Well, not lazy personally, but lazy about updating.

Balticon was fun. Not as busy as I've been some shows, but busy enough. Caught up with friends and made a few new ones. Need to get some paperwork done that I promised a few people at the show and hopefully that will be happening in the next few days. Really had fun doing the Edgar Allen Poe panel on his detective stories.

Fun thing happened at my reading. Had a couple of people stop by. Told them I was going to be reading the first couple of chapters from my new Stargate Novel. One got on the phone and called a friend announcing a Stargate reading and *boom*, I had more people at that reading then I've had at any other reading I've ever done. The good thing about it was they laughed when they were supposed to, groaned at the "bad" jokes and most said they'd definitely pick up the book when it came out. *Score!*

The reason I'm a little behind on my Balticon projects is while I was there, Writer Beware was officially offered part of the Mystery Writers of America's booth at Book Expo America. Which, of course, was the next weekend. So, between Monday and Thursday, I had to coordinate for a table display, create business cards, make lots of phone calls, coordinate with a good friend for crash space (hotels were all gone by then) and make train reservations.

Why the train? Because on Tuesday (after Balticon), I was going to drop off my new car at Mazda for it's 7500 tune-up and oil change. When I reached the end of the street, I was horrified to see approximately four inches of water roll out from beneath my passenger's seat and puddle on the floorboards. We'd had a huge thunderstorm on Monday and apparently the drains were clogged in my car, forcing the water into the passenger compartment. Oh, joy. So, Mazda fixed that (under warranty, thank goodness), but I didn't get my car back until after BEA was over.

Still, BEA was a blast. Writer Beware had a great experience and again a major tip of the hat to the MWA for hosting us! Victoria Strauss has already posted some of our experiences from there on the Writer Beware Blog and Ann and I are working on entries to go up there too. Also, it was good to see Steve Roman again. It'd been a few years since we'd actually visited (San Diego ComicCon 2005 to be exact), and we made up some lost time visiting as well as him playing tour guide for the big Midwestern kid. Can't believe I walked past the Empire State Building four times before I realized what I was seeing. *sigh*

I'm back on Childhood's Tears again. Finishing up the edits to Chapter Four. I've spent the past few nights rereading my Lovecraft and I think I've finally got the other plot I'd been needing for this book to start adding in. I'm hoping this will make the story a tad more creepy. I don't want to take away from the Action/Adventure parts, but a certain horror overtone would really set this book off. *keeping fingers crossed*

Also, I'm meeting with an actual web designer this weekend to get nightwolfgraphics.com/richardcwhite.com up and operational again. We're probably moving web hosts and definitely bringing the web site into the 21st century. When he started spouting .jsp vs .php and all the other acronyms that go with modern design, I just nodded and decided I'll let him worry about how it works. *grin*

Oh, work? Yeah, I'm playing one-armed paper-hanger right now there. Should be a very entertaining month.

So, given all this, I probably should go to bed.

Here's my schedule for Balticon 2009. I'll update with Room and fellow panelists once I dig up that information.

Panel	Date	Time	Panelists
Favorite Anime and Manga	Friday	1900
Autograph Session	Saturday	1100	Brian Koscienski, Chris Pisano
Writer Beware	Saturday	1300	Ann Crispin
Edgar Allan Poe and the Detective Story	Saturday	2200
Historical Sources of Fantasy	Sunday	1600
Reading	Sunday	1900	Just me

Not a hideously busy schedule and they should be pretty good panels. Don't know if I'm moderating anything yet, but I'm going to prep some questions just in case. The moderator at Balticon tends to be whoever gets to the panel last. *grin*

Did no writing today and felt no guilt.

Did feel weird not writing but I can live with it.

Did put in a request for a guest pass for Dragon*Con.

Did talk to someone about being at Marcon next year. I think that's definitely going to happen.

Worked on basic ideas for a proposal for a book.

Sent ideas to daytonward so he can shoot me down if I'm too far off base with ideas.

Talked to ghostbearmw about doing some short stories for Battlecorps.

So, no writing but lots of plotting. *grin* Amazing what you can accomplish with a little time on Twitter.

OH, and did spend evening visiting with family and running around the mall so daughter could spend gift cards she's been saving up. Good time was had by all.

Tomorrow, reading, watching a DVD and relaxing is on schedule. Writing officially resumes on 27 Apr 2009 unless something very strange comes up between now and then.

First surprise of the day was I didn't go to work.

Daughter-unit injured her hand last night (shut in a door). Nothing too serious, but it was definitely painful. She and wishweaver didn't think it was a good idea to go to school where it would probably get bumped into repeatedly over the day, but Wish had something due at work, so I stayed home in case the daughter's hand got worse and she needed to go to the doc.

We used the opportunity to finish an assignment she was late on, but the teacher said she'd accept it up to Friday. We sat down, discussed what needed to be done and hammered it out in a few hours. Course, if she'd done it when she was supposed to, we could have spread the pain out a bit, but what's done is done. I know when her next assignment like this is due, so we'll start on it a tad earlier next time.

Along with her typing, I did get some of my own typing done today and tonight. I revised Chapters 4-6 of Shadows, adding another 2093 words to the story. I almost completely rewrote Chapter 6 and tomorrow, I have to add in a new Chapter 7. This should be the last major revision until I reach Chapter 23. Should be. Will keep fingers crossed.

So, if I mentioned a first surprise, that implies a second one, no?

Well, here it is. The Balticon Program Participant's page. What's so surprising about a standard convention page listing who's attending. Well, I always assumed one would know they were a participant at a convention before it appeared on the Internet.

Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the thought. Given everything else, I probably will attend it since it's about 40 miles from my house as the beltway turns. Still, either someone was "watching out for me" after the last few times of not knowing whether I was an attendee until the last minute or else there's another Richard White out there who'll be fighting me for the badge.

