Arrant Nonsense

I missed my Con report yesterday.

Had I gotten into my room before, oh, two AM, I might have got round to it. As it was, I caught up with my flist and my email and fell into bed, since I only got three hours of sleep the previous night. Six hours was much better.

I'LL SLEEP WHEN I'M DEAD, DAMMIT.

Today was the last day, and I'll do a more detailed writeup of the weekend later. Suffice to say that the previously-mentioned "Writer at work, please disturb before I beat my Muse to death" sign has broken the ice several times. People will actually walk up to you and engage you in conversation when you have such a sign hanging on the back of your laptop. Since I'm almost painfully shy and have a hard time walking up to people myownself, this was wonderful for me because it forced me to interact with strangers. This was a good thing. I think they'll remember me.

Now, whether they'll remember me as "that funny person with the weird RDJ fixation" or "the annoying lady that babbled a lot" is an open question.

It was a wonderful Con. I want to do it again. Next year it's in Montreal, and the year after that it's in Melbourne, Australia. I...probably won't make either of them. However, in 2010 it'll be in either Seattle or Reno, both of which are completely doable. Yay.

On the writing front, one of the wonderful people I met *waves at Rex, who knows who he is* gave me a suggestion for the KKBB/IM crossover, which tied nicely into the panel on pharmaceuticals where industrial espionage was mentioned. This means that rather than KKBB/IM, I have a new adventure for not!Tony and not!Pepper which will give us some much-needed backstory. I'll obviously have to tweak it quite a bit, which I've already begun, but it's going to be one hell of a ride. It shall henceforth be referred to as not!KKBB/IM. And I already have over three thousand words in it. HAH.

And since I don't have any fake science now, I'm going to have to find out just how long it would take for a person to recover from being shot in the back from a roof, where the bullet enters the right side just above the shoulder blade and exits through the bottom front rib on the same side. I may email my sister-in-law the ER surgeon...

So. Not as pissed at Antubis as I was before. He's giving me good stuff (seriously, the banter in this thing is to die for), and now I can actually do something with it.

But I really need to crash. Yeah.

Hotel wireless does not suck as much as before. Or at least, I'm not noticing it sucking (as much), although it still drops me occasionally. Just not...every five minutes. Yay.

Celeb Watch: Joe Haldeman, Stan Schmidt, Brandon Sanderson, Elizabeth Moon, Patrick Rothfuss, and Carrie Vaughn.

Panels:
Bleeding Heart Liberals and Miltary SF: Just basically talking about how it's not just conservatives who like military SF, but there's also things for liberals to like about it: the integrity of the characters, consequences, etc. There was discussion of the many flavors of military SF, and the fact that blowing shit up is great. Discussion of "cooties."

Going to the Dogs: Dogs in SF. Not enough of them! Can you imagine a city without dogs? We take our pets everywhere with us, and space will be no exception. There are jobs that dogs do exceptionally well, and we may expand on that in the future.

Other stuff:
Got stuff signed today. Kaffeeklatches with Stan Schmidt and Carrie Vaughn, which were very very cool. Basically, it's eight-on-one time with famous people. I was signed up for one with Connie Willis as well, but I skipped it (don't hurt me!) in favor of going back to the dealer's room, which was closing in a half hour. Ran into Howard and Sandra Tayler, who introduced me to their friends Peter Steve Jackson (not the director one, the gaming guy--Gurps? I don't know, I don't game) and his SO Monica Stephens. Then we all went out to dinner at this yummy yummy out-of-the-way place (whose name escapes me), which was quiet enough that we could hold an actual conversation. I had venison, which I'd never had before, and it was delish. Spent some time after that wandering about the room parties, which were actually kind of meh (too hot, too loud), then headed down to the Con Suite and had some terrific conversation with some Utah peeps--Eric Swedin and Chris Cook. Alas, I'd left my purse with my wallet in Howard and Sandra's room, so I was unable to indulge in an adult beverage, but this was rectified when we headed back up there so Howard could go to bed. Rum and coke for me! Just one.

I also noticed that the not!Iron Man fic had some rather glaring (to me) typos in the formatted edition, so I managed to go through it today and yesterday and fix them. Yayness. I've scribbled another whole paragraph in the KKBB/IM fic. F-bombs dropped: Three. This equals the number of f-bombs I've dropped in all my fiction ever. *sigh* Premise: Still thin.

I have a piece of paper I hang on my puter when working which says: Writer at Work. Please disturb before I beat my Muse to death. Seriously." And a bad drawing of an anteater with fangs. So far, no one's taken me up on it. Woe.

