sessions I went to - scifi and historical, and maybe a third one, but I can't remember for sure - a manuscript riffing off the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air introduction showed up. In the scifi version, there were robots, and in the historical version it was all old-fashioned language. It was highly amusing, and probably only someone who went to as many slushes as I did would have noticed. Although there was one panel, maybe the scifi one, where the reader was reading it out loud, and as soon as people realized it was Fresh Prince, they were laughing so hard the reader just stopped and went on with the next one. Kudos to whoever went to all that trouble for what I presume was meant to be a very amusing prank.

 

Saturday, 1 pm: Teaching Canadian Fiction

This was an interesting panel composed of education professionals who are also writers and editors. It didn't end up being anything particularly applicable to me, but it was interesting nonetheless.

 

Saturday, 2 pm: New in YA Fiction

This session was put on by a lady who's a manager at a Chapters, and she did a great job of drawing out a list of solid, current YA fiction that goes beyond vampires. I added a lot of books to my to read list! It would have been helpful to have a handout though, because I was trying to type everything into my iPod, and when I'm getting audio input only it's hard to tell the difference between 'night' and 'knight', for instance. It took most of Monday to translate the list into something that Goodreads would recognize. :)

 

Saturday, 3 pm: Live Action Slush, Historical Edition

This one was my favourite, because Jack Whyte was the reader. 'Nuff said.

 

Saturday, 4 pm: Plotting Your Novel

I had a hard time with this one. It just wasn't doing anything for me, and I was SO TIRED. I ended up sneaking out early and waiting in the lobby for my husband to come have dinner with me. In hindsight, I should have gone to Jack Whyte's session on writing action scenes - I don't know what I was thinking. I suppose my thought process was dulled by the cold medication...

 

Saturday evening:

The Saturday evening schedule was weird. Sessions all ended at 5, and then at 5:30 there was a banquet for those who wanted to pay for the expensive tickets for it. At 6:30 there was a variety show that went till 7:30, but there were more regular sessions starting at 7. So basically I kicked my heels around the hotel from 4:30 to 7. Then there was an autograph session from 8-9, and then the parties didn't start till 9. So if I had wanted to stay for the parties, I would have had to kick my heels some more from 8 till 9. It was very strange - I'm not sure why they laid it out like that - it would seem to make more sense to just not have panels that evening at all. I guess if Diana Gabaldon had actually come and not cancelled because of the tv show, I would have been hunting her autograph and filled in that hour, but as it was, I went home to bed after the 7:00 panel finished...

 

Saturday, 7 pm: Gripping [sic] About Grammar

This was a really fun panel. The room was way too crowded - they should have gotten a bigger one, and it was no where near long enough for all of the questions. I think next year they should have a few sessions dedicated to different grammar issues.  The highlight of the panel was a panelist and an audience member getting into a (mostly friendly) shouting match over whether or not the Oxford comma is necessary or not. I think it is, by the way. I'm not sure if it was worth waiting two and a half hours for though, since I didn't learn anything. But I did laugh an awful lot though, so that's something!

 

 

 

Sunday morning:

I skipped the first two sessions - I would have gone to the publishers' panel on novels at 10, and the one about the use of poisons in mysteries at 11 - but I wanted to go to church. Pastor preached a great sermon about faith and fantasy, which, other than the Bible, featured a lot of Doctor Who references. If you've got 20 minutes, it's definitely worth watching.  

 

Sunday, noon: Murder Most Fair

This panel was ok - there were definitely too many people on it for everyone to get a good chance to talk. But I did discover a great series of cozy mysteries set in Nova Scotia, so it was totally worth going to the panel just for that.

 

Sunday, 1 pm: Publishers' Panel on Short Fiction

Again, should have gone with the historical fiction one that Jack Whyte was on... The publishers' one was fine, but there were a lot of people on it, and it was kind of all over the place topic-wise, so I didn't really get a ton out of it, although I did take a few notes. I even tried asking a question to get it back on topic, and that totally didn't work. Although by that point in the weekend, everyone is so tired that maybe expecting everything and everyone to be totally sensible is honestly an unreasonable expectation. :)

 

Sunday, 2 pm:

There wasn't really anything during this time slot that caught my attention, and I was pretty tired. I popped into one about gender perspectives in mystery novels, but...meh. I ended up buying a couple of books in the vendors' room and then just hanging out till 3. It was the only slot where I couldn't find anything I wanted to go to, and ironically, in the next slot at 3 there were THREE things I wanted to go to!

