Category: Writing

Dragon*Con 2011: The Late, Late Report

By:  TempestConventions

I’m horrible at posting timely con reports, so I’ve given up worrying about it. It’s been a week since Dragon*Con ended, so at least with this one is up faster than my WisCon or ReaderCon reports. No, you didn’t miss them… they aren’t posted yet.

Onward!

This was my first Dragon*Con, and I was slightly worried about feeling overwhelmed. However, I had the chance to work for the at-con newsletter, the Daily Dragon, and that helped me feel less at sea. I had specific things to do and I spent most of my time doing them. Those specific things involved copyediting, being on call in the DD office, covering panels, and interviewing people. Being a journalist is a bunch of fun.

I had a great time talking to Ann and Jeff Vandermeer about steampunk and Alethea Kontis and Leanna Renee Hieber about being pro guests who are also fans. But the absolute highlight of my con was getting to interview Kate Mulgrew, Star Trek: Voyager’s Captain Janeway. I also got to interview Brent Spiner of The Next Generation.

For Kate Mulgrew, I had to chase down her agent, then come sit at her signings three times before he found time in her schedule. William Shatner had just denied a couple of my colleagues an interview, so I was nervous. But Ms. Mulgrew wasn’t as ALL DONE THIS as Bill (and I don’t blame him, he did three solo panels and signed 4 times) so she granted me five minutes.

I’ve met her just once before, and she was just as warm and funny as before. She has this commanding attitude that I adore. It’s not obnoxious — more like a very forceful matriarch. If she tells you to do something, you do it because obviously she thinks it’s best. Plus, you don’t say no to Captain Janeway. Read the interview (Kate says so.)

Talking to her about how there needs to be more women leaders in the Star Trek franchise, I had this awesome idea for a panel at Dragon*Con about female leadership in SF. My dream panel would be Kate Mulgrew, Nana Visitor, Mary McDonnell, Salli Richardson-Whitfield, and Gina Torres. I also think that would make an excellent pop essay book, with the volume split between TV/Movie properties and SF novels. As things ramp up for next year’s D*Con, I’ll see if the panel is possible.

I was in the autographing room on Monday waiting for Brent Spiner to have time when I noticed that Robert Duncan McNeil (Tom Paris, Voyager) had a life-size cutout of himself in character sitting on top of his table. Not next to, on top of. I went over and asked, “How much to take a picture with the cutout?” because pictures with him were $10 and that’s just not my thing. Thankfully he has an excellent sense of humor and joked with me about it and, when I came back to actually take a picture with the cutout in my absolute silliness, decided he needed to be in the pic, too. I let him. You know, to make him feel better.

Tempest Bradford and Lt. Paris... and Robert Duncan McNeil

I also had one other mission during the con, which was to sell fans and raise money for Con or Bust when possible. I didn’t sell many fans, but my roommate, Mary Robinette Kowal, sold TONS. She’s a sales machine and earned Con or Bust a lot of money.

In addition to selling fans, I also asked some actors of color to sign one so we can auction them off. When I get home I’ll post pics. Edward James Olmos (BSG) and Garrett Wang (Harry Kim, Voyager) both signed readily and were very sweet about it. In fact, Garrett misunderstood my request (I’d asked him the night before in the green room) and had a picture he’d planned to give me of Robert Beltran, Robert Picardo and himself in character, signed by all three. It’s really adorbs. I gave him a fan in exchange for the picture and we’ll auction that off, too.

Sidenote: Garrett Wang is awesome. He runs the Trek Track at D*Con and does a fantastic job, does funny as hell spots for Dragon*Con TV, and spends hours and hours in the autograph room so everyone who wants to see him gets a chance. Plus, he’s super sweet, like I said.

That was pretty much my Dragon*Con. I met many awesome fans, hang out with the fabulous Daily Dragon staff, saw fantastic costumes, got to go to panels, met one of my heroines, and had conversations with a host of fabulous people. I’m looking forward to going back next year.

As Always, My Thoughts On 9/11

By:  TempestMy Fiction

Are best expressed in fiction.

Others have also raised concerns over the ongoing nature of the haitai ritual. Though performing it after the first or second anniversary isn’t unheard of, most clerics don’t recommend it. Wassirian cleric Anes Mshai is an outspoken opponent of further Red Seteshday haitai.

“Bringing closure and allowing family members to say goodbye is healthy. Especially in the case of such a massive disaster. But reliving and recreating the event over and over again every year may be keeping them from moving on.”

Until Forgiveness Comes at Strange Horizons

The Unblinking Eye [Part 1, rough]

By:  TempestWriting
The Unblinking Eye [Part 1, rough]

The cold open of my TNG/Doctor Who fanfic is done, so I thought I would share it with you all. I also came up with a tentative title. It will likely change.

Okay kids, keep in mind that this is a first draft. Like a really, really first draft. Have fun.

