Worldcon Wrap-Up: Part 1
Home again, home again, jiggedy jig. Worldcon (plus extra day of family visiting) is over and I am finally here in my own living room, recumbent upon my own couch, laptop in its familiar position. I'm exhausted from too little sleep, too much socializing and too many things to think about. But! Before I crash out in my own beloved and much-missed bed, I feel I should do a con wrap-up for posterity.
First, the physical facts of what happened when. I'm putting in as much detail as I can remember: bear with me. (Or skip this part if you just don't care.) Lessons learned and epiphanies experienced to come in Part 2.
Day 1: I flew in on Wednesday afternoon (flight uneventful), and was met as I walked towards baggage claim by fellow VPXI'ers Kim and Pam. (I think I may have mentioned before how much I love being met at the airport...turns the whole experience into something much more pleasant). After a few minutes of squee and catch up, Pam left to fetch another VPXI buddy (Heather) while Kim and I waited for my luggage. More squee when Heather showed up. Then we all piled into Pam's Awesome Airport Expressmobile and drove off to Denver, with a brief stop at Target for party supplies and miscellaneous food. (As a side note, this was the first Super Target I've ever been to, and it was just...obscenely large and overwhelming. No wonder the world hates us. Ugh.) Heather, Kim and I were rooming together at the Grand Hyatt, so Pam dropped us off with promises of a dinner meetup after we'd gotten our bags dumped and had gone to register at the con. We did in fact go out to a big family style Italian dinner with a bunch of VPXI buddies including Pam, Pat, and Chris, and a few friends. Afterwards we walked over to the Sheraton to check out the con suite and a few of the bid parties (where the fan groups from various cities that want to host Worldcon try to show off their coolness so you'll vote for them), but it didn't seem particularly interesting so we bailed back to our own hotel to unpack, check the schedule, and plot the next day's activities.
Day 2: Panels, panels, and more panels, starting with a panel showcasing Hadley-Rille's current line up (Hadley-Rille is the small press that published the anthology containing Kim's first short story sale). Kim got to read from her story, and we got to meet Eric the publisher and a bunch of the other fun Hadley-Rille authors. Most of the panels were on the level of "interesting, with occasional epiphany-inducing comments". It was great to put faces to some famous or semi-famous names. I screwed up my courage to go to talk to a couple of the VP instructors (Scalzi and PNH) and invite them to our "Room 50 Redux" VP reunion party. Neither of them wound up coming, but I'm proud of myself for trying (even though I probably got way too much joy out of the fact that when I approached PNH and said "you probably don't remember me, but..." he cut me off and said "of course I do!"). Thursday post-panels we ran around on last minute party errands and grabbed food at the nearby foofy gourmet market to gobble down before the Viable Paradise Reunion party started.
Ah, the VP party. It was definitely one of the highlights of the whole con for me. We lucked out in that our VPXI buddy Chris had been upgraded to a suite, so we decided to host the party there. (Way nicer than some of the skanky party rooms we went to in the Sheraton.) We had expected maybe about 20 people would show, if we were lucky; I think we had close to 40 overall. There was a strong showing from VPXI, of course, but also from VPX, and a smattering of other years as well (even one from the upcoming VPXII!). TNH graced us with her presence for quite some time as well. We also had invited some "VP-friendly" folks (friends, publishers, fellow writers), so it turned out to be a nice mix. I poured Beowulf Mead for anyone who would try it, and I think it was well received.
Maybe it was the mead, but people were so enthusiastically chatty that somewhere around 11pm or so we got a visit from hotel security asking us to tone it down or they'd shut us down. A few people took this as an opportunity to leave, but the rest of us grabbed snacks and bottles and we all trooped down to the hotel bar, where we sat in a big circle and chatted some more. We even wound up telling origin stories (how you met your significant other) again, which was as much fun this time as it had been back in Room 50 at VP. At some point before the origin stories though, hotel security made another appearance (there were 4 or 5 of them to our dozen and a half, which was kind of funny--what did they think we'd do, start a writerly rumble?) and told us to go put the booze away, which we did.
