This week’s report comes to you from the convention trail. We’re on the road to Hal-Con 2015 with coffee on board, tunes on the radio, a van full of cosplay and stunning fall foliage all around.
What moments I could snatch at my desk this week were mainly spent on planning for NaNoWriMo. We spent a good evening also brainstorming at the kitchen table for the three novel projects happening in the household next month. Much of my novel continues to float, indistinct as a distant nebula against the velvet black of space. But it will come.
A few times over the weekend, I’ll be hanging out at the Writers’ Federation of Nova Scotia table at Hal-Con. I’ll have books and I’ll be happy to sign them, but drop by even just to say hello!
Yesterday I found out my lineup of WITS visits for this school year. I’m looking forward to interacting with some great teachers and students again this year.
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Monday, Nov. 2/15
So Friday’s post started off well (although I was composing it on my phone, which was somewhat cumbersome) and then we started running into Generalized Road Difficulties. I won’t go into all the boring details, but simply say that the blog post fell by the wayside as GRDs escalated, and then we were at Hal-Con and that was the weekend.
Hal-Con was great overall, although the weather was cold and rainy off and on, and this year they didn’t have the underground pedways open. So that meant a trip outside for decent food, access to parking, etc. The expanded space this year was great, but the traffic changes, not so much.
However, I had a spectacular time hanging out at the WFNS table with the Federation folks (Writers’ Federation, not United Federation of Planets, of course), and chatting with/meeting other writers like C.S. MacCath, Clare C. Marshall, Kat Kruger, and B.R. Myers. Sold some books, too, and ran into several old and new friends. Attended some great panels like Whales in Space and Star Trek Empires in the Night Sky, and a very entertaining Q&A with Kelley Armstrong. She answered the question “What’s the hardest thing about being a writer?” with the too-true answer “The hardest thing about being a writer is *staying* a writer.”
And despite yesterday being a travel day, I managed 1136 words to start NaNoWriMo, which was more than I’d counted on. My true daily goal this year is considerably more than the standard 1667, but I was pleased to make a start and discover a character attribute I hadn’t previously known about one of my viewpoint characters. Love it when they surprise me with something. :)
And so, as the Asura say, Excelsior!