After Julie's Hidden in Sight book launch, which was fun, and Julie's reading, which was hilarious and fun, and lunch, which I got for under $3, came Panel #2: Breaking into Print. Once again, I was the gal with no pro sales. However, I've got two Asimov Awards, Clarion and a handful of semi-pro sales, so damn if I was going to feel out of place. The mini-podium up front was sort of blocked with a screen projector so we all just arranged the chairs at the front of the room and talked.
I really had a great time up there. We laughed, we chatted, we didn't know Heinlein's five rules. Near the end, I started arguing with one of the other panelists about where you should send stories. He was of the "only to the pro markets" sort of guy, and I, Miss No-Pro-Sales herself, said, "Um, no, that's not the smartest thing," and proceeded to talk about Lady Churchill's and Strange Horizons and non-traditional markets that are certainly excellent places to be published. We had to stop our discussion when the hour was up, though we could have easily kept talking.
Midway through the panel, my Clarion classmate Genevieve arrived. (Hey, Gen!) We realized that it's been over a year since we'd gotten together last, which is terrible considering we live in the same city. (Phil, Thomas, et al: Gen looks great by the way, and we're planning Big Things for Torcon.) After the panel, we went down to the dealer's room for a bit and then had some tea and chatted before she had to leave.
I'd also spent a good deal of the day trying to track down David Brin. Finally, I asked someone in the know where on earth the guy was. "Oh," I was told. "He went home yesterday."
That was about it for official con things, though there was a good deal of time spent waiting around to get our things out of Erin's car (which was not Erin's fault!). This was both very boring and very entertaining. Sarah, John and I started writing stories together, the kind where one person writes a paragraph, folds it over so only the last line is showing and passes it to the next person, etc. I rather enjoyed the results. And, while this was happening, I also made a large card-house out of Torcon fliers, as well as a paper airplane out of a book flier. The paper airplane needed decorating, I decided, and thus became The Freewriting Plane. It was highly entertaining to have to fit one's freewrites onto the sides of an airplane. In fact, I think I was a little too entertained for my own good…
But, the time came to leave and I took the TTC back to York. My bag, of course, was heavier than it'd been originally, and I spent the rest of my evening with my back literally in spasms.
The End. (Whew!)
