Month: March 2011

Summer Starts with a Con

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 2 Comments

I just booked my room for ConCarolinas.  I hadn’t realized how early CC was this year: June 3-5.  Hoorah!  That gives me a week off school before my summer con, likely the only one I’ll get to this summer.

CC has a history of being a strong literary con, strong enough that my pitiful resume didn’t get me a guest slot.  Alternative history legend Harry Turtledove will be the writer GoH.  I will most assuredly be getting my father’s copy of Guns of the South signed.  Other literary-types attending include (but are not limited to) Toni Weisskopf of Baen Books (who I met at ChattaCon), Ed Shubert of IGMS (who I met at last year’s CC and from whom I have received some lovely rejections), Gail Z. Martin (met at both ConCarolinas and ChattaCon), most of the crew from Magical Words, and Codex members J.F. Lewis and James Maxey…and those are just the ones I recognized after on quick pass.  I’m sure I’ll meet more great people/writers this year, especially since I’ll be staying in the hotel rather than with a friend that lives only a few minutes away like I did last year.  More cost but more con experience.  I missed out on a bunch last year.  Not this time.

There will also be media guests of note.  No, not Nimoy or Hamill or Spielberg or Radcliffe…not even names you would likely recognize on their own, but roles you would recognize.  John Billingsley?  He was Dr. Phlox on Enterprise (not to mention a boatload of other roles other places).  Bonita Friedericy?  General Beckman on Chuck…and Billingsley’s real-life spouse.  David H. Lawrence?  Try the Puppet Master from Heroes.  Emilie Ullerup?  Julia Prynne on Battlestar Galactica.  See, you know them.

The full guest list is at http://concarolinas.org/index.php/cc/ccguestlist/88

For those that haven’t attended a science fiction convention, they pretty much what they sound like.  Yes, people do dress up like Storm Troopers and Klingons and Ghostbusters and (oh please oh please) Princess Leia.  But not everyone.  Not half of everyone.  Costuming is a fun part of the con to behold.  I hope to eventually pull together a Dr. Horrible costume, that being WAY cheaper than say a Malcolm Reynolds costume.  But not likely for this year.  Anyway, cons also have panel discussions and an art show and a dealer room.  However, rumor has it that most business goes down outside the framework of the con…typically in the bar.  It’s been my observation, too.  My best contacts from ChattaCon were made in the bar, at parties, and/or at meals.  These are the bits I missed last year.

I have a special affection for ConCarolinas since it was the first con I ever attended.  I kind of consider it my home con despite being closer to Nashville and Chattanooga and Atlanta and probably others.  It’s big enough without being too big.  It’s got strong literary participation.  Lots of panel rooms.  A Nerf war, for crying out loud!  (Speaking of, where’s my Nerf gun?)  My folks are pretty close (90 minutes?) and can watch the kiddo.  I have a local friend.  What’s not to like?

What else?  Oh yes.  Against my better judgment, I’ll mention this here: I have booked a room with two beds when there is just one of me.  I did this with the thought that I’d split said room with a friend if I could find one attending that needed a room.  I am not expecting to be so strapped for cash that I need to split it, so I will be very selective of my roomie.  (In other words, a post like “Hey, nice blog you got.  What was your name again?  Oh, right, it’s at the top of the page.  Anyway, I’ll go halvsies on a room with you…” will probably earn a cool reception and a polite decline.  But, if we’ve engaged in conversation (real or online) and you’re thinking of attending CC and are contemplating costs, a split might be an option.  Just putting it out there.  Oh, and in the interest of full disclosure: I snore like a truck.  Yeah…I’m likely keeping the room to myself.  Just as well.  🙂

What cons are on everyone else’s hit-list this summer?

Tick…Tick…..Tick……..

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

I’ve been quiet a while.  School’s been busy and stuff, but mostly Ive been waiting for some sort of responses to report.  Sunmission news has been vacuous of late.  I got a form rejection from DSF on a flash, but that’s it.  I keep waiting.  And waiting.

Full disclosure, I only have one sub that’s been out n inordinately long time and that’s to a market I knew was slow.  A couple have been out for over a month.  Two more around three weeks.  The rest are under a week.  So I’m fidgety for nothing.  Maybe it’s just having nine stories out that has me itching like a shaved dog in a fiberglass sweater.  I don’t think I’ve ever had so many, but I can’t recall.  I have more I need to push out the door, too.  For instance, I’m holding one story for Pedestal which has been closed to subs this week.  Sending it tomorrow.  And my zombie culture story should be ready to sub soon.

So what to do when the waiting gets painful?  The obvious answer — write!  That is in addition to checking email every five minutes, scouting responses on Duotrope every hour, and giving the mailman dirty looks as he drives off without returning your SASE to you.