I wonder what panels I signed up for? *grin*
_______________________________________________________________________________

Words for Today

2093 / 1000 words. 209%

Progress on SG-1: Shadows of the Heart

81416 / 80000 words. 102%

Progress on Shadows of the Heart's revisons

6 / 25 chapters. 24%

Words for 2009

72912 / 365000 words. 20%

Open message to convention attendees:

When dining in a local restaurant, do not regale the other diners of the sexual innuendos you used when you were talking the guest of honor . . . even if you are a Browncoat. You also do not need to describe the following, con funk, toilet mishaps or smashing open smurf dolls lined with blood bags at the table either.

Remember, there's a fine line between "freaking the mundanes" and being an obnoxious asshole.

The Browncoats who left Farpoint and descended on the sushi restaurant in my home town managed to ruin not only my family's time there, but several other tables worth of guests, to judge from the looks on the diners' faces.

Behavior like that is one reason why attending cons is less and less fun. I don't need it following me to my front door.

Thanks.

Aggravated person.

I won't go too far out on a limb, but given May's lack of production, the fact that I've strung three straight days of writing together is encouraging. Looks like things are going to get a little busy at work too, so we'll see how well we can separate out work writing from project writing.

I think this project will start picking up some speed when I can quit looking stuff up. That's the problem with some projects, even when you know what you want to say and you know exactly what it is you are describing, it's the fine details that make or break a project. Yeah, I know, good writing trumps everything, but I'm a historian and getting things wrong, whether it's calling a pole arm by the wrong name or forgetting what level sickbay is on the Enterprise, annoys me.

I feel comfortable with the characters and I feel very confident about the plot. It's those little niggly details that can really add something to a story if they're used right that are slowing me up for the moment. Especially since I'm hoping to use a few of these things later. Sort of a "see, there was a reason for this level of granularity, guys."

Contacted Register.com - still trying to move richardcwhite.com from Register to Sitelutions (my web host). Hopefully, we can get this fixed before I have to pay Register another year's worth of registration fees. Yes, I know my poor web site needs a face lift and I hope to get to that one of these days once I get the other six hundred other things that seem to need dealing with handled.

Also fired off a few e-mails to Archon. I'm hoping to get a small hall table to promote the two new books while I'm there. I like Archon, but I like having a table rather than just wandering around a con. Must be all those years doing comic conventions. I find if you have a table and a half-way decent display, it's a great opportunity to meet new people, pitch your work and meet interesting people. Of course, there's always a few who take a "Hi, how's it going?" as an invitation to hang around your table for hours at a shot, but that's the risks you take by being out in public.

I got started on Chapter Two of SotH tonight, adding 1284 words. Like I said, a tad under what I had hoped for, but after May, I'll take it.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Words for Today

1284 / 1000 words. 128%

Progress on Project: "SotH"

2347 / 100000 words. 2%

Words for 2008

155076 / 366000 words. 42%

Took the day off from work. Spent most of the day out running around with wishweaver, where she helped me pick out some new shirts and ties for work. (Taking advantage of those Memorial Day Sales at J.C. Penny's. Stafford no-iron shirts are wonderful time-savers.) Also stopped by Yankee Candle and checked out the new stock. Even when we don't buy stuff, it's always interesting to see what new scent combinations they design.

Got home to find This sitting in my mailbox. I was teasing Wish that now I'm an "internationally published" author. Of course, that and $2.50 will buy you a cup of coffee, but it still sounds good. *preen* (My friend, Tee Morris, did have to point out that he's been an internationally published author all along (Dragon Moon Press is out of Canada), so that did deflate the ol' ego a bit after that.) I'm enjoying the stories I've read so far and am very proud to have a story in the same book with the other authors.


Here's a picture of the cover. I can see why the other authors were really digging on the cover. It looks a lot more dynamic in hand than the Amazon picture looked.



Made it up to Balticon and ran into perivayne who helped straighten out various issues (like no badge), and informed me that I now have a reading and a signing on Sunday. So, yes, all my events take place on Sunday, but at least I'm beginning to feel like I'm earning my guest pass. I also ran into dzeytoun, pbray and jpsorrow, and then yogcmarthoth and scifilaura. I saw klingonguy across the room at the Meet the Pros gathering, but I didn't get a chance to talk to him. Maybe tomorrow . . . oh, right, maybe later today.

I attended the New Media party, where I ran into Tee Morris, who was DJing for the party as well as several other podcasters (some I knew and some were new). I also talked to one of the organizers of AnimeUSA and may be doing a panel or two at their convention later this year.

Finally slipped out and headed home. Now, it's definitely bed time.

Work went well today, all things considered. I finished my proposed revisions for the users manual and hope to get started on that (as well as some other documentation) next week. The funny thing is, now that I'm not working on that other project . . . now, they're coming out of the woodwork needing assistance with their web site.

*sigh*

Still, until they get their own tech writer/web person, my management has asked me to still help out now and then, so I guess that'll me one of my projects tomorrow.

And, I still found some time to work on Harbinger.

In fact, I wound up spending most of my time tonight transcribing all the stuff I did at work tonight. I was fully intending to copy that stuff in and work on Steel on Target, but it just took a little longer to get the writing going this evening. Once I got going, it went well, though. I added 2783 words tonight, finishing up the first chapter of the revised work. Yeah, I know, I wasn't going to start this rewrite until I finished one of my other projects, but I wanted to capture the new first chapter before I forgot all the stuff I thought of the other day.

I'm planning on taking Friday off from work. Hopefully, I can get some decent writing in, since I'm going to probably lose some writing this weekend with the convention. Still not sure if I'm going up to Balticon Friday evening for the Meet the Guests shindig. Not sure it's worth the price of gas for that, but I'll make that decision closer to time. If I can catch up with perivayne, we'll discuss doing a reading or a signing and when.

At least tomorrow is my last day at work until next Tuesday. We'll be happy for what we can get.

