Almost there...

1 day to go. And darlings? We must be nothing short of fabulous!

...and I'm back to that state of disturbing calm now... we're leaving in a few hours, as much paperwork as I can think of is done, boxes are packed and inventoried (yes, I'm that much of a control freak... coded by area of operations, with contents lists etc! They've been laughing at me... but they'll see... :-> )

Still haven't got the Fcon mag... hopefully it will arrive this morning, if not, the old man or one of the staff will be bringing it up to Nottingham tonight...

Will things go wrong? Probably. Will I have forgotten things? Definitely. It's inevitable. Do I care at this point? Nope. Done everything I can, covered the important things, after that, I'm stopping worrying...

I've got an ARC of Juliet's latest to read tonight once all the heavy lifting has been done, (love those Prism perks!) ; I've just heard that Mark Morris is going to do me a horror column for Prism (so that's v. cool!); I've listed out what I need to say in the various reports at the AGM on Sunday (genius! And it was such an obvious worry-buster, doing this preperation thingy I keep hearing so much about...)

So this is the last you'll hear from me until Fcon is over (unless we get the Fcon mag in the next couple of hours, then I'll be back to scream joyously...) - if you're coming, see you there, hope you have fun... if you're not, I'll talk to you next week when things have calmed down...

AARRRRGGGHHHHH!!!!

... yes yes, 2 days etc...

And I had gone back into eerie calm this morning - right up until we phoned the printer to find out where the Fcon mag was.... Apparently they tried to deliver it to Finchley yesterday! Finchley?! Who lives in Finchley?! (Well, ok, that was Marie's old place last year...)

But why Finchley? In every email, phone conversation, and accompanying document to files I'd put very clearly that delivery and invoice was to me at my address.... But still... Finchley... and as it's out for redelivery today (to Finchley!!) we've no chance of getting it near Reading until tomorrow (we're leaving tomorrow!! Argh!!) Even then, they're not sure we'll get it to our house... but "at least it will be in the Reading area" W.T.F!!?!

We did suggest we could drive up to their depot tonight to pick it up, but no, apparently the driver may just go straight home and not return to the depot with his van...

And it's not as if they don't know me - they're the ones that we use for Prism, DH & H&N and last years Fcon mag.... and everything has always been delivered to my address...

And we finally hear from one of our missing goodie bag people -apparently that's going out with the courier today - so, what, another thing arriving tomorrow morning then...?

Talk about sailing close to the wind....

Of lists and things...

...3 days... 3 days...3 days to go.... arrrrrggggghhhh!

And disturbing calm has left the building as we're well and truly into panic mode again! (I say we, in actuality, everyone else seems to still be fairly calm about things, it's only me getting all het up... not that I'm highly strung... oh no...) 2 and half days til we set off (Thursday lunchtime, with a man & van) and there's lists and lists and lists to do... Running order for the awards has changed slightly since last we knew (no, I don't know who's won... I do know who's getting the Karl Edward Wagner Special award and I'm not telling so nyah!), last minute banquet issues, preparation for next year, prep for the AGM (Agh! 3 reports!! Please don't ask anything. Let's just move along to AOB...) and trying to think of all those little things we might need like plasters or a bottle opener/corkscrew or aspirin or decent pens for the writing of name badges or posters and signs beyond the usual... and where are we putting the reg. desk - due to an item that got more complicated that previously anticipated where we were going to go will have to change from originally anticipated... will it be secure over night, are we going to have to do nightly shifting of the good stuff into the lockable bit? And what about storage overnight in the hotel on Thursday... I'm wildly paranoid about that one. And what about the noise from the Con bar? Are the walls thick enough to block it from the main room? We did tests last time we were up and it seemed to be ok. But there was only a few of us shouting...
Will we be able to get the PA system to work (we've lost Handy Andy due to a work training course so we're on our own for technical stuff... arrgghh!)

And why is it only now I think of those fun little touches that it would have been better to have thought of a couple of weeks ago to do them properly...

And boxes! Why did we throw out all those cardboard flats last month - we need them now! Stupid stupid stupid!!

And a chunk of promised goodie bag hasn't turned up, but we've also had a couple of surprising additions at the last minute...

And I'm just worrying about EVERYTHING!

Fantasycon News!

Clive Barker Ticket Talk!
To be held on the saturday 23rd September 2006, 8.30pm - 9.30pm

It's a Q & A with Clive Barker and Simon Bamford, (otherwise known as Butterball from Hellraiser and Ohnaka from Nightbreed!) Hosted by Paul Kane.

Places strictly limited to no more than thirty, please email Marie O'Regan (marie@marieoregan.net) to secure a place at what promises to be a unique event.

Places given on a first come, first served basis.

And, oh yes, there's only 5 days to go...

