I attended the Indie Author Conference in Parma, Ohio on October 12, 2019, at the Parma-Snow branch of the Cuyahoga County Library at 2121 Snow Road Parma, Ohio 44134. The Cuyahoga County Library sponsored the conference for the fourth time. There were three presentations in the morning and a local author fair in the afternoon. The focus of the conference was for writers and authors to learn more about self-publishing. They featured thirty-one authors in the showcase. The listed authors all had at least one published book in either 2018 or 2019 for sale.
Understanding
Amazon.com presentation with J. Thorn
The
goal of his presentation was to show how to best sell a self-published book on Amazon.
The slides to this presentation can be found at https://theauthorlife.com/iad2019/
J. Thorn also offers a free book on how to self-publish on his website https://theauthorlife.com/
The first important point to understand is that your cover must tell your
genre. He became a bestseller when e-books just began in 2012 with his book, The
Seventh Seal, which had 34 thousand downloads that year. After writing the book
and looking at reviews, he realized that you need an editor to make your book the
best you can make it.
Amazon is algorithmically driven. It isn’t like the library, Kobo, or Barnes & Noble. Amazon shows the potential buyer selections based on the algorithm. In the others, purchasers select the books to be displayed. The order of importance in selling a book is the cover, then title, then description. Know and target your ideal reader to cater to the algorithm. Amazon cares about the reader, not the author. Think like them to sell the most.
Using these methods, his book, Dawn, had one million page reads in 100 days. He thinks it is better to keep writing instead of chasing reviews since he gets one review per 1000 reads of his books. To help to find your ideal reader, he suggests the book by Chris Fox, Write to Market: Deliver a Book That Sells. Be a part of the community you want to serve. Engage your audience through social media or other means. Get to be a super fan of your genre to learn the conventions of the genre. Write what you read, don’t write the flavor of the month. Your readers will know if you understand them.
This talk was
about protecting your work. The ISBN captures the information for your book. It
is necessary to have an ISBN to sell your book online. Book barcodes are
created from the ISBN which is needed for print books. You should own your own
ISBN. ISBNs can be bought from Bowker at https://www.myidentifiers.com/
If you want to Copywrite your book, get a Library of Congress number at https://www.copyright.gov/ for $55.
They held the presentation
in the Administration Building Auditorium with 50 attendees.
Saturday, October
12th at 12 PM
How My Self-Published
Book Sold Over 100K Copies presentation with Dustin Brady
Dustin Brady Self-Published his children’s book, Trapped in a Video Game, in 2016. He had the idea to write the book that he would have liked as a ten-year-old boy. Watching the Nickelodeon Arcade inspired him to write his book with the protagonist playing inside a video game. The book has sold 250K copies to date. He said his secret was that he got lucky. His marketing strategy is to promise something that someone wants, then overdeliver on that promise.
The someone is your target audience which should be small and definable. He discovered his audience were the parents of small boys who hate reading. The promise starts with the cover. He learned that parents and teachers are the ones who buy his books, not the boys themselves. The cover should tell what the book is about and how it meets their needs. Over-deliver by putting in the work, it’s the only way to succeed. He found that the author’s guild helped him by giving lawyer advise about reviewing contracts. https://www.authorsguild.org/
They held the presentation
in the Administration Building Auditorium with 50 attendees.
Saturday, October
12th from 1 PM to 4 PM
Showcase with 31 Authors.
The authors set
their tables up to sell their books. Willie and Rachel Scott and Dustin Brady ha
tables set up. The authors gave five-minute readings of their work.
They held the showcase
in the Parma-Snow Auditorium.
Recommendation – Conclusion
The Indie Author Conference at the Parma-Snow library was interesting and well run. The presenters each gave a personal and relatable story with their lectures. They didn’t know what they didn’t know when they started but persisted with luck and perseverance. J. Thorn made navigating the Amazon.com jungle easier, the Scotts made protecting your information crystal clear, and Dustin Brady showed how he made his book series a success. You can find proof of the possibility of success at the independent author showcase. My Star of the Con was J. Thorn. His presentation was the most interesting. It was another excellent conference at the library, and I intend to return next year.
Links
I attended the Indie Author Conference and Showcase on November 12, 2016, at the Parma-Snow branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library in Parma, Ohio. This is the link to my recap.
I attended the Indie Author Day on October 14, 2017, at the South Euclid-Lyndhurst branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library in South Euclid, Ohio. This is the link to my recap.
I attended the Confluence Conference Pittsburgh 2019 on July 27, 2019, and July 28, 2019. They held the conference at 1160 Thorn Run Road Coraopolis, PA in the Sheraton Pittsburgh Airport Hotel. I also attended the conference in 2016, 2017, and 2018. The Parsec organization of Pittsburgh runs the literary science fiction, fantasy, and horror conference. The events included panels, readings, interviews, writing workshops, and filk concerts. I attended five panels, two fiction writing workshops, and the guest of honor presentation.
This
workshop was by pre-registration only. She instructed us to bring the first 500
words of our novels to the workshop. Cat Rambo took the nine submissions and
mixed them up. She read the submissions one at a time. After reading the
submission, she commented on what questions she had to the reader from the
submission. I submitted the first two pages from my novel, Assassin in New Marl
City. Her comments were useful and to the point. Her comments make me think I
need to write a new chapter one set before the pages I submitted. I liked hearing
what the other people submitted. This workshop clarifies that the first two
pages of a novel are critical for making the novel publishable. I’m glad that I
attended the workshop.
They held the workshop
in the Boardroom with 9 attendees.
Saturday,
July 27th at 11 AM
NASA Innovative
Advanced Concepts, a lecture by Geoffrey Landis.
The program
started as the NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts. It operated from 1998 to
2007 under that name. They submitted proposals about concepts that are anticipated
for 40 years in the future. In ten years they submitted 1309 proposals. In 2011
NASA revived the program under its current name, NASA Innovative Advanced
Concepts. The process is to first submit a white paper, submit a proposal, and
then conduct a Phase I study. About one-third of the projects go on to Phase II.
He detailed four
proposals. The Venus land sailor challenge is to create a Venus rover mission.
The obstacles are the need for high-temperature electronics and a method of
locomotion. A wind-powered turbine is workable. The triton hopper would explore
Neptune’s moon, triton, by hopping up to 20 km per day from the pole to the
equator of the moon. 120 hops would take two years covering 2400 km. Other
options are to use the hopper system on Pluto or Europa. A submarine on
Saturn’s moon, Titan, would explore areas not seen from orbit. Kraken Mare is a
lake about the size of Lake Superior. They approved a Phase II study called
Dragonfly.
Geoffrey Landis wrote an SF novel about a manned mission to Mars.
They held the lecture in Ballroom 1 with 42 attendees.
Saturday,
July 27th at 2 PM
Beginnings and
Endings panel with Cat Rambo, Frederic S, Durbin, and Bob Angell (his pseudonym
is R. R. Angell)
The panelists gave
advice about writing story beginnings and endings. The first chapter has to
leave the reader convinced that the story will go somewhere. All scenes must
mean something. There are three levels of editors, development, copy, and
proofreader. They are important in different ways. An editor is experienced at
finding problems but not fixing them, that’s what you as the writer must do.
Successful flash fiction is about one thing. It’s important to orient the
reader at the story’s beginning because the reader needs a reason to care about
the characters. Show an item in action before you explain it. Weave in
something relatable to explain an unknown item. Use cliffhangers, always leave
the reader wanting more. Avoid the unsatisfying ending. Tie everything up and
don’t miss the aftermath. The panelists all gave sound advice.
They held the panel
in Commonwealth East with 43 attendees. (It was a full house, standing room
only)
Saturday,
July 27th at 3 PM
The Guest of Honor Presentation with Tobias S. Buckell.
He started with a speech about himself. He is from Grenada and is of mixed-race but looks white. Buckell came to the US in 1995. He overcame his ADD and dyslexia to become a published writer. His status as a mixed-race person became real for him when Leonard Nimoy passed away in 2015 because Spock was biracial. He became an SF fan after reading Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke when he was nine.
Buckell
read his short story called Toy Planes.
Buckell
finished his presentation with a Q and A session.
His
most recent novel is the Tangled Lands written with Paolo Bacigalupi.
They
held the presentation in Ballroom 1 with 47 attendees.
Saturday,
July 27th at 4 PM
Return to the
Solar System: Recent SF Set in Our Solar System panel with Geoffrey Landis, Ian
Randal Strock, Bill Keith, and Ken Chiacchia.
