There have been some ups and downs as I adjust to a new city, a new social circle with new people in it, and unwinding from the stress and mental weirdness of 2008, but overall I’m happier than I’ve been in a long time. The lack of writing has been eating at me, however. I haven’t established good writing habits again, and I can feel my muse suffering from not being expressed enough. It’s a weird feeling, a voice whispering at the back of my brain but unable to find the way to express itself lately. I’m working on fixing this, and have written a poem recently and been thinking on some fiction. I’m hopeful I can keep myself accountable by posting here again, and also renew my involvement in my languishing online writing community.

Recent activities: I’ve been expressing myself online a lot via my twitter feed. I’ve been watching the Wire and Buffy for the first time and thinking on serial storytelling. I’m doing freelance webgeekery for my mom’s company. I had a wonderful Flipside and I sure am craving Decompression.

As a result of my Houston explorations, I’m doing some thinking on dive bars, stoner havens, and other liminal spaces. Share your experience with these urban treasues in the comments to my post on Words Words Words.

On to the panels I attended, and the notes I took.

On Friday, I arrived in time for the Lights, Camera, Internet? panel, which by its title I assumed was a panel about alternate media. It was, in a way — specifically, in this case, about the topic of adapting works from one medium to another. It was an interesting panel, though I didn’t write much about it. It was interesting to hear the fan complaints about the Dresden Files tv show, which sounds as if it was turned typically Hollywood, compared to the comic books which have much more direct author oversight. The panelists shared some humorous or perhaps horrifying anecdotes of how ill-treated authors are on movie sets, further reaffirming my belief that if I ever am lucky enough to sell the rights to something I write, I will most likely take a nice fat check and walk away.

J. M. McDermott pointed out that many people believe a work of art belongs only in one medium, the one in which it was first born. Of course, he went on to point out that this is crap, and there are many examples out there of successful adaptations. I first met Joe McDermott at a room party at this past ArmadilloCon (an otherwise largely forgettable con for me) and found him to be an entertaining addition to any panel he was on. I enjoyed chatting with him again at ConDFW Saturday night. The most interesting point in the conversation that I remember was Joe talking about how both books and video games were, in his opinion, uniquely suited to the horror genre because of the intensely personal way they can involve us in the story — he compared the audience in a movie theatre yelling ‘don’t go in the basement’ to the player in a video game who feels as if they must, themselves, open the sinister basement door in order to proceed. I suppose this attitude is suiting, since immediately after the con he completed his move to Georgia to work as a writer on a Super Secret Video Game Project. I hope I run into him again, and also that I can find time to read his novel, Last Dragon.

On Saturday I attended the Trends in Fantasy panel. Honestly I was fairly disappointed with the tone of this panel. First off, there was a ‘trends in urban fantasy panel’ later on that same day, and I would have much preferred if the moderator had kept the bitching about how all fantasy is urban fantasy to that panel. Bitching felt like the tone of the panel and audience in general: urban fantasy is everywhere, it’s all vampires and werewolves, sense of wonder is dead (oh no, not again?), epic simplistic battles between good and evil are dead (somehow this was a bad thing), etc. At least the panel ended on an up note, with the panelists encouraging the audience to investigate modern young adult fantasy, and to return to what attracted them to the genre in the first place to rekindle their interest. Is there really this much bitterness amongst modern fantasy fans or did most of the attendees at this panel just need to broaden their reading?

This is already getting surprisingly long, so it looks like my ConDFW notes will be in at least three parts.

I was on two panels at this convention, and I can’t say as much as I’d like about what went on during them. I think I might take to bringing my laptop or a notepad to panels I am on as well as panels I simply attend, so I can start jotting down interesting things my fellow panelists said. During the first panel I was on, ‘ePublishing: Dealing with the Internet’, I noticed panelist Michael Finn during just that with his iTouch as I shared some of the details of the 21st-century storytelling research. Everyone on the panel was good, with Priscilla Spencer acting as an excellent moderator and Teresa Patterson making an excellent voice of caution amongst the rest of us starry-eyed enthusiasts, without ever reducing herself to being a luddite.

The other panel I was part of was Erotica vs. Pornogaphy, and it turned out to be one of the most entertaining panels I have attended since Fourth Street Fantasy Convention last year. It probably helped that Steve, one of the masterminds behind 4th Street, was a very active member of the audience — essentially an adjunct panelist as Amanda Rush mentioned in her blog entry on the con.* The panel opened with a steamy reading by our moderator, which delightfully set the tone for the raunchy and laughter-filled conversation that followed. Being the umpteenth iteration of this panel, the actual topic of ‘porn vs. erotica’ was discarded in favor of a wide-ranging discussion of sex and writing. Although often silly, there was often a lot of thought-provoking commentary. My admission that I hoped my more erotic works would be found by underage readers and show them the breadth of sexual possibilities, as my early explorations of erotica had done, launched us into an interesting discussion of the educational potential of the erotic. While many of us on the panel agreed this potential was strong, Steve added a worthy cautionary note: that authors should think of their stories, and the erotic first. If one became too concerned with depicting a ‘realistic’ or ‘healthy’ sexuality, one might very well lose sight of the fact that stories are fantasies and fantasies can depart from reality. When asked for book recommendations I got to namedrop M.  Christian, Polly Frost, and Cecilia Tan, who are basically my go-to authors for that kind of thing these days. And, along the way I also confessed to giggling inappropriately when kinky things are being done to me, shared my desire to see the cast of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman in an ‘Endless Orgy,’ and emphasized that sex in sf can involve speculation about sex itself, as well as sex for the sake of character development, plot, or titillation.

It’s been a ridiculously long day (yes, I am ending my day at 7 am, so what?) so I am going to break this into two parts. In part two, I will share my notes from the panels I attended as a spectator and whatver else I feel like sharing from the con.

*I saw her pink haired head around the con; I never got to meet her, but found her entries via twitter search. It was fun to follow the twittering from the con, though there was not as much as I expected.

Been feeling brain drained lately. Lots of stories lurking in my head, but little energy to put pen to paper. I am hopeful this will change soon. Attending OwlCon last weekend was helpful, I think — roleplaying, even the silly kind, is good for sparking my creative self. I admit, however, I find myself thinking about GameMastering as much as I think about writing, but I hope I can channel the energy from one desire into the other…

I have been working hard on the Continuous Coast project. My story I published earlier this month for the project has been read about 300 times, which isn’t bad for a silly little bed time story on a project no one’s heard of yet. I’ve been trying to line up more bands for Lufton Runner, with some exciting success. I’m trying to find time to build the project’s web presence. I’m helping critique other project members’ work. I’m playing fictals in interactive chats. If I’m not getting as many words on the page, I am trying to be gentle on myself as I am balancing all the above with a number of real life changes and upheavals and Things To Be Done ™ of varying importance.

I need to put some time in on my own words, and even just my own stories for CC, soon.

I did, however, write a poem recently.