![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
I must say: being a guest is a lot easier than being an attendee. Sure, I've enjoyed previous conventions. I've learned a lot, gotten full value for my entertainment dollar. But I've usually felt little more than a witness, a consumer at these things--or worse, the guy at the party who doesn't know anybody else, and who can't help wondering... if he doesn't belong here, among people who share his interests and passions, then does he belong anywhere at all?
And of course (I say this as if I'd always known it) the interaction is the best thing about a convention, even (especially?) for an introvert like me. And I'm not just talking about schmoozing with peers and peerless. Especially at this stage in my career, I have more in common with the casual attendee than with any professional.
But here too, the guest badge acts as my icebreaker, my introduction to anybody and everybody (fan, pro, furry). It doesn't mean I know the guy who's throwing the party or anything, but it means somebody in one of the bedrooms might have vouched for me. And for introverts at parties, we need all the validation we can get.
So... great meeting the other writers and attendees (see my panel schedule for most of the namedropping I'm expected to do), along with some of my fellow Codex members (Alethea Kontis, Edmund Schubert, and Gray Reinhardt) who I'd only known online, Gravy Boy writer Marty Blevins (who I'd met on an online comics forum), Luna and Andreas Black who I knew through mutual friends Jason Erik Lundberg and Janet Chui, and of course the active fans putting the con together in the first place.
Gray, Stephanie, Edmund, James, Ada, and Alex.
(Alethea's holding the camera, obviously.)
Being on a panel, it turns out, is quite easy, much easier than the mingling. Usually there's at least one person who wants to talk more than you (or at the very least has more to say) so no one seems to mind if you don't go out of your way to speak up.
On my first panel, the conversation never let up. I talked a bit toward the top, and later watched for the pauses to interject my thoughts. When they didn't come, I shrugged and listened as the conversation went into different directions. It was very liberating.
On the second panel, I got enough small laughs from the room that I figured out what I had to offer on a panel of my betters. By the fourth (and last), I realized that the most challenging--and satisfying--part of being on a panel is setting up one of the other panelists with a punchline or otherwise brilliant spike.
Thankfully, I only had one or two times when I opened my mouth on a panel and had no idea where my sentence was supposed to end, though I'm sure I made an ass of myself more often than I remember.
So yeah. I'd do that again. But I think this means I won't actively pursue attending too many other conventions until I've got the credentials to attend them as panelist. The icebreaker is more valuable to me than how I get there.
Alex Wilson, George R R Martin, Scott Nicholson, and Alexandra Sokoloff.
Most readers can skip the rest. It's more for my benefit/processing than anything else. But I think there are two reasons I've put off writing about Trinoc-coN until almost two months after the fact.
The easy-to-understand reason is Clarion. Though it's semi-tradition that a student might do little to no writing in the year following the workshop, for me the thing I've dreaded is writing/talking _about_ writing. Which also makes the blog difficult, by the way. So being a guest at a con for the first time exactly a year after my Clarion graduation, talking about writing for three days straight... that was kind of all I had in me. Doing a meta-essay on the meta-discussion was unthinkable.
But I think the bigger reason is how I haven't been able to wrap my head around how Jamie Bishop's absence from the con was so difficult for me. FWIW, it still doesn't make total sense, so if the remainder of this entry is confusing, it's not you;it's popcorn it's me.
I mean: I get that I'm sad over the loss of a friend. I get that he was a regular Trinoc-coN attendee and a number of the guests and other attendees knew him primarily or exclusively through the con, enough so that our mutual friend Jason wrote a nice remembrance in the program. And I get that when someone dies it's a different kind of missing than when someone lives on the other side of the world now (Jason and Janet were about the only two people I knew/met the only other time I've been to Trinoc-coN, and they now live in Singapore, an absence felt in a different--but no less real--way).
But... there's no sense of place to connect Jamie there. To my knowledge, the convention hasn't been held at this particular hotel before, so the echo of his presence seems artificially removed, like I'm visiting a replica of his apartment (which, by the way, I kind of have. We have friends who've lived at and invited us many times to Jamie's old apartment complex, and the apartment layouts are identical). And more significantly, I was never at Trinoc-coN or with any of these people who also knew him at the same time he was, so his association in my mind with the convention comes almost exclusively from our numerous conversations about it, all the way back in Carrboro.