(Oh, and I thought I'd break out the new Raven avatar for my girl Raven, the star of Harbinger of Darkness.)
____________________________________________________________________________

Words for Today

2783 / 1000 words. 278%

Progress on Harbinger of Darkness

5155 / 120000 words. 4%

Words for 2008

148555 / 366000 words. 41%

Balticon Pocket Program

_________________________________________________________________________

Sunday, May 25 - 0000 - Belmont Room - Things that Go Bump In The Night - Richard White(M), Dina A. Leacock, James Chambers

Sunday, May 25 - 1000 - Derby Room - Playing in someone else’s sandbox(shared worlds) - Charles Gannon(M), Richard White, Christy Tohara, Trisha Wooldridge, Joshua Palmatier

Sunday, May 25 - 1600 - Salon D - Trek - Back to the Future - Richard White(M), Robert Jeschonek
________________________________________________________________________

Yep, that's it. 3 panels, all on Sunday. No signings, no readings, no nothing.

Yes, I'm a bit aggravated. If I wasn't moderating two panels, I'd probably just blow the show off.

Although, I'm still trying to figure out who thought it was a good idea to have a panel at Midnight and then one at 10am. Yeah, that'll be fun driving home at 0130 on the Beltway dodging all the drunks that'll be getting out about then, grabbing about five hours sleep and then driving right back to do the 10 o'clock panel. Oh, and they kept the name of the panel I suggested for the Midnight panel, and changed the subject. I guess it's a good thing I read the entire pocket program instead of just showing up with the questions I've used the two other times I've moderated this panel.

I think this will be my last Balticon.

Long day today.

Spent today either finishing up the web site at work, going to meetings or working on a user's manual for the other project I support. Of course, my meeting was at noon and I can't even complain because I'm the one who scheduled it. (Only time the conference room with the projector was available.) I was pretty brain-dead when I got home, but there was no rest for the weary . . .

I needed to finish up my slides for my presentation to the Maryland Writer's Association Annual Conference this upcoming Saturday. As usual, I've probably gone overboard (I'm sitting on 19 slides, although several of them have only two bullets on them), so I'll be spending some time tomorrow evening winnowing through everything, photocopying some handouts and finishing all my notes to myself. I think it'll be a lot of fun.

And, against my better judgment (and the bed whispering sweet nothings to me), I still managed to get some writing in. I added 1027 words to Steel on Target, getting May off to a good start. I'll post my April totals tomorrow, but I think they'll look a lot better than March's did.

And with that . . . it's off to bed.
________________________________________________________________________________________________

Words for Today

1027 / 1000 words. 103%

Progress on Steel on Target

44259 / 90000 words. 49%

Words for 2008

131504 / 366000 words. 36%

Allergy attack.

Eyes red and itchy.

Hit right as I was ready to start writing for the night.

Kept going. Added 1038 words to Childhood's Tears.

Heard back from editor for sekrit project this evening. It would help if I had sent 2008's biography instead of 2007's. Luckily, she's a good sport. Right one sent this evening.

Received schedule for the Maryland Writer's Conference, where I'm presenting representing Writer Beware. Will post more when I can see without watery eyes.

Same with March stats.

Time to take Benadryl and call it a night.
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Words for Today

1038 / 1000 words. 104%

Progress on Childhood's Tears

30088 / 90000 words. 33%

Words for 2008

95493 / 366000 words. 26%

The title pretty much describes my day at work.

I finished off the last two little assignments I had as well as making up the weekly status reports that didn't get turned in on Friday because I was here babysitting the appraiser. Poured myself a second cup of coffee and prepared to hit one of the big assignments I have staring at me.

And that's when my friend, Mr. Microsoft Word, began acting up on me again.

First off, the headings styles were acting up. I went into the style formatting, set up the numbering system exactly the way I wanted it and what happened? Word numbered my headings the way IT wanted them to look. It didn't matter if I set the numbers, if I went in and told it to restart the numbering, if I went in and manually set the numbers . . . Microsoft Word blithely ignored me and did whatever the hell it wanted.

But, that was only the beginning of its tricks.

After I finally got the headings almost exactly where I wanted them . . . I got the infamous, "Microsoft Word has encountered an unexpected error and will be shutting down" box.

Not once.

Not twice.

Six times . . .

. . . in a row.

I finally had to shut down my machine and restart it, hoping it would clear whatever was making the persnickety Word program so upset. At least when it came back up, I got a little smarter. I grabbed the document that I did have set up the way I wanted and carefully cut and pasted the words from the body of the offending document into the clean version and then just re-wrote the heading titles by hand rather than importing any bad formatting into the good document.

So far, so good.

But by then, I had squandered a lot of the afternoon and damn near all my desire to work on this particular document any more today. I have a meeting with the team leader about this tomorrow and hopefully when I return to my desk, armed with clearer guidance (I hope), I'll give it another try. However, if it keeps screwing up, I'll probably have to call our IT guys and see if they have any suggestions besides mine, which would be to wipe Word off my machine and give me a fresh reload. (I have to use Word, it's on the baseline and the government is unlikely to spring for a Word Perfect X3 license to make a lowly contractor happy.)

Still, even with the frustrations at work today, I still was in a better mood tonight than I have been in a while. Spent some good time with my family and then wandered upstairs to write. I may have piddled around on some blogs and web sites longer than I needed to, but I still added 1027 words to Childhood's Tears tonight. I'm happy with what I wrote and I hope to add quite a bit more tomorrow night.

And not a crash in sight. Thank you, WP X3. *grin*

Oh, and I also worked on a pitch for a possible ghostwriting project. I'm not adding the words tonight since they're still in pencil and not on the computer, but hopefully I'll be typing them up tomorrow night before my regular writing session. And I do need to start to work on my slides for the Writer Beware presentation I'm giving to the Maryland Writer's Association in May.

*wibble*
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Words for Today

1027 / 1000 words. 103%

Progress on Childhood's Tears

25826 / 90000 words. 29%

Words for 2008

81991 / 366000 words. 22%

Got an invite from my old partner on the help desk to hit the coin show at the Baltimore Convention Center today. Seemed like a nice way to enjoy a Saturday, so I caught the light rail into Baltimore and spent the afternoon wandering around lots of really interesting stuff.

