Nano day 3

It's all about the Nanowrimo this month. Or at least it would be if I could only get on the bastard site to update word counts and play in the forum. Good grief, how am I going to know how manic to get if I can't see how everyone elses word counts are going?! (Mine's around 10,500 as of last night, in case you were wondering!)

So, because my first drafts tend to be very short, I ended up with a total of seven possible novels to hit the ground running with. (What? Shut up.) And right up until last week, the first attempt of the month was going to be a funky space piratey thing. Because it has to be done... :-> Except for some reason I'm starting out with a tomb raider-y thing. Which was meant to be a fun adventure type thing, except I got to the third chapter and started killing people. Then killed some more. And some more. And it's all gone disturbingly horror-ish. And one of the main characters that was supposed to survive to go on to other adventures is now dead. Oops. And so is another of the prospective survivors. Double oops.

Well, I had this pack of raging minotaurs, you see, so people were going to die anyway. I knew this. It was only supposed to be the redshirts that bit it, though. And technically, as far as the RMs go, that worked. However, one of the main protags, the one that was supposed to be a core part of this particular story, got himself gored in a tomb trap. The other one gets it somewhere near the end, in a more unceremonious bullet to the brain from a bad guy. Bugger. That'll teach me for skipping ahead to write bits of the end chapters.

Authonomy
In other news, apparently I'm currently the number three talent spotter on Authonomy! Grief, how did that happen? This apparently means that when I vote to bookshelf something it gets more points than someone who's a lesser spotted talent spotter :-> Now how can I capitalise on my evil new power? :->

Stuff

Oops... Monday morning chirpiness is about a month late...

So, Fcon then... well this year was weird. Surreal even. (Alright, I admit, I'm a workaholic!) Shopped on Friday when usually it'd be bag stuffing... spent way too much in bastard-stones. Did actually do that whole sitting in the bar thing for a couple of hours Friday afternoon. Also quite bizarre! Then Friday evening was the fabulous piratey quiz! Yargh! Dave Howe rocked the house with piratey chat. Oh, and my table also won!! Woot! Alas, there were only 4 tables actually participating this year. (And for a long while we thought there'd only be two...)

Saturday - Jo Fletcher & Chaz Brenchley in their talks were both fascinating. Didn't do any of the panels as they were either repeats of ones that have been done to death or were on at silly hours or just didn't appeal. Call me crazy, but it all felt a bit horror-centric this year. (I know! That old BFS-y arguement again!)
Of course, not that having a demon theme for the banquet helped... (shuffles feet, is totally to blame for that one!) After frantic setting up of that one (and I'm saying nothing about how damn slow the hotel peeps were at getting the tables out and set... oh, whoops... :-> ) a bunch of us buggered off to an all you can eat Chinese place up the road. Which was excellent. First time I've ever eaten outside of the hotel at an Fcon. Ever! ::faints::
Apparently the decorations went down ok (as evidenced by people chucking the body parts at the wall and ceiling...)
Awards, again, totally horror centric. Sayin' nothin'. Congrats to the ever fabulous Joel for his win, though! Raffle... despite Guy and Sarah's highly entertaining compere-ing... ye gods, it is time for that monster to stop. Please!

One highlight of Saturday was the morning launch (with tea & biscuits!) of Telos & Sam Stone stuff. Sam Stone is a brilliant lady though she couldn't go 2 seconds without someone wanting a picture of her in that outfit. If you were there, you know the one I mean! :->

Sunday we were off early so we just had time for the AGM which was actually quite good fun! Guy Adams got in as new chair, along with his many teasing plans for BFS next year.
Oh, and the lovely Pete Coleborn had a crazy moment and agreed to co-chair next years Fcon with Guy... and, um, somehow he managed to persuade me to help out... (Heh! Time off lasted a year then...) It'll actually be nice to be back sitting on the reg table, cos I like doing that.

So far, official details for next year are: at the Britannia Nottingham again, 18th -20th Sept, and confirmed MC is Ian (lovely voice) Watson. Yay!

Heroes!
The lovely Pete C. is also to blame for introducing me to Heroes - something which I'd somehow managed to miss seeing until a couple of months ago when himself lent me his Season One box set...
On the plus side, this means I got to see the entire season in one hit. Damn that was good. Barring a couple of tediously boring characters, natch. Season two was a bit wobbly, but now, oh sharp eyed viewers, we have season three! Woohoo! Sylar & Bennett in an amazing double act! Loving it! Only thing is, the US is a couple of weeks ahead of the Beeb, so the internet is the very devil for tempting spoilers...
Pop along to the BFS forum to chat about it if you've a mind...

