Selenay's Ramblings

Less than two working days until my week off! Woo hoo!

I definitely need it. Today I barely restrained myself from writing a sarcastic response to a request for something that doesn't exist yet (apparently people think I'm psychic) so it's needed. I managed to write a polite response, but honestly. This person knows the thing doesn't exist yet, knows it's something there's no algorithm I can write to predict the thing, and therefore I don't know why he was asking for the thing.

I'm a wee bit grumpy right now.

First shift as an ops rover for virtual Worldcon went well, I think. We seem to be getting the hang of how to manage it and a lot of the early glitches are getting ironed out. Hopefully everyone is enjoying their con time. I spent a couple of hours being a stand-in for the Hugo ceremony rehearsal, so hopefully there will be no glitches with that!

Being staff on a convention is always an interesting experience. You end up seeing a lot of the bits of a convention that aren't working well, so it can be hard to tell whether the majority are having a good time. In terms of being staff on a convention where I can't get to any of the programming due to timezones and day job, it's doubly difficult. Normally I'd get to experience some of the con outside the staff role, but this time I'm not so all I'm seeing are the bits where something has gone wrong. OTOH, I am impressed that with all the moving parts and tech and people who don't know how to use the tech, we're not getting as many issues as I expected and everyone is working hard to get issues ironed out fast.

I suspect that a lot of conventions are going to be virtual or blended virtual/offline for a couple of years, so what we're learning at events like ConZealand and this year's vidukon_cardiff are going to be the model for conventions for a while. It's a good thing for us to work at getting issues worked through and figuring out all the necessary tech so that we can keep events like this going through these weird times.

In other thoughts...

Guardian is a lovely, lovely fandom and everyone was right about there being some great fic. Apparently my time in superhero fandom prepared me well for a fandom where secret identities and fix-its would be major themes :D

Where did the last two months go? It's April already!

Well, I know a bit of it got lost in an exhausted haze because I've been having a colitis flare, but that can't be the entire cause. Apparently living in England is making me way busier than I was in Canada.

(Colitis flare isn't fun, but isn't life-threatening either. I'm slowly adjusting to the meds. I'll find out in a couple of weeks whether I can be weaned off the steroids yet. Yay.)

I had a couple of days away in Brighton for work last month, which was exhausting but fun and really useful. My job is continuing to be great and today I did a telephone interview for a possible minion. Well, we're calling them my new friend. I guess it sounds better than minion. I do not like interviewing people. Ugh.

I started a Babylon 5 rewatch a couple of weeks ago and I'm almost at the end of S1. I foolishly thought this would be comforting. Apparently my brain had some kind of blip because this is not comforting. OMG, how is this more relevant now than it was when it first aired?

The world is fucked.

In more cheerful news, Eastercon is only two weeks away and I just signed up for vidukon_cardiff so I've got lots of fun stuff to look forward to. My sis and I are taking Mum to the Harry Potter studio tour just after I get back from Worldcon. And the Hugo finalists list is amazing. So many good things happening!

Almost makes the imminent Brexit-induced apocalypse feel less terrifying.

No, wait, it doesn't. Ugh.

*blows dust off blog*

Ahem. Yes. I am terrible about updating. BUT. I figured it might be handy if I listed somewhere which panels I'm on at Nine Worlds THIS WEEKEND OMG HOW IS IT SO SOON. Don't believe the schedule - there's a small back-end issue with one of my panels, where I had to turn one down due to a clash but the listing still has me down on the turned down one. Woops!

So, if you want to see me be geeky, here's where you can find me:

Friday, 3.15pm: Writing Superheroes

Join Emma (signe_chan), Ollie, and I as we discuss writing superheroes in our fic. The ins and outs, the interesting aspects to explore, the way fic explores superpowers. However you define superheroes and superpowers, whether it's DC/Marvel or Buffy, this is the panel to be at.

Friday, 5pm: WILD SPECULATION: Star Trek

Round-table speculation about the movies and the forthcoming TV series. The wilder the idea, the better!

