Graphic Novels: Hollywood’s Secret Story Stash (Saturday, 4pm)
Pssst…over here Mr. Movie Producer Man. I’ve got a great story to sell ya. It’s about this group of masked adventurers and good vs. evil and morality and ethics…whaddaya mean you read the graphic novel already? It seems like a new movie based on a graphic novel or comic book comes out every other month. What has worked, what hasn’t, and which stories are still to come?
Bob Blackwood (M), Mike Cole, Daniel Levin, Scott Smith, Jenna Waterford <– ME!

Short Fiction: Where Did It Go, How Can I Find It? (Saturday, 5:30pm)
We love short SF! Or we did, until it virtually vanished. Our panelists discuss what happened to the great short fiction markets of old — and where you can still find (and submit to) great short markets today.
Patricia Sayre McCoy (M), John O’Neill, Jenna Waterford <– ME AGAIN!

I’m currently planning on attending only on Saturday.

In only faintly-related news, I’ve scheduled a haircut for tomorrow and an eyebrow… uh… fancifying for Saturday, so by this Saturday at around 11am, I shall be glorious! And I hope I shall remain put-together for the next two weeks so I can remain glorious for my panels!

Flight confusion did not result in my being abandoned at the airport in Albany, thankfully.  The driver had sorted out the details and waited for me patiently.  This worked out well for another, too, and the driver was able to offer the extra space in our car to Martin H. Greenberg who’d been on my flight but had arrived much later than he’d planned so his shuttle plans were all messed up. 

So I rode to the convention with Martin H. Greenberg.  (*squee*)

Thursday night was mostly me settling in, getting my bearings, and wandering around checking out the scene.  I met up with Ken Scholes almost immediately, but he wasn’t hard to miss considering he spent the entire weekend floating well above the ground thanks to his fantastic 5-book deal with Tor.  Also met/said hi to/talked with/etc. a LOT of people.  I started a list and then realized the insanity of that.  Here’s the membership list of WFC.  I met a goodly number of these people.  They are all great!  It was especially great to see Stephen H. Segal of Weird Tales (and much MORE!) and Beth W of Shimmer (and LAConIV roomie) and to finally meet in-person my wonderful agent Mike Kabongo.

I was lucky enough to be rooming with Caroline Stevermer who aimed to stay up past ten every night of the con and DID SO!

I had coffee with Heidi Lampietti and her daughter on Friday evening which was delightful both for the company and the coffee and desserts–amazing does not begin to describe.  In fact, Saratoga was a fantastic location, period.  The shops and restaurants, coffee shops and book stores and even just the people walking along with their cute dogs made every journey away from the airy, easy-to-navigate convention center an adventure (in a good way).  I found a couple of places I popped back to a few times for coffee or just for a bit of comparative quiet.  The wifi was great all around and free… can we have all our conventions there?

On Friday, after Mary Robinette Kowal gave me some deadly-good grog (beware the grog) at Shimmer‘s Pirate-issue launch party, I wandered down to the open-mic ghost story slam on Friday at midnight and read my short story, “Beata Beatrix,” at some point during the second hour (so after 1am).  By the end of the event, it was almost 3am and all of us who stayed through to the very end were glassy-eyed and exhausted, but there wasn’t a bad story in the bunch.  Many of them were damn good–and many of them had been written within hours of the event!  Tons of fun.  Great idea.

I took it easy for much of Saturday but caught Stephen and Heidi’s panel on Surrealism which was entertaining and not in the least surreal (though, as is true of all panels, it was occasionally absurd ;)  That evening, a bunch of us went out to dinner, including Dan and Sarah Hoyt, Ekaterina Sedia and husband, and my agent, and it was fun and the food was great.  And that night was the Tor party where I either met or sidled by in very close quarters a large number of people including Sarah Monette (we never quite managed to be introduced, I think, but we did stand and talk a bit as we and several others were all crushed together near a door), Elizabeth Bear, Heather Lindsley, the publisher of Solaris Books, and many others.  And I do mean MANY OTHERS!  A total madhouse though the cool kids all assured me it was rather lightly attended for a Tor party.

I hung out with Caroline after that and had a very good time talking with her then spent Sunday morning relaxing, running around to say final hello/goodbyes to everyone, getting checked out and ready for the shuttle, and all that fun stuff.

I’m leaving out big chunks of sitting and talking to people, just walking around and seeing who was there, going to readings (so many good readings), and enjoying Saratoga itself (or at least a large stretch of Broadway).

All the return shuttle and flight things went very smoothly, and I topped off the weekend with Chinese delivery.  So all in all, a perfect weekend.

And, in the midst of all that, I did get a few thousand words in on my NaNo Novel… which is what I should get back to right now.

Nanowrimo starts in a couple of weeks, and I think I’ll put making major progress on the book my Nano project.  Either that, or I’ll do La Cause as my Nano project–and idea I like rather better since it needs the jump-start more.  Hrm… Well, we’ll see how I feel closer to time.

Of course, it doesn’t help that I’ll be out of town the first few days of November at World Fantasy about which I am EXTREMELY excited.  But I’ve never been before, so–any advice anyone?  Stuff I should know? Stuff I should do? Stuff I should pack?

And since he’s going to be at World Fantasy along with several other people I know or have met or would like to meet, I’ve decided to go.

So today was all about getting that put together — getting vacation time approved, reserving the hotel room, buying the membership, booking the flight… argh, this is going to cost me, BUT I think it will be worth it to have the experience and for the networking and just to be around all the pros in the field in which I want to succeed.