The panel
recommended authors that have set their stories in our solar system. Some are
Allen Steele’s novels, the Expanse series by James S. A. Corey, and The Quantum
Thief by Hannu Rajaniemi. Others are Mike Flynn’s alternate histories, Thin Air
by Richard K. Morgan, and Icehenge by Kim Stanley Robinson. More are Terraforming
Earth by Jack Williamson, Kirinyaga by Mike Resnick, and the Proteus series by
Charles Sheffield. Many good recommendations, I’ll move a few of these up my
Goodreads to-read list.
They held the panel
in Commonwealth West with 29 attendees.
Saturday,
July 27th at 5 PM
Blue-Collar SF and Fantasy panel with Marie Vibbert, Charles Oberndorf, Eric Leif Davin, and Tamora Pierce.
Stories
written from a worker’s POV will be more rooted in reality than wish-fulfillment
stories. As the US changes from an industrial to a service economy it will
change the nature of the stories told. Some authors who use the blue-collar perspective
are Thomas Disch in 334, Alfred Bester in The Stars My Destination, and Mack
Reynolds in Black Man’s Burden. Other writers using the theme are China Mieville
and Cory Doctorow.
They held the panel
in Commonwealth West with 29 attendees.
Saturday,
July 28th at 9 AM
Short Story
Writing Workshop with Cat Rambo
This workshop was by pre-registration only. The participants submitted a story under 5000 words by June first. She distributed the stories of the other participants on July first. She required the participants to-read each of the stories and make written comments on a copy of the stories. At the workshop, the participants followed the Milford workshop format.
1. In the session,
you will speak up to 3 minutes with your critique; you do not need to use up
the entire three minutes, but Cat will ruthlessly cut you off at the
three-minute mark.
2. Focus on the
big picture items, not typos or nitpicks. Pacing, character, plot, world-building,
etc.
3. The author
wants to know what worked, what was effective, and that you’d like to see more
of as much as they want to know what didn’t work, wasn’t effective, or seems
removable.
4. Identifying what’s
broken and why will probably be more useful to the author than suggested fixes.
5. You will give
the author a copy of the story with your notes on it.
Seven people
submitted stories, and we workshopped them in this order.
Kathleen Monin–The
Morality Variable
Deborah Stevenson–Cursed
Good Luck
Brandon McNulty–Insert
Gene Turchin–Machines
Karen Yun-Lutz–Last
Entry
Gary Gillen–Grognard
Richard Lohmeyer–Small,
Fragile Things
After the
Participants critiqued each story, then Cat Rambo gave her critique. All the
stories were great. I think all the stories could be published soon. I
appreciate all the comments on my story and I’m glad that I took part in this
workshop.
They held the workshop
in the Boardroom with 7 attendees.
Saturday,
July 28th at 12 PM
The Evolving Short
Story Market panel with Mary Soon Lee (prolific short story writer), Scot Noel
(publisher of Dream Forge magazine), and Mark Painter (podcast creator).
The three
panelists were knowledgeable on the subject and had varied backgrounds. Some good
markets for online free magazines are Strange Horizons, Uncanny, and Beneath
Ceaseless Skies. Scot Noel publishes a print magazine called Dream Forge. They
have recently published the second issue. https://dreamforgemagazine.com/
Magazines have submission guidelines and the writers must follow them precisely
to hope to make a sale. The writer must know about the magazine they are
sending to so the writer has the best chance to succeed. Social media has changed
the writer’s responsibility. Writer’s need a platform. The publisher wants to
know how the writer can help the publisher sell the story, like a musician’s
responsibility. They suggested getting a 25-year-old mentor, so you can get an
insight into how to sell to that age group.
They held the
panel in Commonwealth with 15 attendees.
Recommendation – Conclusion
I’m glad I attended the Confluence SF Conference Pittsburgh 2019. My star of the con was Cat Rambo. She conducted both workshops I attended with insightful comments and relevant anecdotes. She also moderated an excellent panel on writing. I attended five panels, two fiction writing workshops, and the guest of honor presentation. My other highlights were the lecture on NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts and the Guest of Honor Presentation. I also attended Confluence in 2016, 2017 and 2018 and plan to return in 2020. They will hold confluence 2020 from July 24 to 26, 2020 with author guest of honor Martha Wells.
Links
Recap for the Confluence SF Conference on July 30 and July 31, 2016, at the Sheraton Pittsburgh Airport Hotel. I attended 15 panels and the U.S.S. Improvise improv sketch comedy routine.
They held the Confluence Conference from August 4 to August 6,
2017, at
the Sheraton Pittsburgh Airport Hotel. I attended seven panels, one
writing workshop, one author reading, and the guests of honor presentation.
They held the Confluence Conference from July 27, 2018, to July 29,
2018, at
the Sheraton Pittsburgh Airport Hotel. I attended two lectures, two panels,
one fiction writing seminar, one author reading, and the guest of honor presentation.
I attended the Confluence SF Conference Pittsburgh 2018 on July 28, 2018. They held the conference at 1160 Thorn Run Road Coraopolis, PA in the Sheraton Pittsburgh Airport Hotel. The drive from Cleveland, Ohio was two hours taken in the morning and back in the evening. I also attended the conference in 2016 and 2017. I missed writing this post in 2018, so I am writing it now to prepare for writing my post for the 2019 conference. To write this post, I followed my notes and recollections in writing this post. The Parsec organization of Pittsburgh runs the conference. It is a literary science fiction, fantasy, and horror conference. The events included panels, readings, interviews, writing workshops, and filk concerts. I attended two lectures, two panels, one fiction writing seminar, one author reading, and the guest of honor presentation.
They held the Confluence SF Conference Pittsburgh 2018 at the Sheraton Pittsburgh Airport.
Confluence SF Conference
Pittsburgh 2018 Program Guide Cover
Picture of my
badge from Confluence SF Conference Pittsburgh 2018
Summary
Saturday, July 28th at 10 AM
AI: The Real Deal,
a lecture by Ken Chiacchia.
The presenter explained what they know in the artificial intelligence field and what still needs to be figured out. Machine intelligences do some tasks well, but not other tasks. Steps in the advancement of AI are to identify items in pictures, to identify phrases spoken, to perform written language translations, and to perform speech recognition. Task-specific tasks are current but general tasks are not possible now. Other tasks AI is good at are improving images, predicting severe thunderstorm, and materials discovery for energy applications. A challenge to getting AI right is that bias can lead to large errors. To put AI advancement in SF terms, the Matrix is happening, while Skynet probably won’t.
They held the lecture in Comm0nwealth West with 15 attendees.
Saturday,
July 28th at 11 AM
Set the Controls
for the Edge of the Sun, a lecture by Geoffrey Landis.
They scheduled the Parker Solar Probe to launch on August 8, 2018. This lecture was about what’s planned and what they hope to learn. The lecturer started as a solar cell designer. He went to the Mars project, then the Venus/Mercury project, and now is examining ways to exploring the sun. The issue with a solar probe is that near the sun the heat is too much. We can fix this with angles solar panels or split panels using mirrors.
The Parker Solar Probe goals are to trace the energy that heats the sun’s corona and accelerates the solar wind. Also, to examine the magnetic fields at the sources of the solar wind. The Parker Solar Probe launched on August 12, 2018. Its mission is to fly by the sun from 2018 to 2025. On October 29, 2018, it became the artificial object that has been the closest to the sun.
Geoffrey Landis’s
SF novel about a manned mission to Mars.
They held the lecture in Commonwealth West with 30 attendees.
Saturday,
July 28th at 12:30 PM
A Reading by
Brenda Clough
She read from a Neo-Victorian novel in progress. The assassination of Czar Alexander was a prominent plot point in this part of the novel. The viewpoints alternated between two characters. It was melodramatic and featured cliffhangers including a rail accident and a hippo stampede. She had planned to read from her Time Travel Trilogy Edge to Center due to be released in 2019 but her iPad wouldn’t cooperate.
The River Twice is
the first novel of the Edge to Center Trilogy.
They held the
reading in the Equinox room with 10 attendees.
Saturday,
July 28th at 1 PM
Fiction Skills
Seminar given by Frederic S. Durbin.
The essential writing skills are action, description, dialogue, and point of view. The seminar covered three skills by using prompts given randomly on slips of paper. He gave us five minutes to write and volunteers read their responses. Critiques followed. I will detail those prompts and my response to them.
My Action Prompt was soldiers in combat. I wrote: The sweat dripped through my eyebrow but I could not flinch. It stung my eye and I bit my lip. The enemy was near, A snap of a twig signaled my reaction. I threw off the leaf blanket and jumped into the clearing. I read this response.
