I went to Edge-Lit again!

[not_cynical]

Hello my darlings!

On the 14th, I was at Edge-Lit, which I THINK counts as my local con? (I keep going "Ah yes, Nine Worlds, best and most local con!" while Edge-Lit glares behind me, like I am the living embodiment of that one meme.) It was pretty good!

• I meant to do a whole BUNCH of prep for it, which I just... Forgot? Ran out of time for? OH WELL. I did remember to tweet a "This is what I look like if anyone wants to say hi!" which did apparently help a bit? So that was nice!
• This is going to sound ridiculous, but before I started going to conventions, I saw some advice that was basically "Talk to one stranger at every con you go to, especially if they're new and you're not," so I try and do that! (I think their reasoning was that it makes people feel less excluded or something, but I like simple measurable goals? And people are usually nice?)
  
  Guys.
  
  I talked to four strangers.
  
  • I HAVE ANXIETY, HOW DID THAT EVEN HAPPEN.
  • Everyone was very nice! I met a couple of people who'd never been to the con before while we were in the queue (Hi
    janebettany, hi
    vproofreader!, and I... Hope I was helpful? People looked out for me while I was there, and I hope I paid it forward properly? And
    millymollymo was a volunteer to give the newbies talks and gave us ALL advice about staying How To Edge-Lit Also Stay Hydrated, which I did not do as well at as I wanted? And
    mikebrooks668 unexpectedly introduced me to Anna Smith Spark, who was lovely and I think I made an utter fool of myself in front of her. OH WELL.
  • It turns out that having a bright pink egg as your twitter icon instead of your face is actually more helpful than I thought, because it's way easier to recognise an egg on a phone screen than a person. ... Someone remind me that I need to do an "IT'S OKAY TO UNFOLLOW/MUTE/SOFTBLOCK ME" tweet again at some point, because I know that to talk to me you do not always realise exactly how much yelling about lesbian fiction/transcription adventures/anxiety/Pokémon Go/complaining about fictional allosexuals making bad sexual decisions you're signing up for.
    
    • I think I actually covered ALL OF THAT yesterday, because hi guys, apparently the theme of this weekend was "starter Pokémon who do not want to come home with me" and "please do not soulbond with your love interest until AFTER you tell him about your tragic backstory, just so that we're not ending this book on him running away into the night because someone tells him about it at the worst possible minute and HE'S STILL STUCK WITH YOU."
    • YES I KNOW THAT'S HOW BASIC DRAMA WORKS BUT ALSO THAT IS SUPER UNETHICAL OKAY.
• I didn't get onto all of the workshops that I wanted, which is a real shame, because the "How to write a fight scene" workshop would have been really useful! But I still got onto some good ones, so it worked out okay.
• The first panel was on imposter syndrome and when do you ever feel like a proper writer, which as someone with anxiety I was guessing the answer was never? (Q: Susan, don't you have a Hugo ON YOUR DESK, RIGHT NOW? A: I AM SUCH A FRAAAAAAUD!) The answer seemed to be "Sometimes you feel like an imposter AND a proper writer all at the same time," and "Sometimes the most validating thing is going through the editing process, because if people are talking to your about your work you MUST be a real writer." Checks out to me! They did do the run through of "Does anything help you NOT feel like a fraud?" (like Creative Writing degrees or reviews or something), and the answer was nope, but also two of the authors were like "Looking at the one star reviews for the books that I love and realising that there are people out there who just don't know what they're talking about" so that delightful.
• I bought books instead of going to an 11am panel, so I'm putting that here instead of anywhere else!
  
  • The goodie-bag books (because at Edge-Lit your ticket fee covers a bag of books, which is really nice?) were a bit dude heavy; it was a paperback of Red Sister by Mark Lawrence (I seem to recall being interested in this when I saw blurb out of context a while ago, but then I realised it was a Mark Lawrence book and I seem to recall that I don't like his work at all.), Dream Stalkers by Tim Waggoner (which sure has a cover), and a hardcover (?!) of The Black Elfstone, which is apparently the new Terry Brooks? (I'm gonna be honest: I thought the guy was dead? Either way, I'm trying to pass this off to
    JosephTansley, who might get the use of it but has these scruples about "Oh, but I'm like two series behind on the Shannara books," so I might end up asking
    sfbookstocking if she read the books as well as watching the show.)
  
  
  • I also bought Lost Gods by Micah Yongo (because he seemed really cool on his panels, and also because it seems to be coming up a lot on my twitter feed in a good way?), Cuckoo Song by Frances Hardinge (because it's the one I've read by her that I really loved, and I want to keep it? Also PEOPLE WHO CARE ABOUT MATCHING EDITIONS: they're rereleasing all of Frances Hardinge's books in matching/co-ordinating editions, except for The Lie Tree. Go forth, do your thing.), and Darien by Conn Iggulden (who I also thought had died years ago, but that's because I was apparently getting him mixed up with Bernard Cornwell or something; having seen the guy on panels I kinda regret giving him my money.), and Sins of Empire by Brian McClellan (for Lex, although I realised afterwards that a) Lex only reads ebooks when he reads at all, this is the worst present, b) I know it's set in the same world as the Powder Mage Trilogy, but not when, which is awkward considering neither of us finished the trilogy, and c) that I'd left the book on the stall that I bought it from. WHOOPS.)
    