I splurged a bit and picked up a few things I needed for a set I'm working on as well as a few things I probably didn't need, but they were still cool. However, I was really proud of myself when I talked myself out of buying some things that I wanted. It was close . . . not unlike my latest blog post on Writer Beware, when you're in the buying mood, it's really hard to say no. But, that's where common sense and discipline has to come in and you have to be able to say "No, not right now" or "No, that's really nice, but I don't think that's a price I'm comfortable paying".

Still, there were some very pretty things there. *sigh*

It appears going to Dragon*Con can be profitable. I was there a few years ago, working a table in Artist's Alley, when some guy came up and asked if I could make change for a $20. I said, "Sure" and he gave me a bill he had just gotten out of the ATM. I thought it looked a little odd, but then I realized it was a Federal Reserve Note from 1928. I was "happy" to give him the change after that.

Well, I had the note appraised at the convention today. It's in really good shape and based on their appraisal, I found out it's currently worth $125 and will probably continue going up in value over the next few years. The people at the appraising company enjoyed the story and suggested I make change for people at conventions more often. Let's just say, I intend to keep my eyes open the next time I'm handling money at a show. *grin*

We had some company this evening and then went out for Mongolian BBQ for dinner. Yep, it's tough having to go through a build your own meal setting where the cook fixes your food right in front of you. As a registered carnivore, let's just say, I get my quota of protein and more on the first trip through, much less the subsequent visits.

Still managed to get March's writing off to a good start. Added 1592 words to the Chronicles and probably could have kept going easily. I'm hoping I can get in a few extra hours of writing tomorrow just to make up for February's undershot.

Time to grab a book, get a little reading in before bed.

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Words for Today

1592 / 1000 words. 159%

Progress on CSD:Dragon Couchant

74025 / 100000 words. 74%

Words for 2008

65127 / 366000 words. 18%

Wow.

I had forgotten how many books we had in the library.

I didn't move ALL of them today. The contractor said his men will shift the movable bookshelves into the center of the room for us, but I did need to get all the general stuff up and moved, to include all the books on the two walls. They're going to take down the shelves and the old track shelving system and get rid of them (or use them or whatever they want to do with them) and then patch the nail holes paint the room.

I think I spent about five hours just hauling stuff from one room to another. Once it's done, I'll be hauling them books back into the room and just setting them in piles on the floor so they can paint the other room, but at least they're all boxed up now and easier to transport. Well, that is, except for the one box that has about 1/3 of my hardbacks. That one is still a bear to move, boxed or not.

wishweaver and the daughter-unit worked on getting her room ready while I was evac'ing the library. They got a big chunk done and while they were in there, they took the opportunity to weed through some of the daughter-unit's stuff. It's amazing some of the stuff she's hung on to over the years, but Wish managed to pry some of it from her. We hope to have her room ready to be painted next and that'll give me time to get the stuff out of the guest bedroom and back into the old library. Our room will probably be the last one painted. Well the master bathroom will probably be the last painted but that's because they're not ready to install the new vanity or shower yet.

dzyetoun came over to watch the game. We will not discuss the Super Bowl beyond the following statement - Good game, wrong team won.

As soon as the game was over, I turned off the TV, turned on the iTunes and got back to work on Chronicles. Finished Chapter 15 and got a good chunk of Chapter 16 done. Added 1732 words tonight and set up one of the pivotal events of the book (I hope). I have the distinct feeling I'm overwriting the story again. (100,000 words is a floating target . . . may not be what the first draft comes in at but hopefully the final will.)

Hopefully, I'll continue going over 1500 words this week so I don't lose ground this weekend. I'll be taking the laptop to Farpoint, but I don't know how much writing I'll get done there. We'll play it by ear.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Words for Today

1732 / 1000 words. 173%

Progress on CSD: Dragon Couchant

66494 / 100000 words. 66%

Words for 2008

39921 / 366000 words. 11%

Well, didn't get much writing done on Friday (read: none), but I did get all my information turned in to be a guest at Balticon finally. Apparently, the e-mail address I had to send my info to was a tad outdated. *le sigh* Still, all's in order now and hopefully we're past the bumps.

I know kradical was talking about a possible Dr. Who panel at Farpoint next weekend, but no official word yet. I know I'm not a "guest", but I'm still going up to hang out with some of my friends there at the bar if nothing else.

Had a small disappointment this afternoon. We had to swing by the mall to pick up some DVD's we'd ordered and found out one of my favorite stores in the mall had closed due to the mall management raising rent drastically. I asked if they were moving to another mall, but the shop owner next door said the owner of "Bun Penny" had decided it was more hassle than it was worth and just shut the doors. It was a great place to pick up a bottle of wine from a vintner I wasn't familiar with and they sold a wider (and cheaper)selection of coffees and hot chocolates than the average Starbucks. *le double sigh*

We've put two of our rooms back together after the paint crews got done. I need to deconstruct the old library upstairs tomorrow though so I can transfer the books downstairs to put in the new library. They'll be taking the old track shelving down up there so wishweaver can convert it into her craft room. She's needed a dedicated spot to keep her knitting, cross stitching and sewing away from los gatos here at Casa Blanca. We're looking for some nice cabinets to put her stuff in where inquiring noses won't be able to reach them. That's down the road a bit, but at least she'll have "her own space" here.

Did get back to writing tonight. Added 1819 words to the Chronicles and have almost wrapped up Chapter 15. With a little luck, I should get some writing in tomorrow, (or should I say, today), even with the cleaning/packing and the Super Bowl. I definitely want this chapter wrapped up and the next started before going back to work.

Ah, the fancy filled and carefree life of a writer . . . or so I'm told.