My Description Prompt was a teenager at their first job. I wrote: Burnt chicken odor filled the air. I walked behind the counter into another world. The cook’s knife was flying as he sliced the meat and filled the tin. My manager pointed at the counter. The band on my hat was tight and the new tee-shirt was dry. A tray of green peppers lay on the counter. That was my job.
My Dialogue Prompt was an abandoned house. I wrote:
“Quiet, Jerry, I
think the house is abandoned but I’m not sure.”
“Don’t be afraid.
We can get in and out before anyone sees us.”
“This is a crazy
idea.”
“Come on. I picked
the lock. Let’s go in.”
It was fun seeing what I would come up with under time pressure. I’m glad I took part in this seminar.
They held the
seminar in the Board Room with 12 attendees.
Saturday,
July 28th at 2 PM
Private Enterprise
in Space panel with Ian Randal Strock, Kenneth B. Chiacchia, Lawrence Connolly,
Herb Kauderer, and Mark Painter
The panel was about business in space. What happens after Musk, Bezos, and Branson pave the way? We should sell business in space as something exciting. The issue is balancing short term profit versus long term benefit. There must be many draws to make it work in space. This was a panel of skeptics because big projects need big reasons and it’s not clear what those are yet.
They held the
panel in the Solstice Room with 20 attendees.
Saturday,
July 28th at 3 PM
The Guest of Honor
Presentation with Catherynne M. Valente
She read from her recent novel, Space Opera. It was a chapter from the beginning of her novel with the point of view character named Decibel Jones is chosen to perform in an intergalactic singing contest. After the reading, she said that the pitch for the novel was to write a novel depicting Eurovision in space. She had fun with have the galaxy like Earth acts that most current people dislike such as Yoko Ono. Sounded like a fun book. It’s a nominee for the biggest SF awards for 2018.
They have held the Eurovision song contest every year since 1956. One act from each country enters the contest and votes cast determines the winner where the voters cannot vote for their own country’s entrant.
They held the
presentation in Ballroom 1 with 70 attendees.
Saturday,
July 28th at 5 PM
Integrating
Character, Plot, and Worldbuilding lecture by David Levine.
He showed his process for developing characters, plot, and worldbuilding simultaneously and cohesively. His analogy of the interrelation of the three parts is a plant. A plant must have roots (setting), a stem (plot), and leaves (character). The writer’s superpower is revision. Make the story internally consistent. A story has seven points which the author must answer. A person in a situation with a problem tries to overcome it but continues to fail (through three to five-try/fail cycles) until the character succeeds (resolution) and is rewarded (proving it was worth attempting the problem). So, fill in those blanks to have a successful story.
The lecturer had a
handout asking questions an author should ask when creating a story. The three
main questions asked when thinking about the interrelationship between the
three aspects of story writing.
World to
Character. What do they want and why can’t they get it?
World to Plot. What changes can you make in the magic or the tech to make characters’ jobs easier or harder?
Character to Plot. How does the story end?
They held the
panel in the Solstice Room with 20 attendees.
Recommendation –
Conclusion
I enjoyed attending the Confluence SF Conference Pittsburgh 2018. My star of the con was Catherynne M. Valente. She was engaging with her reading of Space Opera and Q and A after her reading. I added her novel to my Goodreads to-read list. I attended two lectures, two panels, one fiction writing seminar, one author reading, and the guest of honor presentation. My other highlights were the fiction writing seminar and the Integrating Character, Plot, and Worldbuilding lecture. I also attended Confluence in 2016, 2017 and 2019 and plan to return in 2020. They will hold Confluence 2020 from July 24 to 26, 2020 with author guest of honor Martha Wells.
Links
Recap for the Confluence SF Conference on July 30 and July 31, 2016, at the Sheraton Pittsburgh Airport Hotel. I attended 15 panels and the U.S.S. Improvise improv sketch comedy routine.
They held the Confluence Conference from August 4 to August 6, 2017, at the Sheraton Pittsburgh Airport Hotel. I attended seven panels, one writing workshop, one author reading, and the guests of honor presentation.
I attended the SF Conference Marcon Conference 2019 in Columbus on May 11. They held it at 6500 Doubletree Avenue Worthington, Ohio at the Crown Plaza – Columbus North. The drive was two-plus hours taken in the morning and back in the evening. I also attended Marcon in 2017 and 2018. This year I attended four panels, a performance, and an interview.
Marcon Conference 2019 Columbus Program Guide Cover
Picture of my badge from Marcon Conference 2019 Columbus
Summary
Saturday, May 11th at 10 AM
Game of Thrones:
Winter Has Finally Come, a panel with Vicki Meece, Ella Shurr, John Boone,
Leslie Mehne, and John Picacio.
The
scheduled room for the is panel was Salon B-C, but it was locked so we went
into the empty Salon E room.
One
of the panelists was the artist guest of honor John Picacio. His artwork was
used for the program cover and the Marcon badge shown in the pictures in the
introduction of this post. He was commissioned by George R. R, Martin to
produce a 2012 calendar using Game of Thrones characters. This was before the
HBO show was cast and he related that his artwork was displayed at the
auditions and inspired the casting choices.
This is a link to the twelve Games of Thrones artworks John Picacio made for the calendar in 2011.
The
panel reviewed each of the four episodes of season eight that had been aired
before the panel took place.
Season Eight, Episode One
Season
Eight, Episode One: The panel liked the many
reunions highlighted in this episode. Their favorite reunions were Jon and
Arya, Brienne and Jamie, The Hound and Arya, Gendry and Arya, Sansa and Theon.
Season Eight, Episode Two
Season
Eight, Episode Two: This episode was the
setup for the battle of Winterfell between the living and the Night King’s dead
army. One question that wasn’t clear was did Jon tell Dany that Bran and not
Sam told him that R + L = J?
Season Eight, Episode Three
Season
Eight, Episode Three: The episode was shot and
set in the dark which made it hard for the viewer to see what was going on in
the episode. “It’s a carnival ride.” A highlight of the episode was when Bran
called Theon a good man. One theory debated was if Jon was saying
“Go, go, go” to Arya as she headed to the God’s wood to face the Night King.
Season Eight, Episode Four
Season
Eight, Episode Four: The theory being debated was whether Dany was becoming the
Mad Queen.
Season
Eight, Episode Five predictions: The
fifth episode aired the day after the panel on May 12th. The panel
thought that the Hound and Varys were the most likely to die in that episode.
Overall
Season Eight: The panel was
disappointed in the scant use of the Direwolves this season and in the absence
of information about the situation in Dorne.
They held the
panel in Salon E with 10 attendees.
Saturday,
May 11th at 11 AM
Science Fiction is
the Conversation That Starts Things, a panel with David Gerrold.
This panel was David
Gerrold reminiscing about his career as a TV show writer, director, and novel
writer. I’ll detail the topics he addressed as he presented them.
He recently turned
in a novel called Hela. It will be the fourth novel in the Dingilliad series
(aka Starsiders) which began with Jumping Off the Planet, linked below.
Gerrold
contributes regularly to his patreon page. The book he started the page for has
been sold but he continues to posts stories and reviews on the page although
some of the content is available only to subscribers. He has been updating The
War Against The Chtorr series on the page. The first 20 chapters were posted
for free as linked below.
Gerrold talked
about The Martian Child which was inspired by his relationship with his adopted
son. He decided to adopt late in life as a single parent. It was challenging
and rewarding for him. He published a novelette in 1994 which won the Hugo,
Nebula, and Locus Awards. Gerrold expanded the story into a novel. He wrote the
screenplay for the movie that was produced in 2007 starring John Cusack.
Gerrold wrote many
Star Trek episode from multiple series. The most famous episode was The Trouble
With Tribbles from the original series, season two, episode 15. He wrote a book
called The Trouble With Tribbles about his experiences writing for the show.
Gerrold also wrote The Cloud Minders and I, Mudd for the original series, More Tribbles, More Troubles and BEM for the animated series. He wrote the novelization of the first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Encounter at Farpoint.
David Gerrold on Star Trek Blood and Fire
He had a falling out with the showrunners of The Next Generation when they did not accept his script for Blood and Fire in 1987. The script featured an allegory for AIDS and included gay characters so it was not produced then. He sold copies of the script and donated the proceeds to AIDS research L. A. Star Trek: New Voyages was a fan-created webisode series. David Gerrold wrote and directed two episodes based in his screenplay and novel for Blood and Fire in 2008 and 2009 linked below.
Gerrold’s final
thoughts were about thinking of it at the time “Who would remember these shows
in twenty years? and who’d have thought we’d be talking about them for the last
fifty years.”