A million and one BFS type things*

(*so if you're not interested in such, you can skip this post...)

So the wedding yesterday was fab - Pete & Jan are now officially hitched! Scary! They had a Corpse Bride wedding cake which looked fab, half the guests were late due to the evilness of the M6 but it was still a brilliant day... didn't get to talk to half as many people as I wanted to (due to hiding in corners)... really wish I'd gone down the pub with the folks before the registry office thingy... having working batteries for the digital camera would have really helped too...

And uncle Pete had to have a hair cut! Hee! All dressed up in the suit he looked like a super corporate business man! Jan looked fantastic. And we got a tour of the new house as it's next door to the pub where the reception was...

And, naturally, any visit to Pete & Jan's has me coming back with boxes of BFS publications they've found and want rid of...

...of which, suddenly I'm not so jaded about the whole Stockholder job... cos there were some treasures in the pile of stuff I got this time... I've now got bits and pieces going back to the 70s! Yeah baby! Been trying to rebuild up the BFS archive of pubs cos we're missing loads from pre early 90s... but now we're starting to fill out... (really got to put a missing list together for publication in various places in case anyone's got any spare copies they want rid of... - off the top of my head - the '81 - '82 BFS Bulletins, Volumes 9.3, 9.4 & 9.5 as Dave S. did history of the BFS articles in them...)

And, ooh, the Newsletters and Chills and Fantasycon stuff! Fcon mags going back to '77, PRs, programmes... just a brief flick through the Fcon stuff has got my mind buzzing with ideas for next years event..

And, gosh, the photos... everyone was so much... hairier* ... way back then... and was that really Dave Sutton with shoulder length hair and a velvety sweatshirt? And Graham Joyce looks totally different with the 'tache. And Steve Jones & Jo Fletcher done up in monster makeup for one of the Fcons!! And Stephen King looks very very young! And Ramsey Campbell! Crikey! And Clive Barker looks like a completely different person (his cigars have gotten bigger, for a start... :-> ). And so does Robert Holdstock (except without the cigar)

*except Kim Newman, who bucks the trend and was short of hair and 'tache.

And the horror vs fantasy debate has been going on since at least '81.

The 'oh no, not more fantasy first-book-in-a-series' has been going on since at least '84

And there were really meaty book & film columns!

And they really knew how to do the whole cover art thing back then... even the Fcon PRs look gorgeous!

And back in 1984, Fcon was Britains longest running fantasy conference... which means it still must be!

And membership apathy has been going on since the 70's.

And, yes, newsletters and the like came out late even way back then... so it's not just me... :->
And apparently sometimes it was due to typewriter problems... a precurser of computer problems... heh!

And we had all kinds of different logos before the current dragony one...

...8 days...

Am now well past disturbing calm and into just plain dazed... (I've been catching up on various accounts this morning so millions of spreadsheets is probably why... Plus, just heard Rob won't be able to make it for the AGM so that means I get landed with doing the Treasurers report as well as the Prism report and Fcon reports... Gah! Short and sweet, that's the key. No one cares much about them anyway, they all want the AOB bit... which is fine by me! Except, we would like some Fcon feedback during the Fcon bit as we're considering using the Nottingham hotel again so if there's problems with the hotel or Nottingham in general, we need to know over the weekend... otherwise we'll be booking it. Probably. Lord knows. I'm not even thinking about that bit yet...)

Wembley, yesterday, was fun... the roads up there are utterly, utterly mad. Especially near the stadium (which was where we had to be)... never mind...

So, got a bootload of raffle prizes (some great stuff!) and have now decided we definitely need to hire a van... (an Fcon first for us!) and, actually, the thought occurred, somewhere on the M40, why not make it a man & a van... and handily enough, we happen to know someone so that's a whole heap of worry that's just disappeared.

So that means that BFS members copies of Cinema Macabre AND BFS: Celeb book will both be given out to members that are at Fcon. We were going to give them out when y'all sign in... we may have to rethink given the amount of peeps we're now expecting so it may turn out to be a 'come here from xpm on Sat and get your books.. I'd rather we gave them out at sign in though as it means we remember to give 'em you. Which means I'll be stapled to the desk most of the weekend as I'm a control freak and will be wielding my clipboard to keep track of about a million different things...

Slow Motion Wars won't be ready for Fcon, after all that... (waaah!) Plus side, it means there's more time to tease you with proper details...

Prism and Dark Horizons are at the printers still, but as they're prioritising the Fcon mag they said it's unlikely the other 2 will be back before Fcon... (double waaah!)

Oh, back to Wembley... Mr J. is a lovely lovely guy, and his house is excellent! Books everywhere and probably the hugest collection of monster movie memorabilia I've ever seen... Wish I'd had more time for a nosy around, cos I love looking at the books on other peoples shelves... (It's lethal, in the day job if we happen to get a house where people have left books in situ, I get ever so distracted seeing what they've got... drives the big boss mental...)