________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Words for Today

1819 / 1000 words. 182%

Progress on CSD: Dragon Couchant

64762 / 100000 words. 65%

Words for 2008

38089 / 366000 words. 10%

Well, I decided I'd rather hang around the house today and just goof off rather than going in to work. I'll have to spend some time this week making up for being lazy this weekend, but right now I'm not feeling too guilty. I guess you can tell that I'm ready to move on to the new position, eh? Still, I do need to update the Help Desk SOP, so I'll have to put in a few more hours at work this week.

I added another 1173 words to the Chronicles tonight and am moving into one of the major scenes in the book. If I do this right, it should set up all the events for the rest of the book. If I screw it up . . . well, let's not go there. I'll be doing and redoing Chapter 14 until it's right. *sigh*

So far, the schedule seems to be working well on getting stuff done in 2008. I'm making progress on Steel on Target and Chronicles and tomorrow night, I get started back on Childhood's Tears. I've added 5222 words to Steel and 2,179 words to Chronicles, putting me 1401 words ahead for the year. With any luck, I'll be able to build up a comfortable buffer so I won't have to worry about attending Farpoint in February.

Course, I don't have an invite to Farpoint and may not get one this year since they never responded to my request. It's weird. I get invites to Arisia, Lunacon, Marcon, etc., but to go to the local conventions is like pulling hen's teeth. Farpoint is pretty good about inviting me, Ravencon is not inviting me this year because I attended the first two (?!), and Shore Leave has never invited me as a guest. Only Balticon has invited me this year to be a panelist. I have no clue what's up with that, but considering I've been thinking about taking times off from conventions this year, it's probably for the best. I just hate not getting to spend time with friends and fellow writers - that's the drag about not going.

*shrugs*


__________________________________________________________________________________________

Words for Today

1173 / 1000 words. 117%

Progress on Chronicles of the Sea Dragon

55987 / 100000 words. 56%

Words for 2008

7401 / 366000 words. 2%

Even though I'm not attending Dragon*Con this year, I still fulfilled my duties last night and finished judging the groups I was responsible for in the 2007 Parsec Awards. The Parsecs are given out for the best podcasts in various categories and are judged on Audio Quality, Content and Presentation.

Some categories were easier to judge than others, some were damn close. I initially was to judge the Anime and Graphic Literature categories, but I was also asked to step in and judge the Speculative Fiction (GOD, I hate that term!) Short Story and Novel categories. In each of the categories, we were given snippets of the shows to listen to and make our decisions. We had between 7.5 to 10 minute cuts to listen to, and some had stronger entries than others.

Some of the podcasts had cool guests on them. I know one of them had Alan Moore and another had Josh Whedon. Ah, the power of the interviewer *grin*.

The Parsecs will be awarded at Dragon*Con this year and I wish the best to each and every one of the nominees.

( And the nominees are . . . )

All in all, it was an enjoyable task to judge these, especially the novel categories. There's some good stuff being offered out there for free from new authors and people who've been in the business for a while. One of the novels is being done by Tracy and Laura Hickman (of DragonLance fame).

If you're going to Dragon*Con and have some time, I heartily recommend checking out the podcasting track.

Just saw the pocket program.

3 panels, an autograph session and a table in artist's alley as far away from the entrance as you can get.

There's literally no point in going to the show. I can't see the show because I'll be at my table from 9am to 7pm daily (when not attending my three panels), but there's almost no chance at making any money at my table because of where I'm situated in the dealer's room. If we were still in the lower level of the Marriott, just outside the dealer's room, where I'd get a lot of traffic, I'd still consider it, but looking at the map, I can't see getting random foot traffic. It reminds me of the last Capital City show where we were tucked over in a small area while all the big publishers were in the main room.

It's a lose, lose situation from my point of view.

No sense in throwing away all the money it'll take to get to Atlanta, stay in the hotel, pay for food, etc. I know the daughter-unit is going to be disappointed . . . hell, I'm disappointed . . . but them's the breaks.

Maybe it's time to reconsider if Dragon*Con fits into my future convention plans.

Don't get me wrong, I love Dragon*Con and this has been a good year for my writing career with two stories that will be printed in the next six months and several opportunities looming on the horizon. I'm really trying to go to conventions to promote myself as a writer and move away from my dabbling as a small press comic publisher.

However, so far, it looks like I've got two panels, both for TrekTrak on Saturday morning, and one event (the Parsec Awards for Podcasting - I'm presenting the Anime podcast award).

For the entire show.

Now, I will admit, I was a tad overworked at NASFiC (18 panels/events). However Dragon*Con seems to have given me a guest pass for nothing. Apparently I'm NOT in the Anime track like last year (which is surprising since I received several e-mails from people who liked my panels), I'm NOT in the SF/F Literature track after volunteering to help out on the panels, I'm NOT in British SF Track after volunteering to help out (since I've just written my first Doctor Who story), and I haven't heard anything from the Writer's Track or the Comics Track, but I'm not getting warm fuzzies.

So, looks like I'll be watching the convention from the comfort of my 1/2 table in Artist's Alley in the Dealer's Room. I enjoy working the crowd when I'm in Artist's Alley, but I also enjoy being on panels (if nothing else it lets me get away from the table for a bit *grin*).

I'm really wondering why I'm going if they're not going to use me? If I hadn't just bought wishweaver's ticket to join us on Friday, I'd have to give serious thoughts to not burning the leave or the money for the hotel. If I don't have any panels in the Writer's Track when the schedule is posted, I'll be canceling my appearance.

2007 has been my worst year for conventions . . .ever.

Still, they haven't posted the final schedule . . .

*keeping fingers crossed*

I've been inspired by the events of NASFiC and I've got a ton of great ideas running around in my head that I want to get down on paper. However, everyone's competing for writing time and I'm really having problems re-disciplining myself to concentrate on finishing up Dragon Couchant.