  • (I kept seeing Frances Hardinge just walking around the place and then just tripping over my own feet, because !!!! FRANCES HARDINGE !!!!)
  
  
  • My goal for this year: learn to be okay passing off books that I'm not sure I want to keep. It makes it easier to take a chance on things if I tell myself I can just post books to my friends and enemies when I'm done with them.
    
    • Q: And enemies?
      A: They were friends to start with, but you haven't seen some of the books I've sent to people.
  • For the record: I apparently bought books SO HARD that I ripped the zip off my purse. NO REALLY. It's cool, my new purse has Mickey Mouse on it.
• My first workshop was about the three-act structure, which was not clear from the description. I think it was called like Fractal Plotting, and had the intent of bringing more arts and crafts to Edge-Lit. I can respect that! We stuck triangles and... Inverse triangles? (If you cut an isosceles triangle out of a square bit of paper, the bit you have at the top is the anti-triangle I mean.) And then we went over the three act structure, started filling in our three acts for the projects we were working on, aaaaaaaaaaaand it turns out that I don't have an act one for the story I was working on. I have a middle and an end, because fantasy heists and dramatic confrontations and possibly giant robots the size of a small country! But I don't have an act one. GOOD TO KNOW, I GUESS.
• I went to a panel about whether fantasy was becoming a broader genre that... Didn't really seem to answer that question? I was kinda expecting it to be about new subgenres or which authors were doing unexpected and interesting things, but that didn't really seem to come up very much. (It did a little, but main thing I remember about current author recs as opposed to older works were Micah Yongo shouting out N.K. Jemisin and a couple of other names that I couldn't catch because !!! N. K. Jemisin !!!) I liked Anna Smith Spark's point that fantasy can basically be mythology fanfic, I liked the talk about what fantasy subgenres had in common, I liked Micah Yongo talking about other forms of fantasy than just books, I liked the discussion of fantasy tv shows (apparently things with fantasy elements that you don't need to visually represent are much more likely to get picked up, who'dathunk.) and I didn't like that Conn Iggulden rolled in twenty minutes late, interrupted people, and talked about NOTHING BUT WHITE MEN when he had the mic.
• Ooh, ooh, but my other workshop that I went to was Penny Reeve, the Publicity Manager for Angry Robot, going over best practice for social media as a promotion tool. I need to write up my notes to send to
  captainraz, so if anyone else wants them let me know, because this session was really useful. The main takeaway was Don't Be A Dick (unless you're being a dick to fascists, because for every person who vows NEVER TO BUY YOUR WORK AGAIN you will get another three people who go YES, FIGHT THE FASCISTS), don't use the social media you're not comfortable with - her emphasis was that you need to be organic rather than purely marketing focused, so if you're not comfortable it won't work, and if you need a break? Take the break.
  
  • Shout out to
    MikeBrooks668, because I mentioned that I write for
    ladybusiness and then started to mention the Hugo thing (for the life of me I can't remember why, I assume it felt relevant at the time, but oh my god Susan), went "no, wait, that's big headed," and Mike just went "Didn't you win an award recently? And what was it called?"
  • It turns out that Angry Robot is not actually an American company like I thought! They're based in Nottingham! Like... "Oh, I go past you on the tram ALL THE TIME" levels of based in Nottingham. ... What?! WHAT.
  • I am observant and know basic things about the industry that I am tangential to. Yep.
  • I find it really interesting that Penny Reeve was like "Oh yeah, absolutely tag authors in your positive reviews, and authors should retweet positive reviews!" because the idea that an author might read my review of their work is terrifying. Even if I loved the book! ESPECIALLY if I love the book, because hi, my name is Susan, I'm not exactly known for my ability to talk about literature in a calm and measured way.
  • She did also tell people not to be like the guy who stalked a reviewer to her job and bottled her, so that's at least somewhat reassuring.
  • Maybe I can apply some of this to
    feministponies??? That would be nice.
• Apart from that, I hung out with
  mikebrooks668, completely failed too see
  booksnacksize (because twitter was just like "But why would we show you tweets from someone at the same event as you?") or
  runalongwomble (because he is a master of disguise)! I made an UTTER FOOL of myself in front of Anna Smith Spark because oh my god (She thought I was joking when I said I made notes, and mate, no, never.), stuck around for the raffle, and then bimbled home to destress because wow, busy night at the Artemis.

All in all, it was a pretty good day! I always feel really... I dunno, energised? When I go to workshops and learn something, especially when it's something practical like marketing. (I am the sort of nerd who'd love to do a creative writing course that had modules on business and marketing, because it would be REALLY USEFUL. I don't know where you'd find such a thing, unless maybe Nottingham Writer's Studio does something like that. ... I just want to be taught useful things, okay.) POSSIBLY I should have booked today off work as a recovery day, but to be honest with you Sundays in the holidays are SUPPOSED to be quiet? Like if I talk to two customers in the entire day I feel justified making an "I need a lie-down" joke levels of quiet. EXCEPT that today has been the infinite drama of "all of the libraries are short-staffed so we need to musical chairs some staff around" so... That was exciting? I'm typing this in one of the tiny libraries on a different campus, where half the library is closed and there are TWO WHOLE STUDENTS in here. ... It's nice! But now I need a lie down.