Saturday, 11.45am: History of Femslash

Llyn, Cleo, Roz Kaveny and I will be talking about femslash and its history, discussing where it began, where we all began in it, and how it has changed over the years. Whether you're new to femslash or an old hand, this is a panel for you! Wanna know what the first written femslash pairing probably was? Or what in heck a Xena Uber was? (And why so much lesbian fiction from the early 2000s looks suspiciously Xena-like?) Audience participation is encouraged and we'll be trying to put together an actual timeline on a large piece of paper during the panel.

Sunday, 9am: Why we love femslash

Despite the early hour, this is a celebration panel! Why do we love femslash? What are the tropes and stories we adore? Come and spend 45 minutes squeeing with Llyn, Cleo, and I about the joys of f/f romance in our favourite shows, books, and movies. There's only one rule: the phrase "femslash is better than dudeslash because..." is outlawed :-D

So, a good friend of mine is on the committee for this con and has spent the last two years extolling its virtues, which says a lot about a con if someone I like and respect is involved and loves it :-) If I can make my vacation time work out next year, I'm hoping to go to the 2015 edition.

I love fan run cons. They're fun, relaxed, and filled with really cool panels and awesome people. They're running some things right now with the aim of making the con an even better experience and opening it up for more people to participate in from next year. And thus, I'd like to let the Wincon folks tell you a bit more about the con, what they're doing, and how you can help (and get cool stuff for doing it, even if you can't actually go).

Wincon is a 'by the fans, for the fans' multi-fandom con. That means no guests, no celebrities, just the internet in real time with other fans. Wincon 2015 in Pittsburgh will be their 10th anniversary, but they need some help to make it happen.

In the past, they've been about a 100-person con. That's no longer sustainable, so they've decided to grow to 250-300 people. At this size, they can offer more programming, better events, etc. while cutting registration costs nearly in half. Registration for 2015 is just $55 for the weekend.

To make sure Wincon can be successful at this new size, they're running an Indiegogo campaign. You can buy your registration or choose from their other awesome perks. They have custom art from some truly awesome artists made just for the campaign, as well as donations of art commissions and custom fan crafts.

Please take a minute to visit the Indiegogo page and get to know what they're all about. You can also find more information at their tumblr or website.

( Cut for medical stuff )

Onto more cheerful things!

My local con announced yesterday that they've got Peter Davidson as a guest! *cue running around shrieking*

While Sylvester McCoy is my favourite Doctor (from Old Who) in terms of having the best stories, Peter Davidson is *my* Doctor because he was my first and that always stays special. So I'm rather over the moon and definitely planning on attending :-D

They've got a few interesting names including J. August Richards. On the one hand, I'd love to see him. On the other hand, I'm assuming he'll probably pull out as he's got a major role on the SHIELD TV show and when (I'm no longer going with 'if' here) ABC picks that up officially, I'd imagine he'll have filming commitments that will make jaunting up to Canada rather tricky.

I try very hard never to book for cons based on one single guest. Odds are always good that something will happen and that guest won't be there.

My local con is more of a big media con than I really like these days but they're making an effort not to have everything revolving around the big name guests, which I'm fully in support of. Knowing there are multiple programming tracks makes me much more likely to attend. I'd love it if there were some more fan-oriented tracks and maybe a literary track, but I can't have everything. And hey, at least there's a con here of some kind :-D

This weekend is going to be mostly about sleeping and maybe some napping. It's been an exhausting week and I'm running on fumes today. I've got a pizza in the freezer for supper tonight and I plan to completely veg out and catch up on some TV. The cats are going to appreciate this plan because they've started to act rather cuddle-deprived and mournful every time I get up and have to go somewhere. Poor petals.

I was all psyched up to have a brilliant day because any day that starts with the radio playing one of your favourite (sappy) songs is automatically brilliant and it's Friday and...

...and then I came to work.

It appears that this was my major mistake of the day. Why do we bother to do all this requirements gathering and use case malarkey if we're going to be given TOTALLY THE WRONG INFORMATION every single bloody time?