Succeeded in carrying out the 5/2/1 rule. Five hours of sleep (barely), two meals, and one shower. Go, me.

And I found out tonight that, dude. I am such a lightweight when it comes to booze.

One drink. ONE. I have since become sober, but...whoo. Also, hee.

I've scribbled 1500 more words in the KKBB/IM crossover from hell. *facepalm* Harry is still unconscious. Tony's been shot. Pepper yelled at him. Perry and Harmony are both wrecks.

Yeah. Original fiction? What is this "original fiction" of which you speak?

CURSE YOU, TONY STARK. *shakes tiny fist*

We watched "The Dark Knight" today before driving up to Denver. For a movie whose tagline is "Why so serious?" that was some heavy shit, man. It was good...but I'm not sure I want to watch it again. I enjoyed Iron Man much more. Also, I wish they'd gone into the Joker's backstory a little more. I tend to think the first story he told (about his father) was the correct version, but what do I know? Also: Oh, Harvey. :(

Of course, that also got the crossover bunnies going. Bruce Wayne and Tony Stark would hate each other on sight. Bruce would think that Tony's a frivolous dilletante with responsibility issues, and Tony would think that Bruce is an uptight stick-in-the-mud with a baseball bat up his ass. However, Jarvis and Alfred would get along famously. Alfred would help Jarvis make Tony more responsible, and Jarvis would help Alfred remove the stick from Bruce's ass.

But both our beautiful boys have massive issues. *nods*

Anyway. I've skimmed the flist--not the comms or my Iron Man filters, just the journals. I want to be at the convention center no later than 9:30 tomorrow morning, and there's a full day of programming and stuff. Hubby is taking off back to Pueblo tomorrow as well, which is where Da Boy is (at Grandma's) right now. I managed to pick up the last remaining hardback copy of "The Name of the Wind" at the local B&N this evening (they had no hardback Lois McMaster Bujold Vorkosigan books, alas--I hope to find some at either The Tattered Cover or the Con itself), and we ate at the Hard Rock Cafe, which was very very tasty. Also expensive, what with the *cough* booze. Which was damn tasty and totally worth it.

*waves* Will have more to report on later tomorrow. :)

I have 960 words of Cow and the Beanstalk.

I have 773 words of KKBB/IM crossover.

Neither of them is cooperating in the least. The Muses are over in the corner, giggling, snarfing chocolate-covered ants, and drinking absinthe. They're all "Dude, we gave you 25000 words in the last month and a half. Shut up." And I'm, like, "But. Must. Write. NAOW."

And of course the Hubby doesn't get it. I was whining last night that I wanted to work on the Cow and the Beanstalk, but all I was getting was the KKBB/IM thing, and he said "Well, obviously you actually want to work on the crossover, because you have this RDJ fixation that's consumed your brain." I had to explain to him that, sorry, that's really not how this works, and reminded him about the DamnFic, which I didn't want to write because who the hell wants to write about Kaylee getting raped, but I couldn't write anything else until I wrote that and it drove me nuts and I fought it for several days before I gave in.

I think he still might not get it.

Maybe other writers can dictate to their brains what they want to work on. Me? Not so much.

He said, "Well, why don't you think of your protag in the Cow story as Tony Stark? WWTSD?" Of course, Tony Stark is not in a medieval fairy tale setting, and Pepper Potts would not be so careless as to allow herself to be transformed into a cow. Le sigh.

Screw it. I'm going to go see Iron Man again. Maybe it'll shake something loose.

*beats Muse*

Okay, the KKBB/IM crossover sucks, y'all. It sucks big green mossy rocks.

I have one line I can salvage from this, to possibly cannibalize into something that doesn't suck.

Understand, before you read this line, that I've had two characters drop f-bombs in my fiction, ever. And they were in the same story. Also, I don't normally drop them in my own LJ. However, I think the situation here rather warrants it.

Character has just discovered other character, battered and bleeding and unconscious in a gutter in the rain:

"...calm down, fuck you, Perry, 'calm down,' he's freezing and soaking wet and covered in blood and he won't wake up and they said if I called an ambulance they'd kill him in front of me, so I think I'm entitled to a little hysteria here!"

Why, yes. I've just beat the living shit out of another character. I think I'm detecting a pattern here. *sigh*

I should be working on the Cow and the Beanstalk story.

What's Antubis giving me?

A Kiss Kiss Bang Bang/Iron Man crossover.

This is bad...

Okay, double the Downey, double the fun, but since Harry appears to be spending most of this fic, you know, unconscious, I'm not sure how true that statement actually is.

Also, my premise is thinner than Calista Flockhart.

ARGH.