It was Jamie who encouraged me to first contact the con/ask to be a guest, successfully convincing me that (even before any significant writing sales) I might have something to offer on a panel or two. Which--on top of the other confusion--feels like a very selfish way to remember a friend. So I'm still processing that part of it.
Eh. This turned out to be quite vague and introspective for a con-report. Ah well. That's what I get for putting it off for two months. I'll try to do better next year, if they'll have me.
Thanks again to Alethea for being smart enough to actually pull out her camera (and for letting me post her pix). My camera was quite unhelpful in my pocket all weekend.
And of course (I say this as if I'd always known it) the interaction is the best thing about a convention, even (especially?) for an introvert like me. And I'm not just talking about schmoozing with peers and peerless. Especially at this stage in my career, I have more in common with the casual attendee than with any professional.
But here too, the guest badge acts as my icebreaker, my introduction to anybody and everybody (fan, pro, furry). It doesn't mean I know the guy who's throwing the party or anything, but it means somebody in one of the bedrooms might have vouched for me. And for introverts at parties, we need all the validation we can get.
So... great meeting the other writers and attendees (see my panel schedule for most of the namedropping I'm expected to do), along with some of my fellow Codex members (Alethea Kontis, Edmund Schubert, and Gray Reinhardt) who I'd only known online, Gravy Boy writer Marty Blevins (who I'd met on an online comics forum), Luna and Andreas Black who I knew through mutual friends Jason Erik Lundberg and Janet Chui, and of course the active fans putting the con together in the first place.
Gray, Stephanie, Edmund, James, Ada, and Alex.
(Alethea's holding the camera, obviously.)
On my first panel, the conversation never let up. I talked a bit toward the top, and later watched for the pauses to interject my thoughts. When they didn't come, I shrugged and listened as the conversation went into different directions. It was very liberating.
On the second panel, I got enough small laughs from the room that I figured out what I had to offer on a panel of my betters. By the fourth (and last), I realized that the most challenging--and satisfying--part of being on a panel is setting up one of the other panelists with a punchline or otherwise brilliant spike.
Thankfully, I only had one or two times when I opened my mouth on a panel and had no idea where my sentence was supposed to end, though I'm sure I made an ass of myself more often than I remember.
So yeah. I'd do that again. But I think this means I won't actively pursue attending too many other conventions until I've got the credentials to attend them as panelist. The icebreaker is more valuable to me than how I get there.
Alex Wilson, George R R Martin, Scott Nicholson, and Alexandra Sokoloff.
The easy-to-understand reason is Clarion. Though it's semi-tradition that a student might do little to no writing in the year following the workshop, for me the thing I've dreaded is writing/talking _about_ writing. Which also makes the blog difficult, by the way. So being a guest at a con for the first time exactly a year after my Clarion graduation, talking about writing for three days straight... that was kind of all I had in me. Doing a meta-essay on the meta-discussion was unthinkable.
But I think the bigger reason is how I haven't been able to wrap my head around how Jamie Bishop's absence from the con was so difficult for me. FWIW, it still doesn't make total sense, so if the remainder of this entry is confusing, it's not you;
I mean: I get that I'm sad over the loss of a friend. I get that he was a regular Trinoc-coN attendee and a number of the guests and other attendees knew him primarily or exclusively through the con, enough so that our mutual friend Jason wrote a nice remembrance in the program. And I get that when someone dies it's a different kind of missing than when someone lives on the other side of the world now (Jason and Janet were about the only two people I knew/met the only other time I've been to Trinoc-coN, and they now live in Singapore, an absence felt in a different--but no less real--way).
But... there's no sense of place to connect Jamie there. To my knowledge, the convention hasn't been held at this particular hotel before, so the echo of his presence seems artificially removed, like I'm visiting a replica of his apartment (which, by the way, I kind of have. We have friends who've lived at and invited us many times to Jamie's old apartment complex, and the apartment layouts are identical). And more significantly, I was never at Trinoc-coN or with any of these people who also knew him at the same time he was, so his association in my mind with the convention comes almost exclusively from our numerous conversations about it, all the way back in Carrboro.