*ahem*

And my manager keeps trying to help us this week. For the love of god, will someone give that man something to do so that he doesn't interfere with our work? Surely someone has some urgent resourcing charts that he can play with? He'll love using all the pretty colours that Excel can hold, I promise.

Er, yes, I do tend to feel that my manager is best left in a quiet corner with some glitter pens and construction paper rather than trying to 'help' us. Although he does occasionally get us good chocolate when we're looking particularly desperate. It's the reason we like him.

Still, I've got a weekend lined up filled with cycling and tennis. There are good books to read. And if I haven't finished 5 Things by Sunday evening, feel free to yell at me and wave pointy stakes, OK?

So when 3.30pm rolls around (no, my new hours *still* haven't been approved although all the other departments are on their new hours grump grump grump manager) I'm out of here and my day will improve drastically. Maybe I'll even talk Mum into pizza for supper.

ETA: Day got better - my local con announced Gail Simone as a guest. OMG. With Brandon Sanderson, John Rhys Davies, and Nicholas Briggs already announced, it’s something I’m definitely going to need to go to.

Oh, Humira, you fickle thing. Some weeks the injection barely stings, other weeks I have to question the maternal status of local canines out loud.

Guess which was this week's experience?

I have so totally earned the chocolate peanut butter ice-cream that I'm treating myself to tonight.

In other news...

I have set up a savings plan to pay for flights, accommodation and spending at Worldcon 2014. With a small weekly put-away, I estimate that I'll have enough for a very pleasant time indeed. Look at me, being all responsible and stuff.

I am quite disappointed that tardis_bigbang does not seem to be happening this year. It would have made me actually write my Orient Express in Space story rather than piddling around with files of notes and not actually writing anything.

Still, the Doctor is back on Saturday so maybe I'll finally start putting pen to paper. Either on that one or the adventures of the cross-dressing inter-species lesbian lovers. Something has to work otherwise my entire writing output this year will be yuletide and that's just really, really bad. Someone suggest a way to make myself write?

I'm sitting in my parent's dining room in England. Yup, I made it safely and the flight was one of the best that I've had in years. Possibly the glass of wine before we got on the plane helped...

In a couple of hours, I will be off to Redemption. So excited! I still can't quite believe that I've made it - four weeks ago, I was receiving multiple blood transfusions and being told that in a couple more days, I would have died. Today I'm being treated successfuly, managed an overseas flight and am about to run off to a science-fiction convention. It's something of a miracle, I feel.

My sister made a special trip out last night so we got to see her. I've missed my sister. We all dined on yummy Chinese takeout and I got prawn crackers, which are one of the things that I've missed in Canada.

Now I'm going to grab some lunch and then head for a train to Coventry. See everyone there!

I am writing this on the train with the intention of posting when I get Internet access. But right now I need to do things to keep myself awake so that I get off the train at the correct station. Hence a blog post and then possibly some knitting. Definitely no book, absolutely no "just closing my eyes" for two seconds.

Why is this?

Because I didn't go to bed until well after 5am last night and I had to be up this morning to pack, shower and check out. Urk. I'd say that it seemed like a good idea last night, but we all knew it was a bad idea and still couldn't quite make ourselves get up and move.

The Dead Dog party has also been called Dargo's Wake in the past so you can get a flavour of what it is. It's the dedicated few trying to extend the con for as long as possible, denying the return to the real world until the last possible moment. People gradually fall by the wayside, succumbing to beds and the desire to be awake enough to drive, until we reach the last man standing stage. Sadly, gaspodex still won that honour. As I didn't have to drive today for once (oh, I love that) I figured that I'd stay up for just a while because I was still awake.

Oops.

The people at the table I started on gradually gave in, gmul and paranoidangel42 giving in some time between 1am and 2am, then Eddie giving in a little later. At that stage we merged with the table next door, which provided a boost of energy for me so that I could natter books, cons, Eastercon, Doctor Who and fannishness with kilbswhitecrow for a long while until he gave in. Finally it was the few, the brave, the insane: robshearman, calapine, 36, beccaelizabeth and the lone non-Who fan who's name I never quite caught. We kept proposing that we should go to bed, but then someone would mention something Who-ish or regale a story that triggered five other stories and it never quite happened until reality started dissolving around us and we had to declare defeat to Gaspode.