They held the panel in Ballroom 1 and 2 with 16 attendees.
Saturday,
May 11th at 12 PM
A Furry Thing
Happened on the Way to Tranquility Base, a performance by the Confused
Greenies.
Note: The Confused
Greenies performed at Marcon ten years ago as well. This performance was
inspired by David Gerrold’s works and other sci-fi influences. It starts with a
holodeck recreation celebrating the 50th anniversary of the moon
landing at tranquility base. The holodeck malfunctions through sabotage. The
Saturn V rocket is infested with tribbles and the Dalek saves the day.
https://www.facebook.com/TheConfusedGreenies/
They held the performance
in the Cardinal room with 7 attendees.
Saturday,
May 11th at 1 PM
Avengers Endgame:
Half the World awaits, a panel with Roy Minamide, Paul Hahn, Chris Stephenson,
Joe Beale, and Jeff Wolfe.
Avengers: Endgame
was widely released on April 26, 2019, and the panel talked about their
impressions of the movie and its place as the last of 22 movies in Phase Three
of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The panel began with the panelists and the
audience members stating their favorite moments of the movie.
null
Endgame Questions
They went on to
ask questions about the movie. How exactly did they create a GPS of the quantum
realm? Where did Captain America get more Pym particles? The heroes are too
powerful which leads to “superman syndrome” where the villains must become
overwhelmingly powerful, so how do you manage that?
Three characters
had satisfying growth arcs in the movie. They were Nebula’s redemption, Scott
Lang’s redemption through conceiving the Time Heist, and Rocket’s embracing his
new family.
The last topic was
about how the writers will address the Snap in the new movie Spiderman: Far
From Home which will be released on July 2, 2019. It may be related to Tony
Stark’s comment to the Time Heist crew about “Bring them back, but don’t change
the past.”
They held the panel
in Salon B-C with 21 attendees.
Saturday,
May 11th at 2 PM
David Gerrold
Interview conducted by Julie Washington.
Julie Washington
interviewed David Gerrold. She mostly asked him one question and he would have
an interesting anecdote to answer her. He grew up in L. A. and then moved to
the San Fernando Valley. He would go to the Van Neys public library every
Friday and get 10 books to read for the next that week. Rocket Ship Galileo by
Robert Heinlein started him reading SF. He says he became a writer because
“There were stories I wanted to read but no one was writing them so I had to
write them myself.”
He wanted to write
SF where the laws of physics were followed and wrote “When Harlie Was One”
about a computer with artificial intelligence.
He found the
transition from writing screenplays to novel a tough one. In novels, the writer
must describe the setting for the reader to get a mental picture while TV sets
do that for you.
David Gerrold on Star Trek
On the Deep Space
9 episode Trials and Tribble-ations (Season 5, Episode 6) he was disappointed
that he didn’t get a writing credit but he was given acknowledgment of his work
and a cameo appearance in the episode in compensation.
Gerrold went over
his story about the Blood and Fire script written for The Next Generation
detailed in his 11 AM talk. He also wrote an episode of Babylon 5.
Gerrold talked about his cameos in the TV show Big Bang Theory especially the ones at Wil Wheaton’s party on the show and as a booth owner at the fictional Van Nyes comicon. This was poignant because the series finale of Big Bang Theory was scheduled for May 16, 2019, the next Thursday after Marcon.
Gerrold talked
about getting the rights to republish his War Against the Chtorr series. He
used a Kickstarter campaign to republish the four previously published novels.
He has completed four more novels in the series and is in the editing stage
leading to publication.
David Gerrold on Kickstarter
Checking on
kicktrac.com, Gerrold has two projects that were on Kickstarter. There was a
project in 2013 that would have adapted his first novel in the Star Wolf series
but it was not fully funded and abandoned. Another project in 2016 was a mash-up
of Star Trek and Dr. Suess named Oh, The Places You’ll Boldly Go! It was fully
funded but could not proceed because the Ted Gisell estate (Dr. Suess himself)
blocked the project. The projects are detailed at the following link.
Gerrold finished
the interview detailing a few more projects he participated in. He wrote the
screenplay for the webisode adaption of his Blood and Fire story. It was 96
pages, he was the director, and they only had ten days to shoot it. He wrote
the Land of the Lost pilot. Gerrold also wrote adaptions of TV shows and
movies. Some of his novel adaptations were for Encounter at Farpoint, Battle
for the Planet of the Apes, and Enemy Mine.
They held the
panel in Ballroom 1 and 2 with 26 attendees.
Saturday,
May 11th at 7 PM
The Expanse:
Earthers, Mickeys and Belters Beware, a panel with Ralph Winans, Ella Shurr,
Lee Shamblin, Amelia Brownstein, and Kathy Knese
The panel liked
that the show depicted a technologically believable future. They could
understand how Mars and the Belt could develop the way it was depicted in the
show but found it unlikely that the Earth could be unified under the United
Nations. The showrunners were faithful to the books but not exact.
The Expanse Season Four began shooting.
A panel attendee
described the series as “crunchy” sci-fi meaning that it was true to how things
actually work in space.
The Expanse Book to Show Changes
The panel understood that the TV show could not portray belters as tall and thin as described in the books without using extensive CGI. They wondered about the motivation of Jules-Pierre Mao. It is not clear in the series. The panel asked how far the attendees had read in the novels and the response varied. Some had not read any of the novels will others have read the most recent novel Tiamat’s Wrath (The Expanse Book #8, released 03-26-19). Season three depicts events from parts of book two and three while season four will depict part of book three and book four. The ninth and last novel is unnamed but scheduled to be released sometime in 2020.
The first three
seasons of The Expanse show was aired by SyFy network. The show was picked up
by Amazon Video and it has been reported that the fourth season has completed
shooting. At this time, the airdate has not been set except that Amazon expects
to release it sometime in 2019.
I had a great time at Marcon Conference 2019 in Columbus. The location was different from last year. It was easier for me to get to and the parking was free. My star of the con was David Gerrold. He was engaging in the panel and the interview that I attended with him. This year I plan to read his book on writing named Worlds of Wonder and am interested in his Trouble with Tribbles memoir. This year I attended four panels, a performance, and an interview. My other highlights of Marcon Conference 2019 in Columbus were the Game of Thrones panel and the performance by the Confused Greenies. I also attended Marcon in 2017 and 2018 and plan to return in 2020.
Links
Recap for SF Conference Marcon Conference 2018 in Columbus which I attended on May 12, 2018, at the Hyatt Regency in Columbus, Ohio. I attended four panels and two game shows.
I attended SF Conference Marcon Columbus on May 13, 2017, at the Hyatt Regency in Columbus, Ohio. I attended
four panels. I did not post a recap of this conference. If I post a recap in
the future I will link it here.
I attended the 36th annual Western Reserve Writers
Conference on April 27, 2019. They held the Conference at the South
Euclid-Lyndhurst branch of the Cuyahoga County Public Library
at the William N. Skirball writer’s center at the branch. It was a one-day
event with an introduction, a keynote
speaker, three breakout sessions and one first page critique panel.
Deanna
R. Adams is the conference coordinator and Laurie Kincer is the librarian in
charge of the writer’s center.
Laurie
explained how the library was set up, where the three meeting rooms were
located, and about the door prizes available at 4 PM. Deanna gave an inspiring
quote to the attendees. “This is the first day in the rest of your writing
lives.” Deanna introduced the keynote speaker, David Giffels.
They held the
welcome and conference overview in the meeting room A/B/C with about 150
attendees.
Saturday, April
27th at 9:40 AM
Keynote Speaker:
On writing when you think you have no ideas.
The keynote
speaker was David Giffels. He is the writer in residence at the writing center.
David is the
author of five books, a magazine author, and a professor of English at Akron
University. He began his writing career as a columnist for the Akron Beacon
Journal where he wrote three columns a week, every week.
He related three
anecdotes about times he thought he had no ideas. On clean out your
refrigerator day one time, he went to an Akron University fraternity and came
up with a humorous story involving the student he encountered there. One December
he walked in downtown Akron. The only place open had an appropriate Christmas
display in the windows. It was an Adult store. He asked the clerk if the
display was ironic and David wrote a column about his experience. The day of
the big East Coast Blackout of 2003, he knew he couldn’t do a big perspective
story, so he went out in the street. He found that people chose to make order
out of the chaos and wrote a column on that.
The bottom line is
to go out into the world to find ideas. Ideas don’t come to us, we get to them.
He talked about the
writing prompts he gives to his students at Akron University.