I need to finish polishing Lynx once again to try and submit the short story to a SF/F magazine when they reopen for submissions in a few months. After a few conversations with other writers, I really want to do something with Troubleshooters Inc., although whether to submit it as a series of short stories or write it all out as a novel, or both? Then, Cherry Blossom Path keeps raising it's head and giving me those big Anime kawaii eyes and asking for a little writing time . . . just a little. Plus, Steel on Target, my SF military story keeps wanting me to finish designing all the futuristic vehicles for my Armored Cavalry in Space story. And, Haven has risen like a damn vampire from it's crypt, reminding me that it was actually optioned out in Hollywood back in 1995 and why waste my time with those losers when I know I have a winner here with it.

We won't even get into the one-shot short story ideas I got at the convention.

Some authors talk about characters who don't behave. I have entire stories that don't behave. AARRGGHH!

Still, I did manage to put everyone back in the box tonight and work on Dragon Couchant. I may not work on DC every night during the rest of August, but I will try to work on something. Maybe I'll dabble a bit on the others and see what's going on. Maybe one of these stories is telling me that Couchant isn't the story I need to be working on now (although, I know the Chronicles of the Sea Dragon will be told eventually.

Once I finish this chapter, we'll see where the writing leads me.

I really don't care which story I'm working on, to tell the truth. I just want to get back into the habit of writing again. *sigh*

Words for today

1,610 / 1,000 (161.0%)

Progress on Dragon Couchant

55,138 / 100,000 (55.1%)

Words for the year

60,658 / 365,000 (16.6%)

What can I say? The programming chairman at NASFiC made certain I earned my admission to the convention.

The Godzilla panel was a lot of fun. I had two good fellow panelists and the audience was pretty knowledgeable and enthusiastic.

The Creating Interesting Characters workshop I think went very well. Elizabeth Moon deserves credit for going above and beyond on that panel.

101 Things you can do with the Undead was a lot of fun. Of course, the fact it was at 11pm on Thursday and most of us had done at least four panels by then had us a little punchy. Selena Rosen of Yard Dog Press was a bit put out though. She had thought it was 101 things do do with the Dead, which could have been an entertaining panel in its own right *grin*

I did enjoy the Urban Myth panel. Not only did we have a lot of fun discussing things among ourselves, but it was my first time to get a chance to visit with Barbara Hambly. I tried not to be too much of a "fan boy" but I've been reading her books ever since I picked up her first novel. I wish I could have attended her kaffeeklatch or her reading, but with my schedule, I was happy to get to the three panels that I did attend that I wasn't on.

We had a huge turnout for the Star Trek panel. Marc Zicree, who'd written for DS9 and other shows, was on the panel with us. It was interesting giving the fans both the screenwriter view and the novella writer's (not quite a Trek novelist) view.

The Collecting Anime Cels panel was pretty well attended also. I have to commend the NASFiC/Archon A/V guy. The panel in front of mine finished five minutes before the hour and by the time I got there, the projector and computer were already waiting for me. Major, major kudos! We had a lot of fun with the panel, had a lot of good questions from the audience and I think they want me to do this panel again next year. Course that means I'll need to scan more cels to keep it fresh.

The only major problem I noted about the show was they hadn't designated moderators ahead of time for many of the panels. I prefer to know when I'm going to be the moderator so I can prepare questions for my panels. I wound up "moderating" a few, but it was more a matter of keeping track of the time and audience questions than actually running the panel. *sigh*

One of the highlights of the show was meeting the gang from Absolute Write. We had a wonderful time visiting before and during dinner on Saturday evening.

I picked up a couple of invitations to pitch some short stories at the show and intend to take full advantage of them. More to follow.

Work, to be polite, has been a real pain in my fourth point of contact lately and today was no exception. I was pretty whupped by the time I got home so I had to make a decision. I could write or I could finish preparing my "Collecting Anime Cels" panel for NASFiC. But, there wasn't enough energy to do both.

*pondering* Hmm, work on a project with no real deadline or work on a project that's due in three days. */pondering*

So, once again showing that even a computer idiot like myself can work in Adobe, I began editing the fourteen cels I'd scanned into the system yesterday. I think they turned out pretty well and I've added them into the slide show presentation for the convention. I am bringing my actual cels with me simply because if I don't, the convention center will certainly have no A/V support for my panel. (Murphy was an optimist, I'm convinced after these past two weeks at work.) It'll be harder to do the panel with hard copy instead of projected images, but better something than nothing.

Course, no one could show up for the panel . . . but that's another gremlin sitting on my shoulder cackling.

Still, it's done. All I have to do is upload it onto my Sony UX-290P and a thumb drive for back-up and I'm as ready for this panel as I can be.

Keep your fingers crossed that I don't run into a degausser between here and St. Louis. *grin*

Well, the final Archon/NASFiC/TuckerCon schedule has been posted. NASFiC is in Collinsville IL (St. Louis, MO regional area) on August 2-5, 2007. I'm arriving Wednesday night and I'm thinking, looking at this schedule, that's a good idea.

I think someone has outkradicaled kradical. Obviously eating is optional and teleportation is being provided *grin*