 

Sunday, 3 pm: Live Action Slush, Mystery Edition

I don't remember anything particular about this one, although I feel like there weren't many submissions for it. Hopefully with WWC's increasing content for mysteries and mystery writers, more people will submit next year.

 

Sunday, 4 pm: How to Build a Consistent and Original Magic System

I was even more impressed by Brandon Sanderson after this. He's only five years older than me, and he's got massive writing credits as well as a large family, and he's a great speaker. I took a pile of notes at this one, and kind of wished I'd done one of the pre-weekend classes with him. It was a good session to end the weekend with.

 

General comments about panels:

Six people on a panel is WAY too many. Five people is a lot, but manageable with a good moderator. Four seems to be about the right number. Also, it's obvious when a moderator/panel guest has come prepared...or not. I know they're all volunteers, but audience members can tell when you're there because you care about the topic and have things to share that go beyond just the scope of your own books. Like the general social media rule, no more than 10% of your content should be flogging your own product.

 

When you have a panel of 4 or 5 well-prepared guests/moderator, it's a wonderful thing.  

 

Speaking of volunteers, everyone, except for two or three keynote author guests, is a volunteer, which is why the conference is so affordable. As I do a lot of conference planning, I thoroughly appreciate the smoothness with which WWC runs. I'm sure there are snags in the background that most of the attendees never notice, and there are always things that could be done differently, but all-in-all the volunteers who put this on do an amazing, amazing job of it.

 

 

Something interesting and unexpected that came out of the weekend is that I'm now the Social Media Project Leader for CAFE. I spent some time visiting with the president of CAFE, and after hearing of my love for Twitter, she asked if I would take that on. I've started out by taking an online course in social media through the library, and I'm developing a social media strategy and thinking of interesting things to do. I can always use more volunteer positions on my CV, right? :) You can find us on Twitter - we're @CalgaryEditors.

 

I'm looking forward to next year! Registration is already 5% full, which is a good sign... Check out the guest list, and if you're going to attend, register before the rates go up on April 1. It'll be the last year I'm eligible for the student rate, which is bittersweet. I'll be graduating in June, which means I'll be looking for more editing work in the spring, if you know of anyone looking for a nit-picky copyeditor...

 

 



When Words Collide 2013

This past weekend was the third annual When Words Collide here in Calgary. It's sort of a reader con, or a literary festival of genre fiction, and it's a great opportunity for learning and networking for writers, readers, editors, and publishers. My schedule is full of notes and stars next to names - I have a lot of new-to-me authors to add to my to read list now...

It started on Friday at 1 pm, and I wasn't as early as I would have liked. There were three workshops that afternoon that required signing up ahead of time, and I wasn't there early enough to get in line. There's never been a lineup for the signup sheets before - I didn't realize how much bigger it was going to be this year!

I went to the Live Action Slush: Early Bird Edition, which is always fun. I learn so much about editing and what publishers are looking for from almost every live action slush I go to. I did have a writing submission in that pile too - and while it didn't get the  book offer I was hoping for, I did get some good feedback. :)

Next I sat through three mystery-oriented panels in a row - Have Gun Will Murder, Violence in Literature, and Pushing the Limits of Traditional Mystery. Have Gun was about western mystery genre, and the panelist posted a list of recommendations on her website. I didn't get a chance to chip in, but Hell on Wheels, Dead Reckoning by Mercedes Lackey, and The Apparition Trail by Lisa Smedman are all western-based fiction that I recommend. Violence in Literature was an interesting panel - there was discussion about whether violence in fiction is necessary, and the general consensus seems to be that some of some sort is necessary - the panellists were clear not to glorify it, and some introduce it off-screen rather then on, but there's violence in real life, and it's a good tool to use to move the story along. One of the panellists is a paramedic/former cop, and he had some good info about violence and how to write it realistically, and fielded questions about things like how long people tend to stay unconscious. Pushing the Limits talked a lot about the genre of 'cozy' mysteries and why they work and why, for some readers, they don't work. Apparently there's a new line of gluten-free cozies, which produced general hilarity. :)

Then I went to a YA-focused live action slush, and a live action editing panel, where we looked at handouts of things that make publishers reject stories and got some hands-on experience, which was pretty cool. Hopefully they'll do one like that again next year. Although one of the plots that they rejected reminded me a lot of a Monty Python animation I watched last night, and we all know how popular Monty Python ended up being...