Actually it kind of reminded me of uncle Dave's house - except with him it's Dr Who memorabilia and a million books...

Oh and it's the wedding tomorrow... happily it's an informal thing - registry office, then travel half an hour to the pub opposite their house for the reception... should be fun :->

... 10 days left... probably... I don't know, my brain's gone...

And I'm having one of those disturbing calm moments now... got to go up to Wembley tomorrow to pick up the raffle stuff... which should be fun cos I'm itching to see our humble benefactor's house.

Oh and the joys of editorship... meant to say the other day, on editing the Fcon mag... which has been heaps of fun... not least, I had the pleasure of sorting through some photos of Clive Barker to pick what was going in... and I do mean that... his bloke is a professional photographer so there was some gorgeous photos in the stack... you'll see which ones were picked when you get your Fcon mag next week... some great poses to choose from and Clive photos very well... yum! :-> Shame they had to be converted to greyscale...

For those of you that won't be at Fcon, I'll nag the webguy and get copies of the mag up on the site for sale (£2.50) after Fcon. I'll also try and remember to post a contents list up on the Fcon thread of the BFS forum so you can see what's in there... 84 pages! 6 interviews! 5 bits of fiction! Some funky articles! And photos!! And the exclusive Clive art for the cover! (Thanks Marie!)

(Quite liking this obsessive posting of ToCs on the forum... totally weird!)

And the TTA forum standards thread moves along nicely. (And I started a 'stupid questions' type thread over there too, cos they get so many pro editors over there it's seems daft not to tap their brains about stuff... )

Something from the TTA forum spilled into the BFS forum after the TTA thread got deleted, other than that, the BFS forum has gone all quiet again. Shame. I was quite enjoying the hecticness of it a couple of weeks ago.

And Marie got herself a Wordpress blog here - must remember to add a link to the website next time I'm in update mode... Apparenly Paul K.'s getting one too, soon.

And I read somewhere (on Ansible, maybe?) that the hotel Eastercon were going to use for next year, they may not be because of security issues... ooo er... we briefly considered using that one ourselves... (and, no, still no news on the '07 venue - like I think I mentioned a couple of posts ago... we're pursuing a couple of interesing options...)

And just got my copies of Triquorum 1, and An Occupation of Angels from Pendragon... won't have time to read them until after you-know-what... also gonna pick up a copy of their Molehills of Madness thingy at the F-word. If I remember. Never seem to remember to go near the dealer room these days... too busy with the reg. desk and the like... hell, I rarely get to see panels these days either... which just seems soooo wrong...

H&N

Don't faint... :->
I knew it was tempting fate, making these public delclarations of BFS only brain until Fcon... while you're waiting for me to pull myself together, I've woken up the slush blog so if you haven't heard back from me on submissions, you can at least see the basic status of things...

If your name's not on the list, either I think I've replied to you or never got it.

(Finally got the bradanpress email addy working this afternoon too... so it's possible some emails have disappeared in the ether...)

If you've withdrawn your piece and it's still on the list - email me and let me know...
Any other outstanding queries, please hang on a little longer... thanks!

...11 days... (hyperventilating)

Take it as given that I'm feeling guilty about blogging...

Now that we've got past that... grammar, standards and the small press... what do you think? (the TTA boards are having that discussion at the moment so drop by and contribute...)

Now, in theory, I'm all for keeping up as professional a standard as possible... not just the grammar, or the tight phrasing, or the spelling; but layout & design and everything else too. (yes, that means submission response times, despatch times and the general courtesy of replying to emails before everyone dies of old age...)

In practice, it's not really working is it? Let's face it - H&N and any related parts of its working, are a mess. Everything I do is frequently done at the last minute so there's just no time to dedicate the time that I should to give it the care it needs. This isn't another whinge. Sincerely. Or yet another declaration of trying to get better - because you can take it for granted that every issue of the mag has me trying to get things in order so that things run smoother from then on.

Actually, I'm not sure what this is about... what I want (what I really really want :-> ) is to put out 2 issues of the mag regularly each year. To have submissions read and replied to within about a month of having received them. To have no outstanding queries whatsoever. And have the website looking better. And get the secure forum up and working so peeps have a place they can get quicker answers to questions if the email screws up on me again. (Actually, on that, have found a forum and downloaded the various software bits to put it together... have to do a crash course in mySQL to get the installation finished properly - it's on my list of post-fcon jobs..)

And then to build up the fantasy book side of Bradan. That's what I really want.
(and world peace, of course :-> )

... 12 days and counting...

All I'm gonna say is... Fcon mag... world exclusive piece of artwork from Clive Barker! Thank you so very much... :->