I've just added it up. I spent nine hours in the bar last night and didn't notice the time go. Nine hours. Wow. This is why I adore conventions.

I vowed at the start of the weekend that I wouldn't be back for Redemption '11. I can't justify travelling 3,000 miles just for a convention. That's insane. I really should combine it with a proper England visit, but that uses up all my vacation allowance and I want to explore my new home a bit. And yet I'm now considering taking a week to come over here for Redemption '11 despite it being an insane idea.

It's just that I talked someone into doing a "role playing for absolute beginners" workshop and I want to go to it. Judith asked me to do a sock workshop for Odysssy, which I can't do (although with the number of people who showed me their work over the weekend, I'm sure she can find a couple of willing victims to run it), but I'd love to do it for Redemption. Someone else asked about a knitting for beginners workshop to compliment it and I love that idea. There are some wonderful fannish patterns out there for people to aspire to and some of them would make great first time projects. Harry Potter scarves anyone? We even tossed around the idea of a stash swap and dedicated knitting area for people to hang out in and find experts for advice. Steve tried to sign me up for a Highlander panel, which would be great fun. I know there was at least one other panel proposed that I'd love to do. And Redemption is an amazing con to steward. Oh, dear, I'm talking myself into this, aren't I?

Well, I've got two years to work out the logistics and persuade myself that I can justify it. This has been an absolutely brilliant convention. Thank you to everyone who's hard work made it possible, to the guests for being super (I love guests who are also fans) and most importantly to all the wonderful fans that I met for the first time and the old friends that I got to visit with for making Redemption what it is. I hope to be back in two years time! (There, I said it)

*flump*

About an hour ago I suddenly realised that I was shattered and couldn't work out why. Then I realised that I'd either been attending panels, talking on panels or stewarding since 10am and it was now 6.30pm. In other words, I'd been actively doing stuff for longer than an average working day.

And I wondered why I was shattered?

I only did an hour of stewarding today, but that was long enough with everything else I was up to today. There were panels on Lois McMaster Bujold's Vorkosigan universe (mostly "we love it, shall we count the ways?") and whether the return of Doctor Who is getting children into SF (yes, let us count the ways). There was an interview with Paul Cornell who only collapsed into giggles once and said interesting things about Doctor Who, Christianity and comics. Apparently the new Doctor is Patrick Moore's head on an underwear model's body (to quote Moffat) and Paul wants to be in the part of the Church that schisms off and allows gay marriage in church with priests, but he doesn't want to preach his faith through his writing because that's not what he is.

There was a fascinating writing workshop with Paul Cornell who had a lot of interesting things to say from both a novelist and a script-writing point of view. For both, though, he emphasises having a plot. The plot is the thing. If you have no plot then it doesn't matter about characterisation and style, you have crap. Also it is possible to train friends into giving you useful feedback through positive feedback to them and not killing them when they point out the bits that need work.

My panel did not end in mass slaughter, which was impressive, and people actually enjoyed it apparently. Hooray!

I am speaking on another panel this evening, on strong women in Doctor Who. I spotted two problems with it:

1. It is at 10pm. I shall need a lot of caffeine to be intelligent.
2. Although I am not talking with Paul Cornell this time, Rob Shearman (writer of 'Dalek' among other Who-ish things) is on the panel. So I have to be intelligent about women in Doctor Who with a Who writer. Again.

I suppose that saying "Donna!" through the whole panel isn't quite what they're looking for...

Right now I'm taking a bit of a break and planning to turn up to the fancy dress/cabaret late because I needed a break from hot, crowded rooms for a while. Although the hotel staff are lovely and the food is infinitely better than it was in Hinckley, we do have an issue with the heating here. There is rather a lot of it!

I need caffeine. Pint of Diet Coke anyone?