The guests of honour (six of them who were paid to be there - EVERYone else volunteered) spent about an hour and a half each giving a short talk about their work in the industry and told stories and whatnot, and it was interesting as always. All of the guests this year were new to me, so it's a good chance to get a feel for the personalities, which helps when trying to choose between three panels later in the weekend. On Saturday, there were ELEVEN scheduled things every hour to choose from, which is hard! Then I popped into the EDGE party room until it go too crowded and noisy for this introvert, then I fled. :)

Saturday was jam-packed with all kinds of goodies. I was there from 9:30 in the morning until 10:30 at night, and I'm still trying to recover! If there's programming running, I want to be participating in it, so it can be rather exhausting. The first live action slush of the day was all about fantasy, and it had some good content - there were a lot of manuscripts that were really well received. A panel called Doom and Gloom and Dark Despair, Young Readers Love Them Everywhere was a bit disappointing. In hindsight, they really should have had the guest who's a child psychologist on that panel, which is what I was expecting. It was a discussion about the darkness of YA books these days, but the panel was really big and not super focused, so I left unenlightened. Making the Everyday Fantastic was a really good panel, with writers talking about how they take everyday places and things and make them fantastical, and I ended up buying Through the Door by Jodi McIsaac because of its setting in Halifax.

Each Generation's Sherlock Holmes was a fascinating look at Sherlock Holmes through his various incarnations on stage and in movies and tv shows. The two guys who led it, Charles Prepolec and Jeff Campbell, have co-edited a bunch of Sherlock Holmes anthologies and what the two of them don't know about the 'franchise' isn't worth knowing. Next year I'd love to see a panel discussing the influence that Sherlock Holmes has had on detective fiction as a genre, or something like that.

The Steampunk Art and Science Society did a couple of presentation on steampunk costuming (I'd give my eyeteeth for mad sewing skills!) and on Tesla vs Edison, which is always a fun topic. :) The panel on Canada as Our Exotic Home was quite good - lots of discussion about Canada as a place to set stories (will that turn off American readers?) and if there's something that defines Canadian fiction as a genre. There was a good mix of panelists, and I really enjoyed that one.

I went to another Sherlock Holmes panel called Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Bag of Tricks, which was really interesting, but the AC was running really loud, and I was too tired to focus, so I ended up sneaking out early. I wish I knew what all his tricks were, but I just couldn't sit still anymore! :P The last panel I was going to go to before dinner was about this software called Wattpad, and I thought it might be interesting, but after looking at the leaflet they were handing out, and not being anymore prepared to focus, I went and dozed in a big chair until Trevor came to have dinner with me. Dinner and a walk gave me a second wind for a busy evening, thankfully.

Editor for Hire was a great panel that basically convinced the burgeoning writers in the room that they need to hire an editor of some sort to look over their manuscripts before submitting them to publishers, which was just what I wanted to hear, that being my developing speciality. :) Make Your Mark Online turned out to be not really for me, although I did pick up a few ideas about some Wordpress plugins to check out. I don't have a need for a blog or a newsletter promoting my editorial business, so it mostly just wasn't relevant to where I'm at right now.

Then I went upstairs to the Steampunk Arts and Sciences party room, and chatted with a few people about their costumes, and tried some Absinthe (an acquired taste, but interesting...) and then fled again when it got too crowded. The party rooms at this new venue are smaller then I remember the ones at last year's hotel being, so it didn't take many people to make me feel claustrophobic.

By Sunday my attention span was even shorter - Pantser, Plotter, or Quilter was a good panel that caught my attention for supporting the Oxford comma, and turned out to be an interesting mix of people and had some good discussion about writing styles. The Live Action Slush: Mystery Edition turned out to be a bit of a disappointment because there weren't very many submissions, but I guess a lot of people didn't know that would be an option, so hopefully there are more next year, and I kind of wish I'd just gone to Getting Past the Middle Doldrums in Novel Writing.