Date	Time	Location	Panel Title	Other Panelists
Thu	2:00pm	GC - Marquette A	The Godzilla Panel	Daniel Kimmel (M),Michales Joy, Doug Ferguson, Christopher Becker
Thu	4:00pm	GC - Ballroom D5	The Best Idea I Ever Sold	Rick Wilber, Robert Reed, Rob Chilson, MaryJanice Davidson, Paula Helm Murray
Thu	5:00pm	GC - Ballroom C3	Doing It with Style	Gardner Dozois, William Fawcett, Selina Rosen, Gordon Van Gelder
Thu	6:00pm	GC - Ballroom D4	Star Trek from Next Gen to Enterprise (and the films)	Mike Cole, Daniel Kimmel, William R. Warren Jr., Sandra C. Morrese
Thu	11:00pm	GC - Ballroom D4	101 Things to do with the Undead!	Jacqueline Lichtenberg (M), Nick Pollotta, Cindy Appel, Selina Rosen, Susan Baugh, John Perkins
Fri	11:00am	HI - Monroe	Reading	N/A
Fri	5:00pm	HI - Ballroom B	True Grit - Urban Fantasy	Laurell K. Hamilton, Barbara Hambly, M.R. Sellars, Rae Morgan, Susan Sinor
Fri	6:00pm	GC - Ballroom C3	Gods & Godmothers	P.C. Hodgell, Lloyd Kropp, Marella Sands, Gene Wolfe, Sheila Finch, C.J. Mills
Fri	7:00pm	GC - Ballroom D5	Collecting Anime Cels	N/A
Sat	9:00am	GC - Marquette A	A Walk Around the Block	Jim Yelton, Sharon Shinn, Mel Tatum, Mike Shepard Moscoe
Sat	10:00am	HI - Ballroom A	How to Create Unforgettable Characters Workshop	Carol Berg, Joy Ward, Linnea Sinclair, Janni Lee Simner, Elizabeth Moon>
Sat	11:00am	GC - Mississippian	What's in Your Spellbook (2 hrs)	jan howard finder (MC), Mark Tiedemann, William Fawcett, Elizabeth Barrette, Paula Helm Murray, David Hartwell
Sat	2:00pm	HI - Ballroom B	Modern Myths	Lloyd Kropp, E.E. Knight, Laurell K. Hamilton, Barbara Hambly, Thomas Stratman
Sat	4:00pm	GC - Ballroom D6	Anime - Creating New Genres	Cynthia Ward
Sat	5:00pm	HI - Exec 2	Kaffeklatch	N/A
Sun	12:00pm	GC - LaSalle Lobby	Autographs	Peter Bradley, Ryu Cope, H.G. Stratmann

I'm not quite certain what a few of these panels are going to be about and I hope they assign moderators in sufficient time for us to make some kinds of determinations, but looking at the guest list, I'm pretty stoked. I mean, I get to be on panels with Gene Wolfe, Barbara Hambly, Laura K. Hamilton, Elizabeth Moon, Gardner Dozois and Bill Fawcett. How cool is that!

Hopefully, I'll have some time to relax in there and also crash the Writer Beware panel on Sunday (I figure, since I'm a member of the Writer Beware Team, I might as well at least sit in as a rep.

Busy, busy weekend.

Well, the rest of my vacation didn't exactly go according to any plans . . . much less mine.

Wednesday went pretty well. I wrote that morning and spent the evening visiting with my friend, Tee Morris. We discussed writing, family, and different types of beers. Tried a nice one called Tres Pistoles, a dark belgian ale . . . very tasty. I definitely recommend it.

Tee and I come at writing from different directions. He's written several novels (quite good ones, in my opinion) as well as writing for Wiley Press (Podcasting for Dummies and the follow-up coming soon). However, his publisher doesn't have the distribution to get him into a lot of stores. I've done a lot of work and had decent sales, but so far, I haven't had anything original published (all media tie-in work so far). We're like opposite sides of the same coin. Still, it's fun to talk about our different experiences and goals as writers.

Thursday was my birthday, so that was a no-writing day.

Friday started out pretty well. Until water got spilled on my laptop. *sigh* Here's hoping it's going to dry out and start working again. Right now, the b key is inoperative, the touch pad is shot and typing any other key starts the b key (typing continuous lines of b's, making it impossible to write, use the internet, etc.). I'm hoping it'll eventually dry out, because the shop wants $209 just to look at it (apparently spills aren't covered under the warranty) and if I have to replace the keyboard or the motherboard, it goes up exponentially. *double sigh* So for now, I'm using wishweaver's laptop and debating on whether its worth the effort to fix or simply replace mine. Bleah.

Saturday, we had a friend of my daughter's over and then Wish was out for a while, so I didn't get to leave for Shore Leave until about 10pm. Still got to visit with kradical, terri_osborne, bill_leisner, tiggeralyn, daytonward and a host of other Trek authors. Lots of good conversations and definitely not enough time to visit with everyone.

Sunday, we had mollymorrison, sorentenshi, and dzeytoun over to go see the Order of the Phoenix. Well, they got to see it. I kept my daughter company at the mall since she didn't want to see it and I'm not quite comfortable turning her loose in the mall for three hours on her own, quite yet. Yeah, I'm a nervous dad, so sue me.

So, not much writing done with all this going on. Still, I think the basic experiment went pretty well. I'm convinced if I were to get to a point where I'm working part-time and writing part-time, I could set up a schedule and stick to it fairly well.

We'll just have to see what the future holds.

Well, today was fairly productive. I worked on the maps for The Silver March today and have a pretty good idea where everything in the story is going to take place. This is very useful.

Then, while the daughter-unit was in vision therapy this evening, I used my old hand-held tape recorder and started putting down ideas and story threads on Cherry Blossom Pass, which is the working title for the fantasy story set in medieval Japan. By talking ideas out, I'm starting to develop the character's personalities and set up the situation. Also, by recording my thoughts, I was able to get quite a bit done without having to haul a notebook or a laptop with me to the session. I just walked around outside and let my thoughts wander where they wanted. Eventually, I'll go back through the tape and hopefully, after time has given me some perspective, I'll weed out the good ideas from the bad ones before I start writing this story. I have enough other stuff in front of Cherry Blossom Pass to write, but I want to get some of my ideas down before I forget them.

Finally, I did get some writing done on the Chronicles of the Sea Dragon. I'll post numbers tomorrow. Unfortunately, my knee is really killing me this evening, so I think I'm going to go straight to bed.

However, before disappearing, I did do some other types of plotting with Tee Morris about our appearances at Dragon*Con and Archon/NASFIC. I'm thinking serious scotch drinking is going to happen at one or both of these shows. *grin*

Got a great idea for a possible Doctor Who story the other day from one of my co-workers who's a big American Civil War buff. Been doing some research on it and I think there's just enough ambiguity to the actual incident that shoehorning the Doctor and Susan into the scenario could be easily accomplished.

Need to finish reading all the details and get the plot onto paper.