I’m in a weird place with a few projects — in the middle of a contest for Codex, trying to turn a novelette into a novel — and my production feels incredibly low compared to time spent writing.  Maybe that’s the problem.  Or maybe it’s Brad’s fault with all his success and accolades.  🙂  Or that other writer with her top secret make-me-jealous news.  🙂  Or all these creepy smileys hanging out everywhere.  🙂

Let’s face it, I’ve followed up my WotF win (announced over a year ago) with bupkis. The issue is jealousy, but I’m actually jealous of me…me a year ago.  Where did that all go?  It’s time for me to step back and remind myself that writing is a (cliche) marathon, not a sprint.  It took a long time to get to where I am (or was last year) and it may take time to move to the next level.  Things happen lowly in this business.  I know this.  I just don’t like it.

So I return to my projects at hand.  FS goes to Pedestal tomorrow — ooh, clock says today! — and I need to get CMZ ready to fly out the door soon.  Refreshing to have a new story to start collecting rejections.  And I need to finish my Codex contest story (whether it moves to the next round or not) and get my novelization project in gear.  And pretty much in that order.  Plenty to be done; no time to continually refresh my email.

You too.  Why are you reading blog posts with so much to be done?  Get to it!

Bookstore visits: then and now

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

It’s ironic.  I love bookstores but I seldom find myself in one anymore.  For one, they are disappearing daily.  (Moment of silence.)  Second, who really goes to a bookstore when they need a book?  I just download it to my Kindle or order it (cheaper) from Amazon.  But this post is not about the invasion of the ebook market (I for one welcome our new computer overlords) or the decline of the faithful old brick-and-mortar book seller.  This is an observation on how my bookstore browsing and buying habits have changed over the last few years.

When I started writing, I always went in search of the how-to-write books first.  A decent bookstore will have a reasonable selection but seldom the ones I really wanted.  Lots of grammar books, but I can do grammar, always could.  Several write-a-novel-in-X-days books, not really what I was after, either.  I have picked up good books right off the shelf, though: Donald Maass’s Writing the Breakout Novel, several Elements of Fiction Writing books, and others that slip my mind, but I’ve plucked some stinkers, too (not listed).  After that I’d head to the science fiction and fantasy section, rounding out with a tour of clearance items.

Now it’s backward.  I hunt for cheap books first.  Why?  Because I don’t know what I’m looking for.  Just the other day I picked up The Hero (Ringo and Williamson) and The Ice Dragon, a short story or novelette that was retrofitted as a children’s story by none other than George R.R. Martin.  The latter seemed  an intriguing idea and roused my interest.  The former, well I just don’t have any John Ringo stuff.  I suspect it’s mostly the work of his co-author set in Ringo’s world, but hey, it was a buck.  So was The Ice Dragon.  Happy purchase.

Next I go to the sci-fi section to look for WotF 26.  Books-A-Million has it.  I turned it face out last time, a feat that actually put it in front of four out of five copies of another book.  They’ll have me for it, I’m sure.  But if it sells, I guess they won’t have to worry about it.  Other than randomly pimping a book that earns me no more money if it sells, I also look for names I recognize, personally or as a fan.  I seldom buy this way because my backlog is so deep.  If nothing else, it helps me decide what to shop for on my Kindle. I also look at the publishing houses and imprints on the shelves and skim for general ideas of market trends, not to copy, just to know.

The last place I look is the how-to-write section.  This time I did actually make a purchase, my first from this shelf in a while: the Gotham Writer’s Workshop’s guide to screeplay writing, Writing Movies, the victor in a brief page-flipping battle between it and another screenwriting book.  This was not a bargain book, but I wanted a good screenwriting book to balance out the bad one I have.  I’ve been happy with the chapters I’ve read so far.

My recent trip to the used bookstore was similar, but every book there is a bargain book, so it’s a little different.  I like to skim the science books for things that might spawn story ideas or better yet deepen an existing story idea.  I got a little tiny book on Multiverse theory a few weeks back.  Not even sure what it is, but it sounded promising.

Another stop was the travel books.  Face it, I’m not a traveler; can’t afford it and don’t overly enjoy it.  But it’s tough to set every science fiction book in Tennessee, so I need to expand my horizons somehow.  I picked up a 3-D guide to Paris and an insider’s guide to New York for use setting stories in those cities, two books I would never have paid real money for (I have store credit) but will surely see eventual use.  I make a point of wandering through the sf/f section, too.

Basically, I know how to write, I just need help with specific story elements.  Setting, consistency, inspiration, ties to real-world science.  Can I make a Multiverse story set in Paris?  Or a screenplay in Soho (whatever that is)?  My chances are better now.

This of course made me wonder what other writers look for in bookstores.  Maybe I’m overlooking some useful sections?  How do you shop?