Writers Tools in the Digital Age was a fascinating look at the availability of software tools to help the world-building author. I'm not a world builder myself, but it was incredibly interesting. I wanted to ask about editing tools, but the panel went too long for many questions. Mystery, Science Fiction, and Fantasy was a panel with three authors, each of whom write in one of those genres. I went to it mostly because I'm a big fan of Robert J. Sawyer, but it was a really interesting discussion and good combination of panelists. Here's a blog by Barbara Fradkin, the mystery guest of honour, who was on that panel.

I went to the EDGE book launch up in on of the party rooms, where they had readings from some of the new books EDGE has recently published. Shanghai Steam is a Chinese steampunk anthology that sounds really good, but again the claustrophobic feeling had me getting out of there before it was over, so I kind of wish I'd gone to The Role of Beautiful Language. I went to the Live Action Slush: Romance Edition, but it was over really early, so I also went to the last half of Historical Whodunits, which had good panelists who didn't seem to be the right fit for that topic. And the very last panel of the weekend was The Publisher's Panel, which was a good discussion between a bunch of publishers about the market, trends, things they're looking for, and developments in the industry, which was a good way to end the weekend.

Last year I stayed for the wrap-up party, but I was so tired I just came home. I'm actually still quite tired - I started getting ready for bed at 8:30 last night! But it's one of my favourite weekends of the year, and I'm SUPER excited for next year - Diana Gabaldon, one of my all-time favourite authors is coming. She's an experienced con guest, and really good at giving writing advice, so I know she'll be excellent. Sometimes I think I learn more in a weekend at WWC then I do in a whole semester of school...too bad they don't issue BAs! :)

The team of volunteers that puts this conference on does a fantastic job, and I'm very thankful to have the opportunity to attend, and to have the rare opportunity to go to a conference where I'm not volunteering in one capacity or another. It's definitely worth every penny of the very low registration fee, and I highly recommend it!

Lost! On Tunnel Mountain!

(The title of the post is intended to be read loudly, with dramatic flair, in a deep announcer voice.)

 

What with one thing and another I hadn't managed to get out of Calgary to go hiking at all this summer, so last Monday we headed to Banff for the day with a couple of friends. I wanted to hike Johnson Lake again, to see it without all the snow, but when we got there, the road in was closed due to a grizzly sighting. So we heeded the sign and went to Tunnel Mountain instead.

 

It started out beautifully - the sun was shining and the view of Banff through the trees was lovely.

I'm the only one without an iPhone...

 

The Banff Springs Hotel

 

By the time we got around to the other side of the mountain, looking east (-ish?) it had started to cloud over a bit, and the cool breeze was nice.

 

 

 

 

Not to mention the fact that the light rain was still clearly far away. I wasn't prepared for such an uphill hike - Johnson Lake is rather flat - so I was pretty winded, and when it started to drizzle and we heard a crack of thunder we thought about turning back. But someone coming down said that the top was only about five minutes away, and since we'd come so far we pressed on.

 

My plan had been to eat our picnic lunch at the summit, but by the time we got up there it was POURING rain so hard I was soaked to the skin. I didn't really mind cooling off, but it wasn't exactly picnic weather, and then the hail started, so we booked it back down as fast as we could go, which wasn't very fast, because it was so slippery.

Drenched at the Summit!

Somehow in the downpour we managed to miss the proper path and ended up on a goat trail that stopped a steep slope that was clearly not the way we'd come up. Frustratingly, we could still see Banff, but not the main path. We bushwhacked around for a while, trying not to slip and break any limbs, and eventually met up with the path again, and by that point the sun was back out and except for the lingering damp, it looked like the storm had never happened. Welcome to Alberta...

 

I was talking to someone later who knew someone else who'd gotten lost and had to spend a night up there, so at least we didn't get THAT lost!

 

I was disappointed to find that there isn't actually a tunnel in Tunnel Mountain - CP Rail was going to build one, and then they didn't.

 

The view of the mountain from Banff.

 

The rest of the day involved a picnic in Banff, in the sunshine, a hot, crispy, sugary BeaverTail, and a lightening-delayed dip in the hot springs. The storm came back just as we were in line to pay for admission, and they waited half an hour to be sure the lightening was over before they opened the pool again. And on the way back we chased a rainbow from Exshaw almost to Calgary.