*rubs hands together, chuckling evilly*

Tomorrow, there will be four people in the office out of twenty-four. Unless all hell breaks loose, (which knowing my luck, it will), I plan on getting caught up on some paperwork that I need to get off to Dragon*Con and NASFIC, rework my query letter for Harbinger and do some typing on Chapter Nine of Chronicles. That and contact the hotel in NYC to cancel before I have to pay for anything.

OH, yeah, and do my "actual" job, also. ;)

Well, it's beginning to look like I'm going to have to punt on going to BEA now.

It seemed like a good idea when I signed up for it earlier this year. Good chance to mingle and see all the new stuff. Got a hotel right across the street at a cheaper rate than the "con" hotels. Got plenty of leave saved up at work for this.

However, I just don't have a good feel for this trip. Not certain with all the stuff going on around here that I should be spending the money. Yeah, I'll have to eat the cost of the admission and Gold Pass, but I'm not convinced that throwing more money into hotel, gas, tolls, food, bar, etc. is a good idea. Especially since the entire family is coming with me to Dragon*Con and NASFIC is a day longer this year than the average ARCHON.

If I hadn't had a book deal canceled and/or if I had heard anything more on this history book project, I'd probably be less worried, but I'm thinking, staying close to the ranch might be a better way to spend 2007 outside of attending the two above mentioned shows.

Obviously, I have annoyed the Convention Gods this year.

Unlike most conventions, I didn't do a day by day breakdown of Ravencon. Partly because I was busy trying to catch up with a ton of friends I only get to see so often, meeting a slough of new people I'd be happy to call friends and avoiding getting sick. Apparently the pollen count in Richmond this last weekend was through the roof and I started getting down on Saturday. Wound up sleeping from 2pm - 6pm, doing my panel and then going back to bed at 11pm and not waking up until 9am on Sunday. Anyone who's spent time with me at a convention before knows "that's not normal behavior". I'm usually the guy surviving on a couple hours naps here and there at most.

Still, my panels on Friday were a lot of fun. I opened with "Who the heck is Doctor Who", which was a lot of fun and since the audience was still speaking to us afterward, I'll consider it a success. Later that evening, we had "How to be a Good Dungeon Master". I was one of the newest DM's on the panel since I've only been running games since 1979. (The other three panelist have been gamers since 1974, 1976 and the moderator being the newbie, only gaming since 1982.) We had some wildly varying ideas on how to run individual games, but we all agreed that a good DM needed a good imagination, needed to be well read and to know when "the game" is more important than "the roll". The last panel I did on Friday night was "The Dealer's Perspective". There were only three of us, one was a used-book dealer, one was an artist who sold sketches at shows and I was a former small-press comic guy who was used to being ignored . . . I mean selling my comics at various comic conventions around the country. We had not only the customer from hell stories but also a number of "I wish I had more customers like this" stories to balance things out.

Saturday was my "Collecting Anime Cels" panel. Well, let me suggest that holding an anime panel at 9am when most of the high school and college aged kids are still not at the show is probably a bad time for it. I did appreciate the two people who showed up and we had fun in spite of our lack of numbers. Later that evening, we made up for it at the "Star Trek Anonymous" panel which played to a packed (and boisterous) room.

Sunday I had a signing and then my final panel before heading out, "Everyone's an Expert", which was a panel on self-publishing, vanity publishing, small presses, e-publishing and other assorted ways to get your thoughts and words out there in front of the public. We had one self-published author, one who had self-published and then been picked up by a small press and a person who'd only been with small presses and done a lot of free-lance magazine short stories.

For me, this panel was important because it was the first time I'd been on a panel and been there not only as me, but as a member of Writer Beware. I've only been working with Ann and Victoria for a couple of months now and I think I did O.K. as a representative.

The other real show highlight was going to Monacan High School in Richmond and getting to do a panel for the students on writing. Tee Morris puts this little soire together every Ravencon and it's a great time for all the panelists (and I think the kids too, but with teenagers, you never know). Tee recorded the panel this year for a potential podcast, so I'll keep an eye out to see if anything's going to come of it.

Well, more news on other fronts, but that's another entry.

O.K.

Finished all the paperwork that my company needed.
Made it through class Wednesday night (although test not handed back yet). Preparing for test next Wednesday.
Made arrangements to make up missed lab work next Monday
Finished History project revisions and mailed out to the project manager.
Survived another week at work.

To do:
Put paperwork for my company into the internal mail system on way home (I work at a client site, not the office).
Pack palm-top computer, accessories, floppy keyboard, thumb drives and other convention stuff.
Repack suitcase to add an additional days worth of clothes.
Drive to Richmond
Find a hotel room.
Get to Doubletree by 8am on Friday to go to High School to have my first Ravencon Panel with the Senior English Classes.
Finish edits on The Price of Conviction.
Talk to an editor about possible home for Lynx.
Try not to drink too much over the weekend.
Try not to fall asleep driving home on Sunday.
Try to have fun at the convention

Yep, that's about it.

All right. Ravencon is coming up this weekend.

Unfortunately, a gazillion things are all converging on me at the same time, so if I'm going to the convention there's stuff to do. To quote an old song, "There's a long way to go and a short time to get there".

Tonight, I spent 4.5 hours filling out paperwork for work that had to be done by Thursday.

By Thursday COB, I have to finish the history project (around going to class on Wednesday night).

Before I leave for Richmond, I need to review my Anime slide show for Ravencon and ensure it's on the computer AND on the thumb drive. Also, I need to remember to take the floppy keyboard for the palmtop computer so I can finish the first edits on The Price of Conviction while I'm at the show.

Plus, I need to finish up my lab assignment for class on Monday and prepare for a test on Monday night.

Also, I need to finish some edits on Shattered Mirror by Friday next week.

And, getting started on Demons and Devils would be a good idea.

Not to mention, getting back to submitting Harbinger to agents, and The Demon's Head to the short story market.

Oh, yeah, spending some time with family would be good.

*sigh*