The Unblinking Eye

Captain’s Log, Stardate 46389.2. We’ve just entered the Davien system and commander LaForge informs me that the test of the new subspace field generator will commence within the hour. If successful, the new engine will increase dilithium efficiency three-fold.

“All right, Data. Activate the field.” Goerdi LaForge swept his rolling chair between consoles, keeping track of half a dozen monitors at once. This first test was going to be tricky, and he didn’t want to give the engineering core back at Starfleet Headquarters any reasons to shut him down before he could prove this new engine scheme would work.

“Subspace field activated.” Data stood at Engineering’s central console while the rest of the crew moved between the warp vestibule and their consoles, keeping almost as diligent an eye on the outputs as their boss.

All signs were good, and Geordi was about to give the order to go to warp 1 when a sharp, rushing sound interrupted the normal thrumthrum of the room. It lasted only seconds, hardly enough time for panic to well up in his chest at what might be going wrong. And when it was over a body lay sprawled on the floor.

“What–”

“Intruder alert,” the computer announced in her faux alarmed tone.  Continue reading “The Unblinking Eye [Part 1, rough]” →

Happily Ever After Is Now Out

By:  TempestWriting
Happily Ever After Is Now Out

Happily Ever After Cover

The Happily Ever After anthology is now on bookstore shelves (both virtual and physical). You should certainly go pick up a copy if you’re a fan of fairy tales, subversion of fairy tales, mythpunk, and other related things, as this book is FULL of such wonderful nonsense. The table of contents alone is enough to tempt people, and that cover is to die for. Here, I shall make it easy for you:

Amazon | Kindle | B&N / Nook | IndieBound

2011 Write-a-Thon Begins!

By:  TempestWrite-a-thon
2011 Write-a-Thon Begins!

All right, everyone, no more begging for sponsors from me. The Write-a-thon has officially begun and I am hard at work on my stuff. I started writing the fanfic for week 6 even though LeVar Burton did not tweet about us. That’s okay, I know there is plenty of fan love to sustain me.

Also, I am happy to report that I met my goal and then some late last night! Hooray :) I still need to update the sidebar with the total, which I will do when I get home this evening. Thank you to everyone who sponsored, your support means the world to me.

I’ll be keeping everyone updated here on the blog, on Twitter, on Facebook, and on Tumblr.

My Final Sponsorship Plea

By:  TempestWriting
My Final Sponsorship Plea

The Write-a-thon begins tomorrow. After that, I will stop begging for sponsors and get down to writing. Of course, if someone comes along and wants to sponsor me after that, yay! But I shan’t ask.

So, here’s my final word on this: Right now I have $403 in pledges. My goal is $600. I need around $200 more. That’s actually not much when you break it down.

  • 10 people pledging $20 flat.
  • 7 people pledging $5/week
  • 11 people pledging $6 flat + 3 people pledging $4/week + 1 person willing to give $62

Or some combination thereof.

Even if you can only pledge a small amount, all small amounts help! Click here to do so.

My 2011 Write-a-thon Goals and Challenges

By:  TempestWriting
My 2011 Write-a-thon Goals and Challenges

The Clarion West Write-a-thon begins this weekend, but you still have time to sponsor me and to spread the word about my need for sponsors or to look at the fabulous list of writers and sponsor one of them or to join in the fun and become a Write-a-thon participant. So many choices! Anyway, I promised that I would tell you about my goals for the next 6 weeks so you can get all excited about them (or something).

My overall, basic goal is to write between 100 and 500 words every week. The wordcount goal will change each week based on the goals and challenges listed below.

Week 1: I’m going to use a random number generator to pick my wordcount. Then I’ll roll a 6-sided die and divide the overall wordcount by the number that comes up. I’ll take this number (rounded to the nearest whole number), go to the book I’m currently reading, turn to that page, and choose a word on the page to inspire the fiction I write.

Week 2: I will use Wordle to create word clouds from three Twitter accounts, then take the top 2 most interesting words from each account and write a story using them in some way.

Week 3: Sponsor challenge. I’ll give each of my sponsors a chance to pick some aspect of the story: wordcount, character names, location, first line, last line, etc. Depending on how many sponsors/responses I get, this could be split into two stories and be week 4’s challenge as well.

Week 4: TBD

Week 5: TBD

Week 6: Crossover fic. Here’s the deal. LeVar Burton tweeted this picture of he and Alex Kingston together and said she was one of his favorite actresses. I saw that and thought: a Star Trek/Doctor Who crossover starring Geordi and River Song would be so awesome! And Tumblr concurred. Then I thought: It would be even more awesome if I could get LeVar to tweet about the Write-a-thon to get more sponsors for me and everyone else. So here’s my challenge to you, friends and readers: LeVar is aware of my devious plan, but he has not yet tweeted details of the Write-a-thon to his followers. Encourage him (politely!!) via Twitter to do so and I will write this beautiful crossover fic of win. It will be short, yes, but longer than 500 words. Maybe even written in teleplay format. We’ll see.

So that’s my plan for the next 6 weeks. As weeks 4 and 5 approach, I will make decisions about what I’ll write then.