Oh, and Pete has himself a blog now http://piperatthegatesoffantasy.blogspot.com/


Nanowrimo
Oh yes, it's almost that time. November madness minus 14 days and counting. This year I've got multiple novels planned -not just because I'm a bit indecisive about which one to pick... but last year I finished the main one after the second week and there was a word war on gorramit, and words still had to be dredged out... This year I'm determined to be prepared. And drag England Elsewhere kicking and screaming into the top three of the UK regions...

If you're Nano-ing I'll be queenofeverything if you fancy buddying up. Or pointing and laughing... :->

Write Fantastic get local!

Have just discovered via the BFS news page that the Write Fantastic, in the forms of the fabulous Chaz Brenchley and equally fabulous Juliet McKenna, will be in Wokingham Library doing a creative writing course & discussion on 15th November. This is very exciting news! Finally a local event! :->
Alas there's not many details to be had about it but apparently you can ring the library on 0118 978 1368 for the full info.

Pre Fcon Glee

Ooh, one week 'til Fcon. I'm excited. Are you excited? :->

What's even better is this year, minimal stress and total utter laziness. Ha hah! Except for a couple of hours on Saturday when I've got to be a bossy madam about setting up the banquet. Balloons is all I'll say to you. Why I suggested them I'll never know... Hopefully, if all things come off, there should be some fun stuff on the tables for those of you who're attending it.

Also, Fcon Friday is Talk Like a Pirate day. Woo hoo! I'm expecting some piratical type things from peeps during the quiz. And no ninjas. Oh no. Ninjas will be walking the plank, yargh!

The usual happy puppy Fcon report will inevitably follow as soon as the beast is slain for the year.

Wonderlands

In other news... if you haven't already checked out Wonderlands then pop along as it's rather good fun.

Authonomy

And also the Harper Collins Authonomy website is now live. Even if you're not a writer type wanting to post your work up there, it's still fun for reading other peoples work. The main gist of it is that, through a complicated ranking system that nobody quite understands, the five books that get in the top five at the end of month make their way to a bunch of HC editors for reading and commenting.
And me mate Debs made it last month! Coolness, or what?! She's still waiting to hear the verdict on her book.

Bits and bobs

TV Heaven!

Hurrah, NCIS is back for a new series! FX, Sundays at 9pm or repeated on FX+1 at 11pm....
But seriously, did anyone actually believe for one minute that the corpse was DiNozzo? And the continuity fairy has been having the day off as some of the hair?! Shocking!
Oh yeah, there was a plot, wasn't there... :-> Despite the fact that anyone with half a brain guessed the Frog/Jeanne relationship somewhere quite early on last season, it wasn't a bad follow through. The post-explosion scene of crime bits were very well done, the DiNozzo entrance and barney with the creepy CIA guy also good. The Madam Director bits were the usual cringeworthy stuff but the DiNozzo / MD smack down was very good, accented by that Gibbs 'attaboy' smirk. The ending boat scene seemed needlessly tacked on, though. (There's a joke there somewhere...)

And Doctor Who!
Agatha Christie and giant wasps!! The vicar was a boring gink though.
It did also remind me that I've never actually read an Agatha Christie. (Shock, horror!) Had no idea that Murder on Nile & Murder on the Orient Express were Poirot mysteries either! (Wiki is my friend. As is Amazon.)
And next week looks cool. (Except it's not next week, it's the week after, bloody useless Eurovision thingy.)

Bookity Book

More thumbnail reviews!
Smoke and Mirrors - Tanya Huff. The mystery portion was of the good, the protag wangsting about his love life, not so good. Luckily, not much of the latter, so a damn good book.

Empress - Karen Miller. Crikey. Fevered or what. Despite the protag being not the most pleasant of peeps, it's got a frantic pace and it was only towards the end where our girl is much older and more deranged that it started losing it a bit. Want next one. Now!

Halting State - Charlie Stross. Once you get used to the second person p.o.v. it's a lot of fun.

However, The Atrocity Archives by Mr. Stross totally hits it out of the park.

Dark Space - Marianne de Pierres. Found myself skipping half the p.o.v.s but still got a good story out of it. This one will benefit from re-reading (and including those other p.o.v.s now that I've got the drift of the story...)