After the party finally broke up around 1am, Kim, Heather, Chris and I were cleaning things up and starting to ferry them back up to Chris' room when someone with a familiar name on his badge walked by: Ken Scholes. We wound up talking with him for a few minutes, which led to inviting him back up to Chris' room for some mead, which led to an impromptu kaffeeklatsch (meadklatsch?) where Ken told us about his meteoric rise to fame, fortune, and a five book deal with Tor and dispensed a tremendous amount of sage writerly advice to our eager ears. It was a perfect little after-party gathering. We stumbled back down to our hotel room at around 1:30am, full to the brim with writerly goodness.
Day 3: Another day full of panels, panels and more panels, with a break for lunch. We also got to visit the dealer's room and watch Kim sign books at Hadley-Rille and shop around for interesting treasures (I had a fun time at the rocks and crystals booth). We spent some time talking to the very nice guys at the Night Shade booth too (Night Shade is a local Bay Area genre publisher that publishes some really cool stuff, including our VPXI buddy Mark's first novel, coming out next month!). We were pretty wiped out from the night before, so after a delightful chinese dinner with our new friend Jax (and being caught out in a freakish thunderstorm) Kim, Heather and I went back to our room to chill and catnap before going out again to the Making Light party and the Tor party. Both ultimately proved to be disappointing (huge lines to get up the elevators, then the parties themselves were crowded, hot, stinky, and difficult to meet or converse with people), so we collected up a bunch of our VP buddies and all defected to the Weird Tales reception, which was at least in a more comfortable room, and sat around and hung out there until around midnight, when things closed down. Back to the hotel room to rest up for another busy day!
Day 4: Kim slept in while Heather and I ran off to a panel or two. After that we were pretty burnt on panels so we went up to the dealer's room and browsed the art show (we all wound up bidding on and winning some great things) and the booths. I spent quite some time talking with Jacob, the publisher of Tachyon Press, another totally excellent Bay Area genre publisher with some truly fascinating anthologies. Kim, Heather and I went out to lunch with PJ, an aspiring VP-er (and friend of VPX folks), then after a quick trip back to our hotel to retrieve all the leftover snacks from our VP party, we headed to the Sheraton to go to the Abyss & Apex party at the con suite. We hung out there with a bunch of our Hadley-Rille and VP buddies (and even one Clarion buddy) until it was time to head back to the convention center to meet up with more friends to go out to dinner.
Once at the convention center though we decided to pick up the things we'd won at the art auction earlier in the day, which wound up taking far longer than anticipated. But the silver lining to the whole experience was that Kim (with Heather and my vehement encouragement) wound up approaching and chatting with her "dream agent", who was not only super nice and gracious, but actually invited Kim to send her a query. It was really exciting! So by the time we got out to dinner we were all abuzz, even though we were practically an hour late. The highlight of that dinner was getting to hang out with Dorothy, who had been Kim and my roommate at VP but whom we hadn't gotten to see much at the con before that. After dinner, Kim, Heather and I decided to bail on the Hugos and go back to our room with the intention of writing. After an hour or so of fooling around on the internet (we tracked the Hugos as they happened, and celebrated for Bear and Scalzi) we did start writing, although it degenerated into interesting conversation as we all began getting stuck in our respective WIPs. I will be eternally grateful to both Kim and especially Heather for talking me through a bunch of thorny plot issues I was trying to resolve (all around the theme of "how the hell do I end this novel?). By around 2:30 am I had whipped the outline of my remaining chapters into some semblance of decency and I went to bed terrifically pleased and excited (albeit exhausted mentally and physically).
Day 5: It was the last day of the con, and I woke up early, still so full of excitement about my novel from the previous night's conversations that I felt practically high (and no, it wasn't the altitude). Kim, Heather and I packed up and went out to breakfast, where we talked a whole bunch about Heather's current novel and helped her work through her own thorny plot issues (this is how writers have fun, believe it or not). Then we took Heather back to the hotel and put her on the airport shuttle (wahhh) and Kim and I walked back to the convention center for one last trip to the dealer's room to get presents for our family members. We also talked to the Broad Universe people (Broad Universe is an organization that supports women SFF writers, so of course we were interested). While at the convention center of course we ran into plenty of people to say goodbye to, and finally left with Pam and her friend Cheryl at around 1pm. Thus Worldcon ended, and it was on to the next phase of my Colorado trip.
