Saturday at Balticon
No weight today, obviously, but my BG readings at breakfast and lunch were both under 140, so I have that going for me.
Got up very early (0630) and did breakfast with Mark at the Chick-Fil-A before going to a couple of Connie Willis panels on writing, which were both very entertaining and somewhat instructive, and then spent a couple of hours chatting with Kyle McAbee about A.E. Van Vogt and other authors*. He also suffered through my synopsis of Starfighter Girls and suggested something to make Reiko more sympathetic and not so much of a cold, calculating, manipulative bitch, which I am afraid is how she'll look to people as the novel stands now. We also discussed in passing L. Sprague DeCamp's opinion that older writers should seek younger collaborators to help them with plotting, since apparently plotting skills weaken with age, and I commented that this seemed to be what Jim Baen had done with David Drake and Eric Flint, who have been teamed with entire stables of younger writers, many of whom have gone on to solid careers on their own, e.g. S.M. Stirling, Chuck Gannon, etc., and later Kyle came up to me while Mark and I were waiting for an elevator to inform me that at the Baen Roadshow panel (which I missed because after eating lunch at CFA I was hanging out with deathquaker getting caught up and talking a lot about Fallout) Jim Minz confirmed that this was exactly what Jim Baen had done.
I spent some time after that while Mark was trying to nap working on the FMJRA and posting it, after which we went off to McCormick & Schmick's, where I was entranced by the waitress (who turned out to be a geek**) and enjoyed my BLT salad and soft-shelled crab. Went to an 8 PM reading at which the O'Floinn was supposed to be reading, but alas, he was not. There are panels and readings he's scheduled for tomorrow, though.
The one dark note in the day was hearing from my Aunt Maureen that my godfather is quite ill - his liver appears to have revenged itself upon him, and after being hospitalized and treated for edema, he's given up the creature (one hopes this lasts) and lost 30 pounds, but I notice she didn't give any indication of whether he'd completely recover or how long the doctors were giving him or what. He may be a mean old drunk, but it doesn't mean I want him to croak off just yet.
May be spending most of Sunday sleeping in/working on Rule 5 Sunday/watching anime, because there's no programming I really want to see until 1600. We'll see how that goes.
*I'd previously met him and the lovely Monica outside the dealers' room, where I bought a used copy of Firestar and may be acquiring a duplicate set of Robert Frezza's Suid-Afrika trilogy so I have a backup against the day when my original set wears out.
**I mentioned to her that Balticon has day passes and invited her to drop by tomorrow or Monday.
Got up very early (0630) and did breakfast with Mark at the Chick-Fil-A before going to a couple of Connie Willis panels on writing, which were both very entertaining and somewhat instructive, and then spent a couple of hours chatting with Kyle McAbee about A.E. Van Vogt and other authors*. He also suffered through my synopsis of Starfighter Girls and suggested something to make Reiko more sympathetic and not so much of a cold, calculating, manipulative bitch, which I am afraid is how she'll look to people as the novel stands now. We also discussed in passing L. Sprague DeCamp's opinion that older writers should seek younger collaborators to help them with plotting, since apparently plotting skills weaken with age, and I commented that this seemed to be what Jim Baen had done with David Drake and Eric Flint, who have been teamed with entire stables of younger writers, many of whom have gone on to solid careers on their own, e.g. S.M. Stirling, Chuck Gannon, etc., and later Kyle came up to me while Mark and I were waiting for an elevator to inform me that at the Baen Roadshow panel (which I missed because after eating lunch at CFA I was hanging out with deathquaker getting caught up and talking a lot about Fallout) Jim Minz confirmed that this was exactly what Jim Baen had done.
I spent some time after that while Mark was trying to nap working on the FMJRA and posting it, after which we went off to McCormick & Schmick's, where I was entranced by the waitress (who turned out to be a geek**) and enjoyed my BLT salad and soft-shelled crab. Went to an 8 PM reading at which the O'Floinn was supposed to be reading, but alas, he was not. There are panels and readings he's scheduled for tomorrow, though.
The one dark note in the day was hearing from my Aunt Maureen that my godfather is quite ill - his liver appears to have revenged itself upon him, and after being hospitalized and treated for edema, he's given up the creature (one hopes this lasts) and lost 30 pounds, but I notice she didn't give any indication of whether he'd completely recover or how long the doctors were giving him or what. He may be a mean old drunk, but it doesn't mean I want him to croak off just yet.
May be spending most of Sunday sleeping in/working on Rule 5 Sunday/watching anime, because there's no programming I really want to see until 1600. We'll see how that goes.
*I'd previously met him and the lovely Monica outside the dealers' room, where I bought a used copy of Firestar and may be acquiring a duplicate set of Robert Frezza's Suid-Afrika trilogy so I have a backup against the day when my original set wears out.
**I mentioned to her that Balticon has day passes and invited her to drop by tomorrow or Monday.