*wiping brow*

Back from writercon! What an adventure! It was so cool to get to actually meet many of the people I've admired for so long, and it got me thinking in new directions. Everyone was lovely, even when I told them I write Christian!Spike. Reactions varied from "Oh! I've been wanting to read that" to "The concept appalls me, but I'd like to see how you pull it off." I'm sure that there's going to be mass friending in LJ-land. I picked up "Seven Seasons of Buffy" (and got it autographed by the guy who put it together), preordered "Five Seasons of Angel," and got my "Buffy and Philosophy" book autographed by Jane Espenson.

I learned quite a bit about the writing process itself. I tend to write by the seat of my pants (even "Mustard Seed" was written that way; I had a general idea of what I wanted to do, but didn't really plot it out on paper); but I've come to realize that, while it might work to do that in something short, the fic I'm working on where the Box of Flashy was only temporary and Spike is a ghost again? Needs to be outlined. I need to think more about my characters' motivations, and I need to have a definite idea of where I'm going with this. Especially if I'm going to combine it with the Chair!Fic, which was a suggestion from the lovely honorh that I'm going to be happy to make use of.

I met so many nice people. alliterator, honorh, sunnyd_lite, Glenn Yeffeth, liz_marcs, shaddyr....just to name a few. honorh and I went to see the "Mystere" show of the Cirque de Soleil, which was just amazing. It's not just a show, it's an experience. I bought a video of a different show, and you get maybe 50% of the experience you actually have out of that.

And a special mention must go to jerib_78, who put up with my idiosyncracies for twelve hours in the car, and was wonderful in every way. We literally drove through fire to get there...seriously, there was a place north of Cedar City where there was a line of fire (napalm?) across the highway. So that was interesting and makes a funny story.

It was GREAT. I can't wait for the next one...and I'm seriously thinking about going to the Slayage Con in two years as well. Plus I'd like to go to a "real" writers' conference and see what I can pull out of one of those. I'm sure they'd be all looking down their noses at me...but let them try writing someone else's characters and keeping them in character so that the fandom doesn't jump down their throats.[sticking out tongue]

*ahem* Anyway, it was wonderful, I'd do it again in a heartbeat, and I can't wait to go again. For a first Con, the organization seemed seamless from my POV (as a participant), and it all seemed to go off without a hitch. Hats off to all the wonderful folks involved!

*wiping brow*

Back from writercon! What an adventure! It was so cool to get to actually meet many of the people I've admired for so long, and it got me thinking in new directions. Everyone was lovely, even when I told them I write Christian!Spike. Reactions varied from "Oh! I've been wanting to read that" to "The concept appalls me, but I'd like to see how you pull it off." I'm sure that there's going to be mass friending in LJ-land. I picked up "Seven Seasons of Buffy" (and got it autographed by the guy who put it together), preordered "Five Seasons of Angel," and got my "Buffy and Philosophy" book autographed by Jane Espenson.

I learned quite a bit about the writing process itself. I tend to write by the seat of my pants (even "Mustard Seed" was written that way; I had a general idea of what I wanted to do, but didn't really plot it out on paper); but I've come to realize that, while it might work to do that in something short, the fic I'm working on where the Box of Flashy was only temporary and Spike is a ghost again? Needs to be outlined. I need to think more about my characters' motivations, and I need to have a definite idea of where I'm going with this. Especially if I'm going to combine it with the Chair!Fic, which was a suggestion from the lovely honorh that I'm going to be happy to make use of.

I met so many nice people. alliterator, honorh, sunnyd_lite, Glenn Yeffeth, liz_marcs, shaddyr....just to name a few. honorh and I went to see the "Mystere" show of the Cirque de Soleil, which was just amazing. It's not just a show, it's an experience. I bought a video of a different show, and you get maybe 50% of the experience you actually have out of that.

And a special mention must go to jerib_78, who put up with my idiosyncracies for twelve hours in the car, and was wonderful in every way. We literally drove through fire to get there...seriously, there was a place north of Cedar City where there was a line of fire (napalm?) across the highway. So that was interesting and makes a funny story.

It was GREAT. I can't wait for the next one...and I'm seriously thinking about going to the Slayage Con in two years as well. Plus I'd like to go to a "real" writers' conference and see what I can pull out of one of those. I'm sure they'd be all looking down their noses at me...but let them try writing someone else's characters and keeping them in character so that the fandom doesn't jump down their throats.[sticking out tongue]

*ahem* Anyway, it was wonderful, I'd do it again in a heartbeat, and I can't wait to go again. For a first Con, the organization seemed seamless from my POV (as a participant), and it all seemed to go off without a hitch. Hats off to all the wonderful folks involved!