![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
4th Street Diaries, Day 1
Saturday, June 23rd, 2012 11:54 pmFriday: Started the day with a lovely long sleep, courtesy of the person who lent me binder clips to hold the light-blocking curtains together. Followed it with a bit of hanging out and chatting in the breakfast area, and then boiled myself in the hot tub for about a week. Aaaahhh.
Got to chatting with another writer who's also in query-writing hell, and it occurred to me (somewhat belatedly) that there was an opportunity here. Since schedule changes meant the con was starting a bit later than planned, they kindly let me slot an impromptu query review session into the con space. About 20 people attended, five of whom had queries -- which is pretty good turnout for something that was only added to the programming about four hours before. We ended up reading queries aloud; some read their own, some had others read, both for nerves and for the change of perspective. The feedback was quite good, and it was great to get a variety of reactions from the usual caliber of 4th Street attendees, i.e., smart thinky people who read.
I have to rewrite my bloody query again, of course. But at least now I know.
Official programming kicked off with "Story Templates and the Folk Process". The essence of the panel was kind of lost on me (mostly because I needed to decompress from the query session), but it was entertaining watching other people geek out about it.
"POV Fixes Everything" was more up my alley. Brust pointed out that POV solves description troubles, because you can talk about not what a thing looks like, but what the POV character notices about it. Beth Meacham scored a major point in my book by defending the dread "head-hopping" (a term I hate, because dammit, shifting POVs is not bad if you do it right) by saying that it can be a character duet, something that illuminates both characters simultaneously. Scott Lynch chipped in that "POV is the tool that allows you to leave a trail of clues without giving a lecture", and restated show vs. tell (speaking of terms I hate) as "providing evidence rather than assurances". There was also a lot of talk about trusting the reader to notice what they're getting and what they're not, which left me feeling rather insecure about the novel-again-in-progress as it doesn't parallel my experience with readers at all, but overall it was a fine panel.
The guerrilla auction (assorted items being auctioned in between panels) was highly entertaining, not least because of the tentacle of philanthropy.
Had a very tasty lunch with a semi-random group of nifty people; spent dinnertime in the con suite, being still full from lunch, with a smaller group of still nifty people.
Late night hanging out was outside on the patio, as that seemed to be where the conversations had migrated. (Inside was the music circle, but -- and I know this sounds un-fannish -- I'm just not that keen on filk, even when it's good filk.) Eventually outside turned into filk as well, and I turned in, which is just as well as I was getting morose about the query. (It's an annoying but necessary part of my process, best not shared.) I did get to duel Scalzi with foam swords first, though. And I never knew I needed to hear Radiohead on the ukulele until I had.
Got to chatting with another writer who's also in query-writing hell, and it occurred to me (somewhat belatedly) that there was an opportunity here. Since schedule changes meant the con was starting a bit later than planned, they kindly let me slot an impromptu query review session into the con space. About 20 people attended, five of whom had queries -- which is pretty good turnout for something that was only added to the programming about four hours before. We ended up reading queries aloud; some read their own, some had others read, both for nerves and for the change of perspective. The feedback was quite good, and it was great to get a variety of reactions from the usual caliber of 4th Street attendees, i.e., smart thinky people who read.
I have to rewrite my bloody query again, of course. But at least now I know.
Official programming kicked off with "Story Templates and the Folk Process". The essence of the panel was kind of lost on me (mostly because I needed to decompress from the query session), but it was entertaining watching other people geek out about it.
"POV Fixes Everything" was more up my alley. Brust pointed out that POV solves description troubles, because you can talk about not what a thing looks like, but what the POV character notices about it. Beth Meacham scored a major point in my book by defending the dread "head-hopping" (a term I hate, because dammit, shifting POVs is not bad if you do it right) by saying that it can be a character duet, something that illuminates both characters simultaneously. Scott Lynch chipped in that "POV is the tool that allows you to leave a trail of clues without giving a lecture", and restated show vs. tell (speaking of terms I hate) as "providing evidence rather than assurances". There was also a lot of talk about trusting the reader to notice what they're getting and what they're not, which left me feeling rather insecure about the novel-again-in-progress as it doesn't parallel my experience with readers at all, but overall it was a fine panel.
The guerrilla auction (assorted items being auctioned in between panels) was highly entertaining, not least because of the tentacle of philanthropy.
Had a very tasty lunch with a semi-random group of nifty people; spent dinnertime in the con suite, being still full from lunch, with a smaller group of still nifty people.
Late night hanging out was outside on the patio, as that seemed to be where the conversations had migrated. (Inside was the music circle, but -- and I know this sounds un-fannish -- I'm just not that keen on filk, even when it's good filk.) Eventually outside turned into filk as well, and I turned in, which is just as well as I was getting morose about the query. (It's an annoying but necessary part of my process, best not shared.) I did get to duel Scalzi with foam swords first, though. And I never knew I needed to hear Radiohead on the ukulele until I had.