But as this has gotten to be an incredibly long entry, and it's already way past my bedtime, I'll save the rest for the next post.
First, the physical facts of what happened when. I'm putting in as much detail as I can remember: bear with me. (Or skip this part if you just don't care.) Lessons learned and epiphanies experienced to come in Part 2.
Day 1: I flew in on Wednesday afternoon (flight uneventful), and was met as I walked towards baggage claim by fellow VPXI'ers Kim and Pam. (I think I may have mentioned before how much I love being met at the airport...turns the whole experience into something much more pleasant). After a few minutes of squee and catch up, Pam left to fetch another VPXI buddy (Heather) while Kim and I waited for my luggage. More squee when Heather showed up. Then we all piled into Pam's Awesome Airport Expressmobile and drove off to Denver, with a brief stop at Target for party supplies and miscellaneous food. (As a side note, this was the first Super Target I've ever been to, and it was just...obscenely large and overwhelming. No wonder the world hates us. Ugh.) Heather, Kim and I were rooming together at the Grand Hyatt, so Pam dropped us off with promises of a dinner meetup after we'd gotten our bags dumped and had gone to register at the con. We did in fact go out to a big family style Italian dinner with a bunch of VPXI buddies including Pam, Pat, and Chris, and a few friends. Afterwards we walked over to the Sheraton to check out the con suite and a few of the bid parties (where the fan groups from various cities that want to host Worldcon try to show off their coolness so you'll vote for them), but it didn't seem particularly interesting so we bailed back to our own hotel to unpack, check the schedule, and plot the next day's activities.
Day 2: Panels, panels, and more panels, starting with a panel showcasing Hadley-Rille's current line up (Hadley-Rille is the small press that published the anthology containing Kim's first short story sale). Kim got to read from her story, and we got to meet Eric the publisher and a bunch of the other fun Hadley-Rille authors. Most of the panels were on the level of "interesting, with occasional epiphany-inducing comments". It was great to put faces to some famous or semi-famous names. I screwed up my courage to go to talk to a couple of the VP instructors (Scalzi and PNH) and invite them to our "Room 50 Redux" VP reunion party. Neither of them wound up coming, but I'm proud of myself for trying (even though I probably got way too much joy out of the fact that when I approached PNH and said "you probably don't remember me, but..." he cut me off and said "of course I do!"). Thursday post-panels we ran around on last minute party errands and grabbed food at the nearby foofy gourmet market to gobble down before the Viable Paradise Reunion party started.
Ah, the VP party. It was definitely one of the highlights of the whole con for me. We lucked out in that our VPXI buddy Chris had been upgraded to a suite, so we decided to host the party there. (Way nicer than some of the skanky party rooms we went to in the Sheraton.) We had expected maybe about 20 people would show, if we were lucky; I think we had close to 40 overall. There was a strong showing from VPXI, of course, but also from VPX, and a smattering of other years as well (even one from the upcoming VPXII!). TNH graced us with her presence for quite some time as well. We also had invited some "VP-friendly" folks (friends, publishers, fellow writers), so it turned out to be a nice mix. I poured Beowulf Mead for anyone who would try it, and I think it was well received.
Maybe it was the mead, but people were so enthusiastically chatty that somewhere around 11pm or so we got a visit from hotel security asking us to tone it down or they'd shut us down. A few people took this as an opportunity to leave, but the rest of us grabbed snacks and bottles and we all trooped down to the hotel bar, where we sat in a big circle and chatted some more. We even wound up telling origin stories (how you met your significant other) again, which was as much fun this time as it had been back in Room 50 at VP. At some point before the origin stories though, hotel security made another appearance (there were 4 or 5 of them to our dozen and a half, which was kind of funny--what did they think we'd do, start a writerly rumble?) and told us to go put the booze away, which we did.
After the party finally broke up around 1am, Kim, Heather, Chris and I were cleaning things up and starting to ferry them back up to Chris' room when someone with a familiar name on his badge walked by: Ken Scholes. We wound up talking with him for a few minutes, which led to inviting him back up to Chris' room for some mead, which led to an impromptu kaffeeklatsch (meadklatsch?) where Ken told us about his meteoric rise to fame, fortune, and a five book deal with Tor and dispensed a tremendous amount of sage writerly advice to our eager ears. It was a perfect little after-party gathering. We stumbled back down to our hotel room at around 1:30am, full to the brim with writerly goodness.