 

 

Such an adventure-filled day. :) Hopefully there will be more hiking this summer, but likely not till we get to Jasper later this month - stay tuned! This weekend I'm going to the third annual When Words Collide convention, and I'm very excited. I always learn so much and meet interesting people. I went to the first one in 2011, and last year I even blogged about each of the three days. Not sure if that'll happen this year or not, but watch for something about it sometime next week.

 



These are a Few of my Favourite Things about Calgary

I'm not really sure what inspired this...but I've come along way from loathing Calgary the way I did when I first moved here. I've come to find the prairies beautiful, and I've gotten used to sunny winters. I'm not quite used to the cold, but I'm dealing. :)

So, in not really any particular order, here are some of the things I love most about Calgary:

 

 

My church, Foothills Lutheran. I've been going here since November of 1999, a few months after I moved to Calgary, and a month after I met Trevor. And then we got married here in 2002. And I don't really mean I love the building (although after working there for four years, spending weekends sleeping on the floors with the youth, spending hours in the kitchen putting on meals, etc, I do feel a certain fondness for it...) it's the people who make up the church that I love! Whenever we talk about moving back to BC, the first 'con' I think of is that it would be so hard to leave our church family.

 

The view of snow-covered mountains never fails to make me 'awe', especially when the sun is setting behind them. Although I've yet to take a photo of a Rocky Mountain sunset that actually does it justice!

 

 

Heritage Park, from my trip this summer with Shelli.

 

Heritage Park, from my friend Teresa's wedding a few years ago. If Trevor and I ever get married again, we're doing it at Heritage Park. :) I'd spend way more time there if I could - I just love it. For a history geek like me, it's heavenly.

 
 

The Gibson Collection at the University of Calgary library is SUCH a gem. Bob Gibson was a Calgary man who spent his entire life collecting books. Most of them are of the speculative fiction variety, and if anyone thinks I have a lot of books...he had over 35,000 pieces that were donated to the UofC in 2002, after he died. That was 10 years ago, and they're still cataloguing! I had a tour of some of the stuff that's still not catalogued, and there are years and years more of work to do on the collection. The real crown jewel in the collection are Gibson's 500-ish hand-bound anthologies that he put together himself of stories from magazines. He bound each one in paper with a hand-written cover, and kept meticulous records in a card catalogue system. I wish I could have met him!

 

When Words Collide is a Calgary convention for people interested in reading, writing and publishing fiction. 2013 will be the third annual con, and I'm really looking forward to it. I'm always too busy to take pictures - this one is from 2011, with my friends Brittni and Anita at the EDGE party. It's small, and SO well run, and there are always too many interesting panels to see - I'd need a time-turner to do everything I'd like to. :)

 

Riker, Troi and Worf at the 2012 Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo.

 

A Darth Vader cosplayer at the 2011 Comic Expo.

 

Brent Spiner (Data) at the 2010 Calgary Comic Expo - this was my first con ever, and it was amazing. It opened my eyes to a strange new world of geekery and fandom! They've already announced Michael Shanks for 2013, and I SWEAR by my pretty floral bonnet that I will have my steampunk cosplay ready by then. :)

  

The Calgary Military Museum is fantastic. Again, as a history geek it's one of the best museums I've been to, but also for their annual Remembrance Day service. We decided to go to a different one this year because I wasn't feeling well and wasn't up for all the walking and standing involved, but I do regret it a bit. In a world that's increasingly secular, it's lovely to go to a service with all of the military pomp and circumstance, as well as prayers and hymns. If you've never been, I highly recommend it!

 

Glenbow Ranch Provincial Park is my newest favourite thing. It's only about 20 minutes from our house, but it's outside town enough that it makes me feel like I've been out to the country. The view of the mountains is beautiful, and the prairie scenery is unparalleled. It has lots of different walking paths, so you can go for a long walk, a short stroll, or just a picnic. Beautiful!

 

Heather and me at the Calgary Philharmonic's sci fi tribute, narrated by Robert Picardo (The Doctor) and John DiLancie (Q), a few years ago.

 

Me, Anne (with Bethany the baby bump) and Heather going to a Christmas performance of the Messiah at the CPO in 2007. I think if had to pick just one favourite thing about Calgary it might very well be the CPO. The most recent concert I've been to was last week - it was Songs of the War Years, with the orchestra and a singing group, and it was fabulous. I've only been to one concert that disappointed, and in that case it was the imported group rather than the orchestra who were disappointing. They are so amazing - as a non-musician, it's magical to hear the disparate parts of the orchestra warming up in controlled chaos, and then to hear the harmony when the maestro lifts her baton. Just...just...GO see them, ok?