Writing is a
transaction from the writer to the reader. The writer gets ideas from the
world, mixes the ideas in the writer’s mind, and returns the written word to
the world.
They held the talk
in the meeting room A/B/C with about 150 attendees.
Saturday, April
27th at 10:30 AM
Breakout Session
Kiss, Marry, Kill:
How to create compelling characters, a presentation by Bree Barton
First drafts are character
drafts. The writer must figure out who they are, what they want, and what
they’ll do to get it. She divided her presentation into six sections with
writing exercises attached to help writers understand their characters.
Put
some flesh on their bones–Give your characters a job interview. Exercise:
Haters gonna hate. What does your character hate?
Give
them secrets–Exercise: What secret is your character keeping?
Free
their natural voice–Each character needs a unique voice. Exercise: Finish this
statement. I wish you would give me…
Shut
them up–Exercise: cut dialog so the reader can fill in the gaps.
Describe–Exercise:
Describe your characters.
Hats
off to you–Exercise: write a scene between two characters who do not meet in
the story. It will help to understand the characters.
We did the first
three exercises but did not do the other three because of limited time. The
techniques were useful for learning about characters.
They held the talk
in the Writer’s Center Meeting Room with 54 attendees. Every seat was full.
Saturday, April
27th at 3:00 PM
Breakout Session
The Art of the
Short Story, a presentation by Scott Lax
Scott started with
a Q and A session first so he could cover questions attendees had as he
progressed through the presentation. Then he explained his path to writing. He
stressed that every writer has to find their own journey. Take your route to
become a writer by your way, however it works for you. He was a salesman who at
39 decided to do what he had always wanted to do, be a writer. He wrote a
novel, wrote a memoir, wrote a screenplay, and many short stories. Then he
became a professor at the Cleveland Institute of Art by teaching writing. A
short story has story truth, and a memoir has happening truth, that is the difference.
There are three
structural elements of a short story.
Unity
of action. Place the story in a single space.
Unity
of time. The story should take place over a short period of time.
Unity
of plot. The story has an organization of events
The story’s
conflict comes from something; characters, internal struggle, society, or
nature. Start the conflict at once. Set your characters into motion. Create
conflict through dialog. Give each of your characters different scripts and
motivations. You make short stories with scenes. State the conflict. No time
for exposition, get to the point. The climax is when the tension is highest. Objects
have emotions, be sure to add them into your stories. Don’t give too much
explanation to the reader, be sure to write for smart people.
They held the talk
in the Writer’s Center Meeting Room with 45 attendees.
Recommendation –
Conclusion
The Western Reserve Writers
Conference was well run, diverse in the presentations offered, and informative.
At 4 PM they gave out door prizes. They drew ticket 159 which I had, and I took
my choice of prizes. I chose a signed
copy of Dawn by J. Thorn and Zak Bohannon. I missed J. Thorn’s presentation,
but I have seen him talk before at science fiction conventions, so I wanted to
check out his book. My Star of the Con was Bree Barton. Her
presentation was fun, the exercises were useful, and I liked her personality. I
plan to attend this event next year.
This is a link for
the Goodreads page for Dawn, the door prize I won at the conference.
I attended the 34th annual Western Reserve Writers Conference on September 23, 2017. I could not attend last year. This is a link to my review of the 2017 conference.
The most recent SF conference I attended was Cleveland ConCoction 2019 at 600 North Aurora Road Aurora, Ohio at the Bertram Inn and Conference Center from March 1 to 3, 2019. This is a link to my conference recap.
I attended the SF conference Cleveland ConCoction 2018 at 600 North Aurora Road Aurora, Ohio at the Bertram Inn and Conference Center from March 9, 2018, to March 11, 2018. The 2019 convention was from March 1 to 3, 2019 and I realized when I wrote a recap for that conference, I had not posted a recap for the 2018 conference. This is a recap of the 2018 conference. I attended the opening ceremony, five panels, two author showcases, a performance, and the closing ceremony. I also volunteered in the ConSuite for eight hours.
Picture of my
badge from Cleveland ConCoction 2018
Summary
Friday, March
9th at 5 PM
Opening Ceremonies
Mogchelle,
the mistress of ceremonies, started the event. She introduced the Con Co-chairs
Laura and Stan. Sean Owen Roberts was the Media Guest of Honor and Seanan
McGuire was the Author Guest of Honor. The Harp Twins were the Music Guest of
Honor. Knightmage was the Cosplay Guest
of Honor and Stitches was the Fan Cosplay Guest of Honor. The event was a
chance to meet the Guests of Honor before they took part in the weekend events.
They held the
ceremonies in the McKinley A Room.
Friday,
March 9th at 6 PM
Author Showcase
(Session 1)
Five authors read
from their works. They were all different and interesting.
J. Thorn read a
scene from his novel Barren. It was about the protagonist on a sailboat near
Kelly’s Island in a post-apocalyptic
world.
Vik Walker read
from the novel The Crystal Dragon of Nital. It’s a humorous middle-grade book about the adventures of Nathan and Zozz,
his cat-like being friend.
They held the
panel in the Presidential Boardroom with 6 attendees.
Friday,
March 9th at 7 PM
Villains, More
Than Just Black Hats, a panel with Addie King, Barbara Doran, Brent Seth, J. D.
Blackrose, and Cindy Matthews.
The panel sat at
the end of the table farthest from the
window and the attendees sat at the other end of the table. Examples of good villains
are Darth Vader (not in the prequel
movies), Voldemort (from Harry Potter), and Cersai (from Game of Thrones).
They held the
panel in the Presidential Boardroom with 14 attendees.
Saturday,
March 10th from 9 AM to 5 PM
I volunteered in the
ConSuite Department for eight hours on Saturday. The ConSuite in 2018 at The
Bertram differed from 2017 when the con was at the Sheraton at the Airport. The
ConSuite was in a back bar at the
Sheraton. The new area, the Garfield ballroom, is a nicer and light-filled windowed open space.
Saturday,
March 10th at 7 PM
Elevator Pitch and
Publishing Expectations Tutorial, a panel with Adrian Matthews, Addie King,
Weston Kincade, Mary Turzillo, and Geoffrey Landis.
An Elevator Pitch explains
the essence of a novel. The idea is to give
the pitch to someone who could be interested in representing your book in the time it would take an elevator to go six
floors. Suggestions were to not use character names in a pitch and to get the
pitch down to one sentence. I presented my pitch for my novel in process,
Assassin in New Marl City. The panel understood my pitch, but Geoffrey Landis suggested
that I not use the phrase telepathic detective, since deception would not fool
a telepath. It was a good suggestion. I revised it to a mind-reading detective since
a mind reader is more constricted than a
telepath.
They held the
panel in the McKinley B Room with 9 attendees.
Saturday,
March 10th at 8 PM
The Performance of
the Letter of the Travails of Victor Frankenstein (While at University)
This was a
performance staged by the Confused Greenies from the Player’s Patchwork Theater
Company. The story was a humorous tale of a young Victor Frankenstein working on a special extra credit project at
University (the monster).
They held the
performance in the McKinley A Room with 20 attendees.
Saturday,
March 10th at 9 PM
Flash Fiction, a
panel with Addie King, Marie Vibbert, Megan Engelhardt, Olivia Berrier, Weston Kincade, and Josef Matulich
The best way to
find a potential market for flash fiction
is the submission grinder. Some markets
are Apex, Daily Science Fiction, Everyday
Fiction, and 101 Fiction. Flash fiction is short, has a high concept, and has
an implied ending. They suggested reading the story aloud to see if it worked.
Examples of one
line flash fiction follow. “Baby shoes
for sale, never worn.” “I put a ring on her finger and pulled the pin.” “The
last man on earth sits in a room and hears a knock.”
They held the
panel in the McKinley B Room with 11 attendees.
Sunday,
March 11th at 10 AM
Publishing in the
21st Century, a panel with Addie King, Linda Robertson, Daniel
Willis, and Weston Kincade.
Addie King was the
moderator of the panel and handed out a printed power point presentation on the
topic. The two paths to publishing are novels and short stories. Traditional,
small press, vanity, or self-publishing can publish novels. For novel
publication, get an agent to represent you by following submission guidelines
and submitting a query letter with a synopsis. She handed out examples of her
query letter and synopsis. For short stories, find markets and submit stories
with a cover letter. Resources for finding markets are Ralan.com, Duotrope.com,
and Locus magazine at locusmag.com. Understand what rights you are giving in
any contract you sign. Don’t quit your day job. Write to have a career, not a
one hit wonder.
They held the
panel in the McKinley B Room with 6 attendees.