Small Favor - Jim Butcher. Loved loved loved it! Am a total Dresden groupie! More please. Soon please!

Midnight Never Comes - Marie Brennan. Wow. That was a surprise. Faeries in the court of Elizabeth, all very smoothly done. Excellent!

Blood Noir - Laurell K. Hamilton. Never speak of this book again. Unless you have brain bleach handy. You can pretty much tell from the first paragraph how dire it's going to be. On the plus side there are less sex scenes (I think. I skipped over the portions that threatened to be the usual boring step by step blather...) And poor Jason. Resident of village of the damned! It's those blond identical children... Strangely, I think you get more plot in the epilogue then you do in the whole book. If you're looking for a continuance of the more interesting Mother of Darkness plot rather than the how-many-more-men-can-we-add-to-the-orgy and just what super power will it give us this time plot. Oh Anita, what have you become...

Shadow Gate & Spirit Gate - Kate Elliot. Gosh. I'm now a fan! Excellent stuff. When's the next one out?

The Burning Man - Mark Chadbourn. Better than the last one (whose title currently escapes me). Alas, Jack and Ruth still very irritating. Expecially Ruth, who managed to be both bland and sanctimonious. Laura, however, still bringing the winning snark!

Last Argument of Kings - Joe Abercrombie. Make this man king! This was a fabulous ending to the trilogy. Glokta! Dude! Bayaz! Bastard!!

(One day I'll remember how to do proper length reviews... )

Little Brother

As reviews go, I'll keep this short and sweet.
Cory Doctorow's Little Brother - read it. It's a mind-bomb of a book.
But don't take my word for it, you can download it for free and gratis from here.

Cons and stuff

Where's my room service gone?! I was getting used to that :->
(My Visa, however, will be spending the next three months trying to recover. Ah well.)

Anyhoo... the rest of Eastercon also fun, if a bit knackering. Apparently they're holding it there again in 2010 - April 2-5, 2010 with GoH: Alastair Reynolds, Liz Williams, Mike Carey. Definitely be going to that one. Not so convinced about next years Eastercon in Bradford though...

In the meantime, had a wild and impetuous moment over the weekend and booked into Newcon 4 which is happening in Northampton in October. It's run by Ian 'sells ice to eskimos' Whates and Ian 'lovely voice' Watson. The main event isn't based in a hotel, but why let that stop you!

Alt Fiction looks to be good fun this year - which is a shame cos it's on the same day as mum's birthday and she got a bit stompy when I mentioned the possibility of actually going this year...

Back to Eastercon - spent all my money cash in the Dealers Room. Books, books and more books... and a t-shirt. Have only read one of my purchases - Dalton Quayle Rides Out by Paul Kane - published by Pendragon Press - and that one I highly recommend as it's ridiculously funny. It's a bit of a Sherlock Holmes spoof that shamelessly takes the rip out of a whole heap of other genre things too!

From the panels - the Mythology panel was interesting but a bit distracting due to the prancing about of the tech guys in the scaffolding rig to the side of the room. Liz Williams is an excellent panellist (and she also has a shop in Glastonbury! Think it's the Magick Box one...)

The supernatural romance panel was quite fun, mainly because Tanith Lee was beyond brilliant! (Must now read some of her books... ).

Books on the web turned into deep discussions on copyright issues. Plus Mr Boing Boing showed us a pic of his new baby! Toughening up Fantasyland good due to the fabulous Joe Abercrombie... although another distracting one due to a) the people eating a sloppy curry on the back row... coincidentally, during the discussion on Fantasyland stew! b) the woman knitting a stripy sock not two chairs away from me and c) the strange person with a wooden ale mug attached to her belt that kept doing odd exercises in her seat.

People-wise - chatted to Chris Teague, Andrew Hook and Jonathan Oliver (poor boys!), said a very quick hi to Juliet McKenna, waved to Chaz Brenchley and was this close -) (- to Joe Abercrombie! Have I mentioned he's fab? He seriously needs to do a panel or something at Fcon...

-
And talking of the always excellent Juliet McKenna... she'll be running a workshop at the Winchester Writers Conference this year in June. Have always wondered though... what exactly happens in a workshop? How does it work? Must hit up my experts and ask...

Eastercon

Morning! Long time, no blog.
So to get things back and funky, today's blog is live from Eastercon at Heathrow! As this is my first Eastercon, Fcon/Econ comparisons are inevitable so let's get them out of the way first.

