Attending a convention as a writer can be a ton of fun, but it’s also work. You’re putting on your public face, asserting yourself as a working professional, and forging connections that could become an incredible asset in the short, medium, and/or long-term.
Here are some general pieces of advice for professional development and self-care at conventions:
Goodbye Big Bang, hello black hole? A new theory of the universe’s creation This week’s article is a doozy. It has everything a science fiction fan could want — branes, four dimensional stars, black holes, hyperspheres — and it is all completely true. That’s a bit misleading. Mathematically, the theory is plausible. There are still a few kinks and refinements, but it does posit some interesting possibilities for the origin of our universe. Now let’s get down to making that Purina Machine Chow.
(That’s probably because you rolled up nothing but magical cleaning techniques.) I know that common wisdom says spring is the season for cleaning, but for me this autumn is setting off my cleaning impulse. The last week has seen me taking every spare moment to do things that are usually completely out of character, like taking a damp cloth to the miniblinds. It’s quite lovely to fall asleep secure in the knowledge that all the crevices under and around the bed have been swept, dusted, and heartily scrubbed, but at the same time, the more I clean, the more it feels like the house will never ever actually be free of dust. For some people, like maybe Martha Stewart, or Tony Stark, I bet this leads to inventing newer, scarier, more efficient cleaning tools and methods. Alas, I am not a ginormously wealthy businessperson, so it just makes me daydream about all the ways I could clean if only I had access to magic. Seriously, have you ever stopped to think about all the magical ways to clean things? Here are a few:
Mining the Genre Asteroid is Paul Weimer’s look at the history of the science fiction and fantasy field, bringing to light important, interesting and entertaining books from science fiction and fantasy’s past to you. Welcome to the inaugural installment of Mining the Genre Asteroid. On a recent podcast, a Campbell award winning writer admitted that they had not read our first book, a seminal work of the field, and so I thought that it would be a fine place to begin the column. Imagine a ring of material the size of Earth’s orbit around the sun. A vast structure with a surface area millions of times the size of earth’s continents. Hundreds of different human-like and not so human like species run rampant on it, at all sorts of levels of technology. And yet, the builders of this amazing structure seem to be gone. This ring is not only an enigma, but it’s even unknown to the universe at large, until a powerful alien puts together an expedition of misfits to explore its mystery. I give you RINGWORLD.
Recently, I realized that I am no longer relevant. This was not something that I thought would happen to me at the tender age of 35, but I don’t really get a say in the matter. It is also possible that I wouldn’t have realized this for another decade had I not had children at a very young age. Or perhaps if I were less liberal with my computer usage policies in our home. Regardless, the epiphany occurred, and it was mind blowing. A little background data for those of you who haven’t listened to The Skiffy and Fanty Show podcast – I am the occasionally proud, more commonly flabbergasted, parent of two girls. My daughters are 11 and 12 years of age, and they are both in 7th grade at a local public Junior High School. You’ll learn more about that at some point in these “Adventures in SF Parenting” posts. Suffice it to say, if you bothered to do the math, I had my kids when I was fairly young. I was 22 when my older daughter, Mo, was born, my husband was only 18. That probably gave us an entirely different viewpoint on parenting than
My Superpower is a regular guest column on the Skiffy and Fanty blog where authors and creators tell us about one weird skill, neat trick, highly specialized cybernetic upgrade, or other superpower they have, and how it helped (or hindered!) their creative process as they built their project. Today we welcome Stina Leicht to talk about how being meticulous, overly analytical, and sensitive relates to her work. —————————————————————————————— There should probably be a sign hung over this post that reads, Don’t Try This At Home, Kids… Frankly, I’m not sure I’d call any quality I have a ‘super power.’ (Well, other than the ability to find a goth outfit in any store.) I’m a ball of positive and negative traits that constantly war with one another–in short, I’m a human being. As luck would have it, that happens to work in my favor from time to time. My husband loves to call me a ‘method writer.’ He does this primarily when I rush outside after an ice storm[1] and tramp around in the thin layer of snow with my head tilted like the Victor dog, Nipper. Dane loves to shout, “Remember your coat!” because half the time I’m so wrapped up in capturing the experience that I forget silly little things like self-preservation. It’s why, when I took rally racing lessons as part of my research for Of Blood and Honey and its sequel And Blue Skies from Pain, he made me promise not to race on the track with other drivers.[2] When I broke my arm in Kung Fu class last summer, my biggest thought was, So, this is what it feels like. How much does it hurt? What can’t I do? What can I do? Why do I know something is wrong? How long does it take for the