Sunday,
March 11th at 12 PM
Author Showcase
(Session 6)
Four authors read
from their works.
Mackenzie Flohr
read from her novel Rite of Abnegation, the soon
to be published book #2 in the Rite of Wands series.
They held the
panel in the Presidential Boardroom with
8 attendees.
Sunday,
March 11th at 1 PM
Marketing, an
Author’s Best Friend, a panel with Weston Kincade, Marcus Calvert, Olivia
Berrier, Sara Dobie Bauer, and Troy Maynard.
The panelists gave
advice about marketing yourself and your work. Create an author platform for an
online presence, make yourself an LLC, use Amazon Marketing, Facebook snippets,
Instagram, and Bookbub. Consider using a professional web design for your
website and use a professional
photographer for your author picture. Buy bookmarks, business cards, and items
to give away free at conventions related to yourself and your works.
They held the
panel in the Presidential Boardroom with
5 attendees.
Sunday,
March 11th at 2 PM
Closing Ceremonies
The Guests of
Honor were presented and thanked.
They held the
panel in the McKinley A Room with 25 attendees.
Recommendation –
Conclusion
I had a great time
at Cleveland ConCoction 2018. The location was different. It was better for me
and the parking was free. I worked eight
hours straight in the ConSuite and I don’t plan on doing that again because I
missed events I wanted to see and it was too exhausting to work in one block of
time. My star of the con was Addie King. I attended four panels where she was a
panelist and I liked her handouts for publishing. My other highlights were the
performance by the Confused Greenies and Geoffrey Landis’s comments on my
elevator pitch. I attended Cleveland
ConCoction in 2019 and I bought my pass for 2020.
Links
The most recent SF conference I attended was Cleveland ConCoction 2019 at 600 North Aurora Road Aurora, Ohio at the Bertram Inn and Conference Center from March 1 to 3, 2019. I attended the opening ceremony, four panels, and the closing ceremony. I also volunteered in the Programming Department for four hours and in the ConSuite for four hours. This is a link to my conference recap.
I attended the SF
conference called Cleveland ConCoction at 600 North Aurora Road Aurora, Ohio at
the Bertram Inn and Conference Center from March 1 to 3, 2019. I attended the
opening ceremony, four panels, and the closing ceremony. I also volunteered in the Programming Department for four hours
and in the ConSuite for four hours.
Writing a Story in
Three Parts, a panel with Addie J. King:
She handed out a
copy of a PowerPoint presentation with 27 slides titled Telling a Story in
Three Parts. The three parts of a story are the beginning, the middle, and the end. She plans the first third of her novel and
has a roadmap for the rest of the novel so she can improvise the ending since the story could end up at a different spot than the original idea. First, she
suggests creating a concept which is the coolest thing about the story written
in one sentence. Then figure out the conflict and develop three-part story
arcs. There should be multiple story arcs in a novel. Write one sentence for the
start, middle, and resolution for each arc. She went over examples from her fiction
and in other fiction. She suggested resources for writing.
They held the panel
in the Pegasus Room with 12 attendees.
Friday,
March 1 at 4 PM
Outlining Your
Novel, a panel with Malcolm Wood.
The panelist found
out he was throwing way too much of his work because he had too many false
starts, so he tried something different. Outlining your novel gives the author
a roadmap to keep you going where you want to go. He took a 3-ring binder for
each of his novels and put his research and notes into it. A novel starts with
an idea and he made a sheet for the idea. Main character sheets come next. The
idea and the characters lead to a situation. You build scenes on index cards
and you refine the plot. In the beginning,
you state the problem, in the middle are the plot complications, and at the end, you fulfill the promises created at the
beginning. You can create a plot outline. He handed out an example for his novel
named Trash. Each scene has a POV character,
an event or action description, a location or a setting, a date for when the
events occurred, and the chapter where the scene occurs. Now you can write the novel
from the beginning to the end without false starts and dead ends. He also showed
us one of his completed notebooks. His method gives a more structured way of
creating a novel than the method described by Addie J. King in the earlier panel.
They held the panel
in the McKinley B Room with 6 attendees.
Friday,
March 1 at 5 PM
The Opening Ceremonies
The
Con Co-chair, Laura, opened the ceremonies. She introduced the media guest of
honor Jim O’Rear, next was the EmCee from asklovecraft.com, Leeman Kessler, and
then the artist guest of honor, Stephen Hickman. The cosplay guests of honor were
Knightmage and Nerd Girl. The gaming guests of honor from Rogue Cthulhu were
last introduced. Con co-chair Stan finished the program by turning his smiley
face tee-shirt to a frown with a permanent marker to fit the theme of the con ‘It
came from the dark side of the…’ more closely. It was nice to see the guests up
close and personal to start off the Con.
They held the
ceremonies in the McKinley B Room with 40 attendees.
Saturday,
March 2 at 4 PM
Mars Needs Love, a
panel with substitute panelist Geoffrey Landis.
Geoffrey
Landis is a scientist who works for NASA Glenn on projects such as scientific probes
going to Mars including the photovoltaic cells used by the probes. He is also an
award-winning hard science fiction writer. He started the panel talking about the
current situation in Mars probes. The Opportunity rover’s last contact was on
June 10, 2018, before a dust storm and NASA declared the mission complete on
February 13, 2019. The Curiosity rover and the Insight lander are still
operational. The European-Russian rover named Rosalind Franklin is scheduled to
launch in 2020 and the American rover named Mars 2020 is also scheduled to
launch in 2020. NASA’s plan is to send a manned mission to Mars in the 2030s,
but no money is associated with that directive. A Dutch commercial venture named
Mars One formed in 2011 planned to send a one-way manned mission to Mars and set
up a colony but went bankrupt on January 10, 2019. The mission was flawed. The talk
went on to other space-related topics. In the long term, it’s critical to
develop a practical economic model for space. One route is to mine platinum
from asteroids. He talked about examples of Mars in books and movies. This was a great impromptu
talk that covered a lot of interesting topics.
They held the
panel in the Pegasus Room with 10 attendees.
Saturday,
March 2 from 5 PM to 9 PM
I volunteered in
the Programming Department for four hours on Saturday.
When there were
ten minutes remaining in the program, I went to each of the programs. I held up
a sign to show to the panelists there were
ten minutes left to go in the program. I also counted the number of panelists and
attendees at each panel. They stationed me in the green room, a room where the
panelists could go to relax, to help them as needed. I worked with Lisa and her
two kids. It was fun, and I learned something new.
Saturday,
March 2 at 9 PM
Time Travel in your
Writing: It’s About Time, a panel with Cindy Matthews, J.L. Gribble, Geoffrey
Landis, and Carma Haley Shoemaker.
The
panelists started the panel by naming their favorite examples of time travel in
books, TV, or movies. They were Legends of Tomorrow airing on the CW network,
Supernatural also airing on the CW network, The novel The Time Machine by H. G.
Wells, The novel Time after Time by Karl Alexander (and the show airing on ABC),
and the short story All You Zombies by Robert A. Heinlein. Things to think
about when designing a time travel story are the opportunity to change time and
the Butterfly effect where a small change in initial conditions leads to a
significant result.
Geoffrey
Landis stated four reasons that time travel stories are intriguing.
The setting because the
past is exotic.
Adventure
The nature of paradox
Playing the what if game.
Time
travel stories work well for sending a contemporary person to the past or
future to compare it to today. The best and most used time travel mechanism today
is the wormhole because it can act as a portal to anywhere.
The
articles on the site cover time travel found in TV, books, film, audio, and
comics. It is a great website that covers this topic well.
They held the
panel in the McKinley B Room with 10 attendees.
Sunday,
March 3 from 10 AM to 2 PM
I volunteered in the
ConSuite Department for four hours on Sunday.
My
responsibilities were to set out food and clean up the ConSuite. They put a deli
tray out before I arrived and we put the trays away throughout the day. We put out chips and pop as needed, but our
main function seemed to keep making coffee. There was always a new pot brewing.
The ConSuite closed down at 2 PM, so I helped break down the shelves and put items
out for the hotel to store away. I worked with Badger and Chris. This was the
third year I volunteered in the ConSuite and I have enjoyed helping every year.
I plan to help again next year.
Sunday,
March 3 from 2 PM
The Closing Ceremonies
The
co-chair Laura and Stann announced the theme and date for next year’s con. Next
year’s theme is MeeplePunk, all things to do with cyberpunk (SF subgenre
focused on a mix of lowlife and high tech) and meeples (gaming pieces shaped like
people and animals used in Euro-style board games). They will hold ConCoction 2019
at the Bertram Inn from March 6 to 8, 2020. The audience applauded the guests
of honor Jim O’Rear, Knightmage, and Nerd Girl. They made a volunteer shoutout.