To recap: Please sponsor me! Please sponsor other participants! Please participate! TNG/Doctor Who crossover! LeVar Burton! That is all.

 

2011 Clarion West Write-A-Thon Clarion Call

By:  TempestWriting
2011 Clarion West Write-A-Thon Clarion Call

In a little less than two weeks, the Clarion West class of 2011 will begin their 6-week intensive workshop. At the same time, the CW Write-a-Thon will begin. A write-a-thon is a lot like a marathon. Instead of sponsoring someone per mile, you sponsor them per week. If they reach their writing goals for the week, you pledge to send Clarion West a certain amount of money. There are six weeks of write-a-thoning to mirror the six weeks of workshopping at Clarion West.

The deadline to sign up for this event is June 18th. There are a couple dozen people signed up already, but Clarion West needs more folks to sign up and get sponsored to reach their fundraising goals. I think that you (yes, you. No, not that other person, You) should sign up to participate.

Last year I didn’t do the write-a-thon because I had far too much to do work-wise to commit to anything and didn’t have much time to find sponsors. Thus, I completely understand if other people have the same doubts. But, in thinking about this the past couple of days, I realized that there are ways to do this that don’t require an huge time commitment. Setting micro goals instead of big huge ones; allowing myself to be a little bit silly, experimental, or completely off the wall; taking challenges from others.

I have some ideas on how to pull this off (and will share them with you in time), so I’m ready to commit to participating in the write-a-thon. Thing is, I’d really like to see at least 20 more people join me in this effort. I know many of you are busy, have stuff going on, and have stress in your lives, just like me. So think about it in these terms: do you have 30 minutes a week to commit to writing? Do you know three people off the top of your head who will sponsor you and pledge a little to Clarion West because they love you/are awesome? If the answer to both is yes, then you’re set. Yep, 30 minutes, 3 people — that’s all it takes.

Now we come to the portion of the post where I sweeten the pot a little. Usually with fundraising things such as this it’s customary to offer prizes to people for pledging money. I’m going to do something different, because my goal is to get people to sign up. So, anyone who participates in the Clarion West Write-A-Thon, has at least 3 sponsors OR has at least $100/week in pledges, and meets at least 4 out of their 6 weekly goals, will be entered in a drawing for a free eReader.

The eReader in question is the new Kobo eReader Touch Edition, out this month. If you want a taste of it, there’s a hands-on post here. On Monday or Tuesday there’s likely to be a full review.

I have some other new or like new gadgets in my possession that I may be able to offer up as well, but the Kobo eReader is for sure.

Some disclaimers: I don’t work for Clarion West or represent them. This drawing is being run solely by myself with products I own personally, not offered by any corporate entities. I plan to choose the winner based on random number generation — a digital version of pulling a number out of a hat.

Excited yet? Good. The first step is to head over to the Write-A-Thon sign up page to join. The next step is to find at least three sponsors. Ask them to pledge a certain amount each week if you meet your goals or to pledge a flat amount if you meet all of your goals over 6 weeks. The last step is to decide what your goals will be. I’ll tell you mine next week.

Holla back, people. Raise your virtual hand if you’re in this with me.

Your Favorite Descriptions

By:  TempestWriting
Your Favorite Descriptions

In preparation for the WisCon panel on “How To Describe Nonwhite Characters Sans Fail”, I’m looking up descriptions of characters in my favorite books to analyze what I like about them and why they work. I’m hoping to bring some concrete examples of literary awesomeness so we can keep the panel balanced between “this is why describing people this way is a problem” and “here are non-faily descriptions, learn from the best.”

I have a few already, but I’d love to hear about your favorite character descriptions as well. Not just of characters of color  — though good examples of such are very much welcome — but phrases or passages that stuck out for you, that created clear or powerful pictures in your mind. No need to limit yourself to SF; show me your romance, your mystery, even your poetry! (Be sure to include the author and origin.)

And Now For Something Completely Awesome

By:  TempestNon-Fiction Publications
And Now For Something Completely Awesome

Hugo Award nominations were announced yesterday and this shiny book got a nod in the Best Related Work Category:

That’s right! Chicks Dig Time Lords is a Hugo nominated work! I am so incredibly happy, yay!

And, if I am allowed to say: well deserved! Lynne and Tara put together a really solid lineup and the fan response has been overwhelmingly positive. I hope that remains the case as Hugo voting commences :)

On equally happy notes, I see a lot of friends scattered throughout the nominations, but I wanted to give a special shout out to fellow Altered Fluidians N. K. Jemisin and Saladin Ahmed. Ms. Jemisin’s first book, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, is on the best novel list and Mr. Ahmed is up for the Not A Hugo Campbell award for best new writer.

I posted the whole list over on the ABW and noted that there are quite a few women on the list, more POC than I’m used to seeing, and many “new” or young writers, which is an achievement for the Hugos. Can’t wait to see how the winners balance out on these fronts.