 

Calgary is home to some fabulous heritage architecture. When I first moved here, while I was struggling with hating this cold, beige city, one of the things that distracted me was the heritage buildings everywhere downtown. I have a list of them saved, and it's still one of my goals to visit every one of them. Maybe there's some way to turn that into a history paper....

 

The red pandas at the zoo are the cutest things ever. I'm not really a fan of zoos, although I've been to it a few times. But the red pandas...they're worth the price of admission, right there! My little brother took this photo last Christmas when he was here. Lookit the cute little red panda TONGUE!

Something that I don't have a photo for is the Morpheus Theater Group. They do four shows a year, and I never miss their Gilbert & Sullivan one in the new year. They perform in the Pumphouse Theatre, which is one of those great pieces of Calgary heritage architecture. They are definitely worth supporting, and their ticket prices are really affordable.

 

So there you have it; some great things about Calgary. If you live here and haven't experienced some of these things, well, what are you waiting for?! Get off the computer and out there ASAP! And if you're travelling to Calgary, make a list of things you want to do, let me know when you're coming, and I'll try to show you around! :)

 

When Words Collide 2012 - Sunday





This feels so very, very long ago now! It's been a very busy week with several bloggable adventures, but I definitely want to cover Sunday of WWC, because it was just as great as Saturday.

 

The first panel of the day was on eBooks and included discussions on digital rights/piracy, whether or not there will be a demise of printed books, and how publishers are dealing with the changing climate and the rise of digital media. The panelists were a cross-section of all sorts of different publishing styles, and it was pretty interesting.

 

Next up was the EDGE book launch, which was really exciting for me, because the book I copyedited, Wildcatter by Dave Duncan was being launched with Mr. Duncan reading from the book. I snagged him at the end to get my ARC copy signed, but I don't think he was as excited to meet me as I was to meet him. :) There were other EDGE books being launched/read from, of the new ones I have Paradox Resolution by K. A. Bedford, and two anthologies - Danse Macabre and Tesseracts Sixteen - sitting on my shelf to be read.

We stayed for another live action slush - I just find them so fascinating! This panel was very no-nonsense and focused on getting through the submissions. There were some good comments, but I found that combination of people a little severe and I think if they'd read the submission I had in earlier in the weekend, they wouldn't have liked it much. :) Here's a blog post by someone who'd been in a slush reading on Saturday night, and how she felt about it...

At 1 pm we went to "How Science Fiction has Influenced Science and Technology", and it was a nice change of format. It was presented by Dr. Jason Donev, a physics instructor at the University of Calgary, so it was more of a lecture than a panel, and he had a slide show. Since I'm more of a visual learner, having that was really great for my attention span! He has a course for non-science majors which I'm going to try to take next winter - he's a good speaker, so I've added him to my wish list of profs to take classes from. (Yes, I have a list of profs who's classes are priorities. Does this make me an educational geek on top of all of the other types of geek I am? I don't know...but I do know I enjoy school! :)

Me at the presentation by Kevin J. Anderson
Photo courtesy of Christopher Chupik.

"Eleven Tips to Increase Your Writing Productivity" by Kevin J. Anderson was really interesting. He has many, many books published, and something like 50 of them are best-sellers. He's got a system where he dictates into a hand-held recorder and then has someone type up what he's written, which is handy. :) The tips were all common sense things, but it was interesting to hear them from someone for whom they clearly work - you can't argue with someone who's sold that many books! He also blogged a bit about the weekend here.

The publisher's panel had some interesting stories of how the various publishers had come to work in the industry. The publisher from a big publishing house had a lot of interesting things to say - here's a post that summarizes some of the advice she gave at another point during the weekend. It was nearing the end of a very long day, so it didn't hold my attention as much as it might otherwise. In hindsight I probably should have checked out the YA panel instead!