The Con was closed until next year.
They held the
ceremonies in the McKinley B Room with 38 attendees
Recommendation
– Conclusion
I had a great experience
at ConCoction 2019. The Bertram Conference center is nice. The only problem I
encountered was that half of the activities are in another building. It was cold
this time of the year traveling between the buildings. The Bertram is much
better than the Conference’s earlier location
at the Sheraton Hotel at the Airport. My star of the con was Geoffrey Landis.
He substituted at the last minute to give
a solo panel on Mars and was engaging in the Time Travel panel I attended. My
other highlights were the writing talks that Addie J. King and Malcolm Wood gave. I’m planning on attending next
year.
Links
A recent SF
conference I attended was ConFusion in Detroit, Michigan from January 18 to 20,
2019. The theme of the con was Storming the ConFusion, so they designated the
areas with names related to the movie, The Princess Bride. I had a great drive
to Detroit just before the snowstorm struck. My star of the con was John
Scalzi. He gave an excellent reading and was engaging in the panel I attended.
My other highlights were Ada Palmer’s interview and watching The Princess Bride
at the con. I’ll be back next year.
This is my writing progress report for February 2019.
A sign to the Miracle Max film room at ConFusion in
Detroit, where I watched the movie, The Princess Bride. The theme of ConFusion
was Storming the ConFusion which alludes to the movie.
Writing
Progress from January 2019
I wrote 4 blog posts for garydavidgillen.com including
my writing report for January 2019 linked below.
I bought and used the editing program Pro Writing Aid
to edit the novel, Assassin in New Marl City. I edited and typed Assassin Chapters
30, 32, and 33 in August 2018. I reviewed Chapters 34, 35, and 36 in September
and plan to finish the review in February. Chapters 1 to 12 were reviewed by
using Pro Writing Aid and submitted to my novel writing class.
The first draft of Assassin in New Marl City was
complete at 99,981 words in July 2018. I completed draft two in December 2018
at 89,072 words. Third draft edits continue.
I submitted a story called Popular Mechanics Rebrewed for
my writing class.
I also submitted a revised and shorter version of
Space Station Sunyata to a different writing class. I plan to submit this
version to magazines.
The stories 4 Humours,
Space Station Sunyata, Grognard, Get to the Point, and LARP Film Noir have been
submitted to magazines.
Statistics of magazine submissions for 2019 are; 0
different stories submitted a total of 0 times with 0 accepted, 0 pending, and
0 rejections.
Events
from January 2019
I attended ConFusion in Dearborn, Michigan from January 17 to 20, 2019.
ConFusion is sponsored by the Ann Arbor Science Fiction Association.
I plan to write 4 blog posts for garydavidgillen.com
including my writing report for February 2019.
Type the edits for Assassin in New Marl City Chapters 34,
35, and 36 in February 2019.
Edit Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12
of Assassin in New Marl City using comments from the Advanced Writing Workshop
at Parma, Ohio.
Polish and submit the stories Sleeping Sickness, Space-Dog
Confession, White Bracer, Mage Squad, I Shall Not Return, Prisoner of Tarnal, and Kay-Eye for submission to short
fiction magazines.
Submit 4 Humours,
Space Station Sunyata, Grognard, and LARP Film Noir to other short fiction
magazines.
Edit Searcher of Riven.
Hire an editor for Searcher of Riven from Fiveer.
Edit Ruins of Yarnud.
Hire an editor for Ruins of Yarnud from Fiveer.
Put the novel, Assassin in New Marl City, into the
writing program, Scrivener.
Buy e-book covers for Searcher of Riven and Ruins of
Yarnud from Fiveer.
Buy an e-book cover for Assassin in New Marl City from
Fiveer.
I attended the SF
conference named ConFusion at 5801 Southfield Freeway Dearborn, Michigan at the
DoubleTree Hotel from January 18 to 20,
2019. ConFusion is sponsored by the Ann Arbor Science Fiction Association. I
attended 4 panels, one reading, one interview, and watched the movie The
Princess Bride. The theme of the con was Storming the ConFusion, so the areas
were designated with names related to the movie like Miracle Max’s Film Room,
The Fire Swamp Artists Alley, The Cliffs of Insanity Consuite, Pit of Despair
Gaming, and the Thieves Forest Music Room. I stayed at the Hawthorn Hotel by
Wyndham which was next to the Double Tree.
Writers Talk about
Anything But Writing panel with Mark Oshiro, John Scalzi, and Delilah Dawson:
Mark was the
moderator and he came up with the topic. His point was that panelists get
questions about writing, publishing, and touring, but get few questions about
their other interests. This panel forced them to talk about something else.
John Scalzi talked about being almost 50, his exercise program, and taking
modern dance in high school. Mark talked about who he was cast as the lead in
the play Music Man, Harold Hill, in high school while being Mexican and gay.
John talked about working at Del Taco and learning about life. He was in an air
band in high school and won a contest drumming to Round and Round by Ratt. Mark
didn’t understand the concept of an air band since he is from another
generation. John finished up the panel by talking about his wife’s family’s
salsa recipe and how he was glad he married into the family to taste it, The
panel was fun and I’m glad Mark came up with the topic. I learned about the
panelists and I liked that.
Link to another
air band video of John Scalzi at the Webb school:
Mars in Fact and
Fiction panel with industrial scientist Bill Higgins, SF writer specializing in
Mars fiction Martin L. Shoemaker, and professor from Connecticut State
University Dr. Jennifer Piatek:
Two slide
presentations were presented in this panel.
Dr. Piatek’s
presentation was called Mars – A Short Tour, which covered the history of
scientific fact about Mars. The incorrectly proposed canals of Mars were
refuted in the ’60s with the Mariner mission.
The Viking mission extended our knowledge of the surface of Mars. Mars has a
rough southern highland and a smooth northern plain. Most Mars missions land in
the north. The next mission to Mars is scheduled to be the Mars Rover 2020
mission, scheduled to be launched in 2020.
Bill Higgins
presentation was called Mars in Our Stories, which covered SF writing about
Mars. He highlighted a picture printed in the September 1956 Life magazine that
imagined the aliens of Mars as told from many stories including War of the
Worlds by H. G. Welles, Out of the Silent Planet by C. S. Lewis, and A Martian
Odyssey by Stanley G. Weinbaum. He next mentioned the 1938 radio broadcast of
War of the Worlds adapted by Orson Welles that caused a panic in New Jersey.
The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury and the John Carter series by Edgar Rice
Burroughs were also mentioned. The panel ran out of time to continue to more
modern examples of Mars fiction.
I thought that
both presentations were well done, and the information was interesting.
A copy of a
drawing by Boris Artzybasheff from the September 24, 1956 issue of Life
magazine.
Saturday,
January 19th at 3 PM
Reading
by John Scalzi:
John Scalzi’s
current work in progress is his sequel to his novella called The Dispatcher.
The tentative title for the work is Dispatcher 2 –the dispationing (probably not the final title). He read Chapter 1 of
his new work. In the world of the novel, people who are murdered will return
alive to a place they found comfort in
the past. They appear naked, healthy and well. Suicide does not work in this
world so there is a call for Dispatchers, who murder terminal patients or for
other reasons if their clients want a fresh start. This work is about a
Dispatcher debating if he will accept Mr. Pang as a client. The chapter comes
to a satisfying conclusion. Scalzi is an engaging reader of his work. Well
done.
Scalzi had more
time to read, so he read two posts from his blog named Whatever. The first post
he read was titled “Automated Customer Service”. It was a funny short story
about a computerized phone customer service call about a malfunctioning
Vacuubot.
A short Q and A followed.
The whole hour was fun and perfect. It was my best hour of the con.
Saturday,
January 19th at 6:30 PM (Err, I should have been there at 6:10 PM)
I watched the
movie The Princess Bride. The Princess Bride
was the theme of this con, Storming the ConFusion. I’ve seen the movie many
times but I thought that it would be fun to see it here with an audience. In
the Henry Ford boardroom (renamed Miracle Max’s Film Room for the Con) there is
a large screen TV at one end of the room and a large table with comfortable
chairs surrounding it. The movie played on the screen and all the dozen chairs
were filled.