Day 3: Another day full of panels, panels and more panels, with a break for lunch. We also got to visit the dealer's room and watch Kim sign books at Hadley-Rille and shop around for interesting treasures (I had a fun time at the rocks and crystals booth). We spent some time talking to the very nice guys at the Night Shade booth too (Night Shade is a local Bay Area genre publisher that publishes some really cool stuff, including our VPXI buddy Mark's first novel, coming out next month!). We were pretty wiped out from the night before, so after a delightful chinese dinner with our new friend Jax (and being caught out in a freakish thunderstorm) Kim, Heather and I went back to our room to chill and catnap before going out again to the Making Light party and the Tor party. Both ultimately proved to be disappointing (huge lines to get up the elevators, then the parties themselves were crowded, hot, stinky, and difficult to meet or converse with people), so we collected up a bunch of our VP buddies and all defected to the Weird Tales reception, which was at least in a more comfortable room, and sat around and hung out there until around midnight, when things closed down. Back to the hotel room to rest up for another busy day!
Day 4: Kim slept in while Heather and I ran off to a panel or two. After that we were pretty burnt on panels so we went up to the dealer's room and browsed the art show (we all wound up bidding on and winning some great things) and the booths. I spent quite some time talking with Jacob, the publisher of Tachyon Press, another totally excellent Bay Area genre publisher with some truly fascinating anthologies. Kim, Heather and I went out to lunch with PJ, an aspiring VP-er (and friend of VPX folks), then after a quick trip back to our hotel to retrieve all the leftover snacks from our VP party, we headed to the Sheraton to go to the Abyss & Apex party at the con suite. We hung out there with a bunch of our Hadley-Rille and VP buddies (and even one Clarion buddy) until it was time to head back to the convention center to meet up with more friends to go out to dinner.
Once at the convention center though we decided to pick up the things we'd won at the art auction earlier in the day, which wound up taking far longer than anticipated. But the silver lining to the whole experience was that Kim (with Heather and my vehement encouragement) wound up approaching and chatting with her "dream agent", who was not only super nice and gracious, but actually invited Kim to send her a query. It was really exciting! So by the time we got out to dinner we were all abuzz, even though we were practically an hour late. The highlight of that dinner was getting to hang out with Dorothy, who had been Kim and my roommate at VP but whom we hadn't gotten to see much at the con before that. After dinner, Kim, Heather and I decided to bail on the Hugos and go back to our room with the intention of writing. After an hour or so of fooling around on the internet (we tracked the Hugos as they happened, and celebrated for Bear and Scalzi) we did start writing, although it degenerated into interesting conversation as we all began getting stuck in our respective WIPs. I will be eternally grateful to both Kim and especially Heather for talking me through a bunch of thorny plot issues I was trying to resolve (all around the theme of "how the hell do I end this novel?). By around 2:30 am I had whipped the outline of my remaining chapters into some semblance of decency and I went to bed terrifically pleased and excited (albeit exhausted mentally and physically).
Day 5: It was the last day of the con, and I woke up early, still so full of excitement about my novel from the previous night's conversations that I felt practically high (and no, it wasn't the altitude). Kim, Heather and I packed up and went out to breakfast, where we talked a whole bunch about Heather's current novel and helped her work through her own thorny plot issues (this is how writers have fun, believe it or not). Then we took Heather back to the hotel and put her on the airport shuttle (wahhh) and Kim and I walked back to the convention center for one last trip to the dealer's room to get presents for our family members. We also talked to the Broad Universe people (Broad Universe is an organization that supports women SFF writers, so of course we were interested). While at the convention center of course we ran into plenty of people to say goodbye to, and finally left with Pam and her friend Cheryl at around 1pm. Thus Worldcon ended, and it was on to the next phase of my Colorado trip.
But as this has gotten to be an incredibly long entry, and it's already way past my bedtime, I'll save the rest for the next post.
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