Lastly, we went to "The Canadian Voice in SF&F", which didn't turn out to be really what I expected. I was hoping for more discussion of specific authors to check out, whereas it was more of a theoretical discussion of concepts, which was sort of interesting, but not really what I was looking for. Although, extreme exhaustion was probably colouring my perception at that point. :)

So we took a break for dinner, and felt rejuvenated enough to come back and find out what on earth a 'dead dog party' is all about! Turns out that after a quiet start a post-con party is a lot of fun - everyone is pretty tired but not really wanting the weekend to end, and there's lots of socializing and leftover goodies from all of the other weekend parties. We met a whole gang of interesting people - including a sort-of-cousin from the same small town of Buchans in Newfoundland, who I'm sure has family who've married my family - and generally had a blast. We ended up staying until almost midnight, and really only left because I'd promised Trevor "we'll be home earlier then we were last night", which was 1 am, so we had to drag ourselves away from watching the Olympic Flame, and a massive hail and lightening storm from a hotel balcony with a bunch of people including Robert J. Sawyer and Kevin J. Anderson. How often can you say that happens in a lifetime?! (And by the way...what's up with J as a middle initial, I ask you?!)



 

Brittni and me at the 'dead dog party'.

I will definitely be going back to WWC next year - my only concern is that it's in a bigger hotel, and I like it small and cozy! Hopefully it doesn't get too much more crowded, and that the new hotel has chairs that don't make my bum numb. Also, it would be helpful if the con staff had shirts or badges or something that identified them as staff. Other then that, I have absolutely no complaints! Well, actually, I don't like having to choose between three different panels that are going on at once, but I suppose that's a first world problem I can live with!

When Words Collide 2012 - Saturday

Me at WWC. Photo courtesy of Brittni Carey.

It's hard to believe that at this time last week I was hanging out with a bunch of people in a hot and crowded hotel bathroom, on the edge of a very large jacuzzi filled with ice and booze.

(Please note: I did not start this post with a reference to waking up, or to the weather.)

Saturday of WWC got off with a bang. At least for Brittni and me...the first panel we went to was a live action slush, where we both submitted pages to be read. We got there early, so I was second in the pile, and she was third. We'd stayed up late polishing and crafting, and I'd taken the previous day's slush criticisms to heart, and made my sample as short and punchy as possible. No wasted words - just action and pathos. It was a series of three vignettes showing action on three different planets in my invented galaxy, and I'm quite attached to them, which is risky when entering a live action slush. The panel was anxious to move along quickly (and every second the reader was reading my writing felt like years, and my heart was pounding so hard I thought everyone in the room could hear it!), so they only got part-way through the second one, but I got good comments about the atmosphere and setting. However, one of the publishers said that there was just a bit too much action and not enough development, which I found very ironic!

Brittni's page was next up, and not a single person on the panel stopped the reader, and then the reader ran out of words to read. And then...the panel agreed that it was excellent and that they wanted to meet the writer after the session. Which is pretty much the reader con equivalent of winning a jackpot in Vegas...every aspiring author dreams of being plucked out of obscurity by some chance of catching a publisher's undivided attention. She went up to talk to them after, and Big Publishing House Editor wants to see the rest of her story...so now she has to finish it! This doesn't necessarily mean they'll publish it, but it gives her a leg up over the rest of the people in the slush pile. It's INCREDIBLY exciting. I think she was a bit in shock...and I was flailing a bit with excitement. We weren't really sure what to do next, so we just stayed where we were for the next panel in the same room.

It was on conflict and tension, and how to use it to move along plot and develop characters. After all the excitement of the slush panel though, it was a bit of a blur. I also slipped out at one point, when one of the authors talked about all of the nasty letters he got when, in a murder mystery series, he killed off a couple of pet dogs, and people got more worked up about that then the murders of people, and went to meet Kevin J. Anderson and get my copy of Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina signed. I also got it signed by Rebecca Moesta, since she has a story in it. That was fun - Anderson's Jedi trilogy were one of my early and defining Star Wars moments, and his writing/characters have had a HUGE influence on the extended universe. They weren't busy so I was able to chat for a minute while they signed, but my highly conscientious student brain felt like I was skipping class. :)

Next up was the Psychology of Criminals and Villains, which was a bit disappointing. For one, the room was so full we had to sit on the floor at the back, which was a nice change from sitting on uncomfortable chairs, but we couldn't see the people on the panel, so it felt a bit disconnected. Also, all of the great literary villains out there, and they mostly talked about current tv show criminals, which I'm not up on, so I didn't get much out of it, except to note that generally the most interesting bad guys are the ones who actually think what they're doing is right.