It was Jamie who encouraged me to first contact the con/ask to be a guest, successfully convincing me that (even before any significant writing sales) I might have something to offer on a panel or two. Which--on top of the other confusion--feels like a very selfish way to remember a friend. So I'm still processing that part of it.
Eh. This turned out to be quite vague and introspective for a con-report. Ah well. That's what I get for putting it off for two months. I'll try to do better next year, if they'll have me.
Thanks again to Alethea for being smart enough to actually pull out her camera (and for letting me post her pix). My camera was quite unhelpful in my pocket all weekend.
Trinoc was a blast and I'm hoping to take Friday night off work next year so I can help out with some of the webcomics panels as well.
Alex.
Call me strange ...
Speaking of heads, I see you solved the problem of what to do with your hair at the Con. :-)
Meanwhile, I rather value your introspections. Where I'm concerned, if nothing else, you've added an element of significance to Jamie Bishop's life that never would have occurred to me otherwise. Leaving a mark on the planet when we pass is all we can hope for, so I imagine Jamie's got you to thank for a few more of us who won't easily forget him.
Oh, about that sale?
[smug*mode] :D [/smug*mode]
-Alan
Re: Call me strange ...
George R.R. Martin and Alex Wilson in the same shot?!
You. ROCK.
-Alan
Re: Call me strange ...
I think it's perfectly natural to think about Jamie at that con. I'm bummed I couldn't make it (I totally spaced it, then had some family stuff to deal with on Saturday, the day I really wanted to go). Jamie's spirit and memory still reach out and touch me off and on, and I think that's a good thing.
You think you'll be able to make it next year?
Alex.
We need to rattle the RTP cages to see if anyone wants to form a writing group. I could go for that now -- I'm in a much better head space than I was last time you suggested it!
Alex.
On Con vs Jamie...
I have to admit, that was pretty odd. It was the first time I was really in a place where other people had known him. Most the people who I deal with on a day-to-day basis didn't know him and the V. Tech thing was pretty remote for them.
Interesting perspex on being a con guest. Perhaps, if I ever figure out this writing thing, I can give it a shot.
Alex.
The first year that I was invited to be a guest (both Jamie and Mike urged me to contact Dan Reid about it), I pitched a fit because my name and bio had been left out of the program book; I'd had a few small publications at that point and was all full of myself. I mean, goddammit, I was a published author and they had left me out of the program book? Me? The volunteer who endured my wrath shrunk from my egomaniacal ranting and fled as soon as he could.
I saw Jamie almost immediately afterward; he was in the dealer's room helping out his dad with a signing, and seeing that I was in some distress, he pulled up a chair behind the table and asked what was wrong. I told him, and he smiled, as if to say, "That's all?" then rightly pointed out that it had probably just been an innocent mistake, and gave examples of all the ways that his dad had been screwed over (innocently or not) during the course of his literary career, and yet the man was still kind and generous and down to earth. I couldn't let this little stuff get to me, and I certainly couldn't punish other people for it.
While we were sitting there, the guest liaison found me and apologized profusely for my absence in the program book, and I sheepishly told her that it was okay, that I'd overreacted before, it was an innocent mistake. When I later saw the staffer that I'd berated before, a man who was not being paid at all for his help during the convention, I made sure to apologize to him.
Jamie brought me back to the real world, as he did many times afterward, and I'll never forget it.
Anyway, sorry to hijack your comments, man. Your first guest appearance at a con is a big deal, and I'm glad that you found a groove. It definitely sounds like you found what works on panel discussions; if you can make people laugh, they'll remember you, and the con organizers are much more likely to invite you back.
Good on ya, bud.
The Making of People Laugh (the title of my next story, incidentally) is a slippery slope though. I gotta watch to make sure I don't step over the line into obnoxiousness, which is actually easier than humor.
Alex.
Good Times
And I''ll take that water with lemon, thanks. ;)
::::hugs::::
~Alethea
Re: Good Times
That and I sometimes write under the name George R R Martin. Everything seems to get published, but I never get any checks.
Alex.