On the sheet
posted on the door, it said the movie
would start at 6:30 PM but I think it started at 6:10 PM. Then I arrived at
6:25 PM the scene playing was the one where the Man in Black (Dread Pirate
Roberts, but secretly Westley) was sword fighting with Inigo Montoya and it was
almost over. The movie ended at 7:40 PM and the movie is 90 minutes long so I
figure about a 6:10 PM start. I watched the rest of the movie. The cool thing
is that the five scenes at the beginning of the movie that I missed are all
available on Youtube. I watched them all after the con. It turned out to be a
great idea to watch the movie with others and I am glad that I did.
Youtube link to a
playlist with 12 clips from the movie:
Sign on the door
to the boardroom where the movie played.
Sunday,
January 20th at 10 AM
I attended an interview with Ada Palmer, the Author Guest of Honor for ConFusion 2019. Ada Palmer was interviewed by Black Gate columnist Brandon Crilly. She is an associate professor of early modern European History at the University of Chicago. Ada Palmer first talked about her current project on censorship. She is co-writing a book called Censorship and Information Control in Information Revolutions with Cory Doctorow and Adrian Johns. Her project is funded through Kickstarter Their idea is that censorship has always been a part of society and always will. There are two kinds of censorship. The Catholic model where works are sent to a censer and edited before they are published and the English model where works are censored after they have been printed and deemed censorable.
Censorship relates to her current fiction novel series, Terra Ignota. She extrapolated certain trends from the past into the future to develop her series. Some of those trends are religiosity, the changing family unit, and gender relations. She recommended the short story The Autopsy by Michael Shae, link below. She identifies herself as a writer and not a professor. Her writing suggestion is to take an old story and edit it to half-length to get to the essence of the story. It will help the writer to be concise and make sure that every line and word is doing some work. Brandon conducted an interesting interview with Ada Palmer and I plan to read Too Like the Lightning this year. It’s on my Goodreads list.
State of the Solar
System panel with industrial scientist Bill Higgins, SF writer specializing in
Mars fiction Martin L. Shoemaker, and professor from Connecticut State
University Dr. Jennifer Piatek:
The same panel
members from the Mars panel on Saturday continued their discussion about space
exploration beyond Mars. They talked about the International Space Station
first and then spent most of the rest of the panel talking about probes to the
asteroids. The TV show Salvage 1 from 1979 starring Andy Griffith was mentioned
about commercial space exploration. The show was about a man who built a
spaceship intending to go to the moon and salvage the Apollo mission’s
equipment and sell it on the Earth. It was an interesting panel and the room
was packed, standing room only.
Sunday,
January 20th at 1 PM
Supply Lines and
Economics in Fantasy Worldbuilding panel with K. A. Doore, Ferrett Steinmetz, Jennifer
Mace, Scott H. Andrews, Jon Skovron, and Teresa Nielsen Hayden.
They authors talked
about how economics affected the story they write. The best part of the panel
was their recommendations of resource books to read. They are 1491 by Charles
Man, Debt by David Graeber, Great Cities in History by John Julius Norwich.,
and Food by Dorothy Hartley. There were two examples of novels using the topic illustrated,
the Dagger and the Coin series by Daniel Abraham and War of Light and Shadow by
Jenny Wurts. I wondered if six panelists were too many for them to get each of
their points across, but the panel went smoothly, and each panelist had
interesting comments. I put all the books mentions on my Goodreads to read list
and look forward too many hours of good reading.
Recommendation –
Conclusion
I had a great drive
to Detroit just before the snowstorm. The con was set up well making it easy to
find the locations. My star of the con was John Scalzi. He gave an excellent
reading and was engaging in the panel I attended. My other highlights were Ada
Palmer’s interview and watching The Princess Bride at the con. I’m planning to
return next year.
Links
This is a link to
John Scalzi’s post about attending ConFusion 2019.
The next most recent conference that I attended was Cleveland
Inkubator which was held on August 4, 2018,
at the Louis Stokes Wing of the Cleveland Public Library, 525 Superior Avenue
Cleveland, Ohio 44115. The event was sponsored by Literary Cleveland.
This is a link to my conference recap.
I attended the Cleveland Writing Workshop on July 14, 2018, at the Holiday Inn 6001 Rockside Road Independence, Ohio 44131. The Cleveland Writing Workshop was a one-day event conducted by Writing Day Workshops who present workshops across the county throughout the year.
Summary Beginning
The day began in the large meeting room which had space for over 100 attendees. The presenter was Brian A. Klems who gave four talks during the day. He was the senior online editor for WritersDigest.com. He wrote the parenting guide for fathers called Oh Boy, You’re Having a Girl which is linked below.
There was also a writer’s got talent panel. There were three other opportunities available for writers for an added fee. The extras were a query letter critique, a critique of the first ten pages of an author’s novel, and opportunities to pitch a novel to up to seven different agents. Before the workshop, I sent off my query letter, the first ten pages of my novel, and signed up for two pitches. I will write about my experiences at the workshop.
Summary Session One
The first session by Brian A. Klems was titled A Bird’s Eye View: Publishing and Books in the Year 2018. He discussed the three ways for an author to get published. They are traditionally by using an agent, by a university press not using an agent, and by self-publishing. In traditional publishing, the author gets an advance, but the marketing is mostly done by the author. In self-publishing, the author controls everything, but it’s difficult to get your books into bookstores.
Summary Session Two
The second session was also given by Brian A. Klems about 15 Tips on How to Write Like the Pros. There was a handout on the topic. Advice highlights were to avoid prologues, avoid information dumps and edit ruthlessly (kill your darlings).
Break
We had an hour-long break for lunch. I reviewed the information I had for the three meetings I had in the afternoon. Ten minutes before the meetings I left the main hall and waited at the queue for the meetings held in the meeting room. There were eight tables for the seven agents and an editor in the meeting room. The meetings were all ten minutes long and when they were completed; I returned to the main hall to attend the session in progress.
Summary Session Three
After the lunch break, they presented a panel on Writer’s Got Talent–A Chapter One Critique Fest. Five of the seven agents that took pitches were on the panel. At check-in at the beginning of the workshop, authors submitted the first page of their novel if they wanted. I did not. I had taken part in a similar panel at a different conference. The author’s names were not on the page, only the genre identification. Brian A. Klems read the submissions. During the reading, the agents raised their hand when they knew the writing did not work for them. When three agents passed, Brian stopped reading. At the end of the reading, the agents stated why they passed or why they liked the submission. I heard 14 submissions (But not all of them. I had a meeting during the session). Brian read only a few all the way to the end.
Summary Session Four
The next session was by Brian A. Klems about 25 Questions You Need Answered BEFORE You Seek an Agent or Self-Publish Your Book. There was a handout about the questions. Highlights were if you want to get published traditionally then you need an agent, you get an agent by submitting queries and a synopsis to them, and building a platform is becoming necessary for successful authors.
Summary Session Five
The next session was by Brian A. Klems about 25 Questions You Need Answered AFTER You Seek an Agent or Self-Publish Your Book. There was a handout about the questions. Highlights were Amazon reviews are extremely important, build a platform, and stick to it.
Activities
There were four activities I did at the workshop.
I sent a copy of my example query letter to Brian A. Klems before the conference. He e-mailed a detailed critique of the query letter to me. The insights he gave were excellent. I have improved my query letter based on his comments.
I sent the first ten pages of my novel, Assassin in New Marl City to editor Ricki Schultz before the conference. We had a ten-minute meeting where she gave me a written critique of the pages and we discussed the pages. Her comments helped me clarify what I was trying to do with those first pages and setting up my story. Her critique was helpful and the changes I made to the chapter made it better.
During the Workshop, I had a meeting with agent Cyle Young. We talked about what he was looking for in clients and about my novel. He suggested that I update my picture on Facebook/Twitter (I did), use SEO for my blog (I haven’t done it, but I should), and to send him a proposal (I did). I went to his website, wrote a proposal from his specifications, and submitted my proposal after the conference. It was not a fit for him, but I learned valuable lessons about writing and submitting a query. I also learned the importance of developing a platform from him.
During the Workshop, I had a meeting with agent Gabrielle Piraino. It was not a fit. I learned that sometimes an agent and a writer do not mesh and that’s okay. It’s about finding the right match and that is why it will take many queries to find the right one for me.
Conclusion
The Cleveland Writing Workshop 2018 was interesting and useful. I am glad I took the time and the effort to take part in the added activities offered. When the workshop returns next year, I will consider attending again. I will be a better writer then and will be readier to understand what it will take to be successful.
Links
Cleveland
Writing Workshop 2018
I also attended the Marcon Conference from May 11 to May 13, 2018, at the Hyatt Regency in Columbus, Ohio. It is an SF conference, while Inkubator is a literary conference. My review of Marcon is linked below.