Murder and Mayhem Canadian Style was interesting...it was a lot of discussion on what makes a novel 'Canadian' - is it the setting, or the writer living in Canada? I think it's mostly something undefinable, but the topic seems to get a lot of mileage.

100 Years of Planetary Romance was a panel with Kevin J. Anderson and Rebecca Moesta where they talked about the 'boy-meets-planet' trope of the genre. It was smaller and a bit more intimate than some of the others, which was fun.

I swear, in every class, at every con...there's that ONE person who doesn't seem to know where the line is between asking a question of the prof or panelist and getting on one's soap box. Drives me nuts...this next panel was on pitch and query - a pitch is where you verbally tell an editor or publisher about your work, and a query is a written submission summarizing your work (although I had to ask someone for that clarification later in the day, since that wasn't actually explained at the panel!). Mostly it was about the do's and don'ts of writing a query - basically, use your common sense, and check the publisher's submission guidelines. So near the end of this panel, 'know-it-all-grumpy-middle-aged-man' rambles on about something, gets up, literally chucks his business card at each member of the panel like he's throwing frisbees, and then goes and stands beside the door for the last five or ten minutes of the session. Weird, hey? Good way to get your card noticed - bad way to actually get a contact!

The last panel we went to on Saturday afternoon was Kevin J. Anderson's popcorn theory of success, which is basically to not pop one kernel at a time, but put a whole bunch out in the pot at once and eventually, odds are, something will start popping and the whole batch will take off. He talked about how he was writing something like six projects all at once back when his writing career first took off, and now he has 115 published novels, and 50 of those were best-sellers. Can't argue with those kind of numbers!

Finally we  had a break for supper, so we went to Boston Pizza with Trevor, and it was nice to have some downtime and sit on something other than an uncomfortable hotel chair! Then we headed back for the Aurora Award ceremony - Canadian science fiction awards. The chair of the conference won an award for the con, and the publisher I do some slush reading for had an author of a short story in one of his anthologies win an award. Robert J. Sawyer won the big one for his most recent novel, which was sort of a given, because that man WINS ALL THE AWARDS! :)

Then we went to a panel called 'Im A Writier', the title of which physically made me twitch when I first read it on the schedule. It took me a minute to realize that it was a deliberate typo. Whew... The topic was essentially how to get kids interested in reading and good grammar without scaring them off because of all of the 'rules'. There were a wide range of opinions and backgrounds on the panel, so it was really interesting.

The last panel of the night for us was Wilderness Survival for Writers, hosted by two sisters. They're both writers - one fiction and one non-fiction, and the one who writes non-fiction is also a very experienced outdoors-woman, including being a park ranger and mountain hiker and survivalist. Unfortunately it was after 9 pm by this point, after a very long and packed day, so I did drift in and out, but she had some fascinating stories.

Then it was party time. We were only going to go for a little bit, but I think it was 1 am before we finally got home... :)





Anything worth doing is worth doing again. Support alternate history.
Photo courtesy of Brittni Carey.

First we went to the EDGE Publishing party, since that's where we have the most connections. They had a suite on the top floor of the hotel, and it was packed. We went in to the bathroom for the 'bar' and ended up staying in there for ages, talking to all kinds of interesting people. I had a panicked moment when I realized I'd lost all of my business cards, but thankfully they were just sitting on the chair where I'd been earlier...whew! After a while there we went to the Calgary Steampunk Assemblage party down the hall, where they offered us absinthe. I was quite disappointed that I was driving and had to decline, because chasing the green fairy is one of those things that great literary characters should do. :) Brittni tried it though, but couldn't finish one serving because it was so strongly flavoured. We hung out for a while and admired the costumes and art, and talked to more interesting people, and then wandered back to EDGE, just to say goodbye and then go.

And then we were there for another couple of hours after that before we finally left, after making sure to leave our mark by writing on the post-it notes on the walls. There were three topical prompts and lots of space for writing - it was a really fun party game for a group of word people.

hehe...what a party! :)

I had such a blast...I'm usually quite a bit of an introvert, but either I'm growing out of that, or else people who love books as much as I do are much easier to talk to than co-workers or clients at a law firm, because I loved every minute of chatting and meeting new people. Interesting.... :) Sunday was just as much fun...