Eastercon is huge! 1200 registered people, most of whom have already signed in (according to Mark from the committee who I had brekkie with this morning) Goodie bags are much the same sort of thing as you'd get at Fcon... Econ went a little better and did a groovy Econ mug. Scored myself a Neal Asher book (Polity Agent) as the book-in-the-bag. Never having read the chap before this is proving to be quite an interesting experience...
Registration was total chaos. Queued for a good 30 mins to get to the desk. (Never have that problem with Fcon!)
And the hotel is a total maze (including helpful signs pointing the way to the minotaur!)

The panelling so far has been a lot of fun and there's a great atmosphere going. Yesterday I did the 'so you want to be a SF writer' where John Jarrold depressed everyone by saying that out of the millions of subs both he and big publishers read, they only take on one or two a year. Ian Whates moderated that one and the boy done good. He's very entertaining.
Then there was the 'hovercraft of disbelief' which the panel peeps worked out was the rant panel for the weekend so they ranted and we ranted about all those irritating inconsistencies that you get on the telly and in books and wotnot. Never mention a King Arthur film to a Celtic Historian... Paul Cornell was also on that one and he was really good.

'When it changed', a panel about women f/sf writers was quite interesting - Juliet McKenna subbed for Pat Cadigan at the last minute, Kari Straun (?) was an excellent mod. Got a bit distracted by the room though as it was done up with staging and a huge flat screen to the side and a scaffolding rig with the tech guys in. Gosh. You don't get that at Fcon!

People wise, despite being totally unsociable, managed to accost and subsequently bore Andrew Hook, Gary Couzens, Martin Owten, John Aitken, George Budge, Billy Stirling and a very chirpy Steve Jones.

Hotel wise, excellent! Great rooms, good food, very friendly staff. Although it's easy to spend a lot of time wandering the corriders... they move, I swear. Peeps are calling it the Raddison Euclidian.

Like this as a venue. If Fcon ever gets monumentally big, then this would be a good spot.
Not that I'm biased because it's only 30 mins down the road from mine. (Or an hour if you get as monumentally lost as I did once I left the motorway...) Really embarassing thing is I grew up around here (in my defence, I was six when we moved... but still... :-> ) Our old house is a couple of roads down the A4 from the hotel (Firs Drive - you'll pass it if you decide to get on at J3 of the M4 when leaving the hotel...) and my old school is up a little bit if you're trying to sneak up Sipson Road to avoid the one way system and get on the M4 at J4 (William Byrd, since you asked).
Also, if you open your bedroom window, you can hear the planes taking off, which is fab. (Ah memories... in my day, we lived so close to the airport we used to get plane headlights shining in our windows at night!)

And with that merry thought, I'll leave you for the day!

strike

A short link post today...
The Writer's Guild of America is on strike. Doris Egan explains why here, Stephen Gallagher explains what this means for UK writers and Joss Whedon adds his views here.


Oh, and in other news... Nanowrimo count = 80,045 words... Woohoo!

nanowrimo is go!

If it's November, it must be Nanowrimo madness! My wordcount so far is just a few words over 40,000. In 6 days! Woohoo! Am starting to lose the ability to type though.
I blame the Word Wars. I love the Word Wars. We just got my region signed up to the UK & Ireland multi region war so the new goal is to whip the asses of everyone everywhere... Oxford are the reigning champions - for three years straight they've topped the daily average word count... this year victory will be ours!

Film Fun
Just watched Mirrormask - got a nifty box set with Dark Crystal, Labyrinth and MM in, and, actually, MM is better than I expected. Probably to do with the lead actress actually being good. The plot was a wee bit wobbly at times, but there were some fun visuals.
Have also discovered that I can't watch Dark Crystal without giggling at the voice work. Can't even watch it all the way through as it seems to drag a lot more than it used to do. (Oh, and according to the back of DVD box, 'Jen' is an official trademark! Perhaps I should be changing my name?)

Book Fun
Have also just finished reading the latest Tom Lloyd - The Twilight Herald. (Though after discovering his blog, keep wanting to call it Twiglet...) It's been a while since I read the first one, so there was a few moments of 'what was that about again?' and some of the early viewpoint changes almost lost me, then came a point about a third of the way through where the 'can't-stop-reading' kicked in, so all was right with the world! Utterly champing for the next one now.