New Short Story and a Con Report
My good friend and favored author, Di Francis, told me sternly over our last lunch of her MisCon trip to Missoula that I needed to be writing. Every day. Thus, I’ve started a new short story, which is tentatively titled Neoptolemus. The plan at the moment is to adapt Sophocles’ play Philoctetes, upping the mystical role of the gods throughout so that it reads like traditional fantasy, and placing the sole character-emphasis on Achilles’ son, Neoptolemus, instead of the triumvirate of characters Sophocles spotlights in the play. When I read the play I felt like the kid got kind of shafted, and I wanted to know how that really worked for him. So, I’ve got 249 words so far. Which is somewhat abysmal in terms of length for an hour’s worth of writing. But it’s forward progress on story telling.
During MisCon I attended readings by: difrancis, M.J. Engh, and Patricia Briggs, and panels on: Dating a Vampire, The Art of Editing, The Mary Sue Litmus Test, Trends in the Publishing Industry (entitled Author’s Whine and Cheese), Science Fiction in the Academe, Blogging, Genre Bending, and Filk on Demand - in which I was part of the committee which wrote “Pacabell’s Con-Cannon.”
I also got to hang out with the Great Falls Sand Baggers, a wonderful group of gamers who threw a happening room-party. I enjoyed all of the panels and readings. Genre Bending, with Jane Fancher, Di, and Vicki Mitchell, was especially lively, as there were authors in the audience as well as on the panel. Blogging, with Maggie Bonham ( shadowhelm), Di, and Keith Baker, was inspiring enough that this blog is mirrored - you can read it not only on my private myspace blog, but on livejournal also. The Mary Sue Litmus Test, with Di, M.J., and Patty, was amazing; I’d heard of Mary Sues before, I’d even been accused of writing one, but I really didn’t understand what they were before this panel.
I told Di after she and I had tea with Maggie that hanging out with SF/F writers encouraged me not to be so reluctant about my aspirations to publish commercial fiction. I often feel the dichotomy of planning to get a PhD in classics (which can feel like a traditional corner of the stuffy Ivory Tower) and hoping to publish YA and/or Fantasy. But the thing I was struck by this Con was the difference between SF/F writers and literary writers. I guess because I’ve been able to meet more of the later in the year since I was at MisCon last, the opinion I’ve formed of many I’ve met so far is that they tend to be less welcoming, encouraging, or friendly than any of the several handfuls of commercial writers I’ve met thus far. Whether my view of this is difference is owed to my having met some unusually terse literary writers is uncertain, but I do know that the writers who attended MisCon this year were fantastic human beings.
I also learned, after I last saw her (it would really pay to read the whole program as soon as I got it), that CJ Cherryh is a classicist!
A Phi Beta Kappa, Johns Hopkins educated classicist. So, I’ve had a whole slue of books added to my need-to-read list. And then I’ve got to chat with her as soon as possible. (And referencing the above paragraph, although she’s super popular, so it may take her a while to get back to me, but I don’t actually expect to have a whole lot of trouble with said chatting.) Her books include: Gate of Ivrel, Brothers of Earth, Downbelow Station, and Cyteen.