Post Can*Con Wrap Up!
Wow what a busy weekend. I sincerely hope that everyone who attended had the opportunity to meet everyone!
By the way, this is a rather long post. Of course it is.. it's me. We should know this by now.
In normal fashion, I was running around like a bat out of hell during all three days. In case you weren't aware, I was the volunteer that did virtually everything. I was registration at the beginning, door keeper of the Con rooms (as in, I had the keys in case people needed to get in), the DOOM bringer, the 'ask front desk if they have tape' person, unloader of chairs and alcohol, sign creator, and anything else. I was a ball of insanity but in a good way. Most people saw me flying by as I was grabbing items or finding people. Somehow, I still managed to make it to panels! A MIRACLE!
The first panel I attended was "Non-Verbal Communication in Prose." Part of the reason I went to this panel is because I seem to have an interesting time describing certain emotions. Since this is an area I need to improve on, this was definitely one panel that I was keen to attend. The panelists were fantastic, giving information that I needed to hear. As a result, I thought about my vampire protagonist who is from Germany. She has seemingly Americanized reactions to certain things. Now that I've been to Germany and a couple other places in Europe, I should likely go back to revise some of that..
Panel two discussed pitching your novel. My intent is to self publish Agnus the Beast, Nemesis, and book three (unnamed as of yet), so I don't need this information right at the moment. That said, I wanted to know what types of things to keep in mind while going through the process of writing. The panelists put things into perspective. One told us about a submission received, and it was horrifying. Most of the rooms reaction to that was, “MY GOD WHY?!!?!” Screaming in horror at the uhh.. ignorance of that person. If you were there, you'd understand.
The third I attended was "why doesn't Epic Fantasy get any respect?" This was an interesting panel because I didn't realize that it didn't in some circles. The first question asked was what do you define as respect in relation to epic fantasy? There is a difference between the readership as a whole versus general academia regarding respect. As I said, it was a rather interesting panel.
My fourth panel attendance is due to the nature of book two in my series currently called “Nemesis”. As the name would indicate, there is going to be a lot of conflict surrounding the protagonist and the antagonist. Since this antagonist is going to be challenging for me to write, I wanted to have more of an understanding on monsters. The title of the panel was “Our Monsters Are Us”. Of all the panels, this was likely the most interesting for a variety of reasons. It was also the one that had the most quotes!
The fifth panel I wanted to attend just because I was fascinated by the idea behind Maleficent with Angelina Jolie. In the normal fairy tale, Maleficent is the bad guy. In this version, you see the story from her perspective. The panel was entitled “Rewriting Fairy Tales”, and the panelists explored whether or not they should be rewritten. It was a fun panel.
Next I went to the panel talking about Nanowrimo. Since I participated in Nano before, I was curious to see what would be mentioned if this was the first time. Participating in Nano was what helped bring me back to the idea that I should be a writer. I'm still editing the novel I began in November of last year, but it's coming along rather well. I snagged some awesome stickers and finally met the MLs. Also, CANDY!
Panel seven was "Ye Olde Medievalisms". This was another fascinating panel to listen because one of the panelists is not only a published author, but is an attorney as well. Apparently cases from medieval times were well documented. It was intriguing. And from this panel, I realized I was making some rather obvious mistakes in my current novel.
Early on Sunday morning there was a panel about "Authorpreneurship". You can never know enough about business and taxation in my opinion. I've been self employed many times, and understanding what you can and cannot claim in Canadian taxation as a writer is important. I know people dislike math but I found myself surprised that there weren't more people in the room. True story.
Immediately following that, there was a panel about being a "women in the industry". It ended up discussing the percentage of submissions given according to gender. Surprisingly science fiction doesn't have a ton of female authors. We all run off to Fantasy writing (O.O I AM THE STATISTIC!!!) There were some curious splits depending on the genre. We should write more sci-fi, and then “The Woman” will be pleased. (If you were there, you'd get the reference.)
Another panel that made the list of favorites was entitled “Not all antagonists are created equal”. It broke down into being power versus planning. Moriarty had a plan in mind and the protagonists are the obstacles. There was cross over between monsters in relation to antagonists. Erik summed it up appropriately, “We are also villains of other peoples stories. We are monsters of everyone's story.”
This is the point I finally had the chance to speak to Gregory A. Wilson (huzzah!). If you don't know who he is, I encourage you to look him up. He's a streamer, a professor, a writer, and an all around nice person. He knew who I was when I walked up to the table. His comment was, “I've seen you running around” or something equivalent to that. He was correct. If at 3pm on Sunday was the first chance I had to say hello, that should tell you a lot. He has a novel coming out soon (Jan 2017) called "Grayshade", part of the Stormtalons lineup from TEGG. (Insert excited clapping here!) Anyways, he had to leave after that because it was quite the drive to get back home.
At some point on the weekend, I did attend a panel on TEGGs business model. It caused me to feel hopeful because I could see the potential in the business. Challenge accepted. I mention this here because I can't recall at what point I was there. It's the only one that I wrote on paper, not on 'bitty' – my netbook.
The last panel of the day was “Fantasy writing” with Charles De Lint and Tanya Huff. This was a good panel to end with because they fun to listen to. Apparently, neither of them planned to be writers. It just happened by accident. At some point they found that writing becomes harder over time because as creators, you want different characters or traits. After years of writing, it becomes harder to come up with new traits.
At the end of the panel, I walked up to ask if Tanya had any recommendations for vampire novels to look at (on a side note, if any of you do, message me. I'm always looking for more vampires to consume XD ). This was because Tanya had mentioned that vampire fans tend to be very loyal. Anyways, she gave me one or two suggestions. Then a woman next to her added a couple for my research endeavors. It wasn't until I said, “By the way, I'm Susan.” that she responded with, “I'm pleased to meet you Susan. I'm Violette Malan.” When you see the Nights at the Round review of “The Sleeping God”, you'll see the reason I immediately followed up with, “Oh no. I feel bad now.” Proceeding to explain myself, she thankfully understood why I reacted in that manner. The good news is that Violette Malan is rather humble. Thank goodness!
It was sad that this was the last panel of the weekend. I never feel like we have enough time. Either way, I received excellent information, meet new people, laughed a billion times, and learned about TEGG. I didn't get to shake Ed Greenwood's hand, but it was an honour to be in the room with him. The nerd in me has mentally spiraled off into fan girl mode...
Can*Con was fantastic! There were so little issues and I look forward to next year!
Once again Marie and Derek were amazing at organizing. Evan and Brandon did well with the scheduling. And the few volunteers we had were amazing. You all are champions!
Until next time,
Jaggy Sue aka the running volunteer.
