Tag: ChattaCon

As if 2022 will be any better…

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 1 Comment

Happy New Year’s Eve. It’s been a while. How did you even find this blog, anyway? Are you a friend or a fan from a long time ago, back when I actually wrote stuff? Did you recently find a story of mine and decide to type in my web address? Were you looking for the photographer in New York at scottwbaker.com? Whatever brought you, welcome. It’s been a while since I was here. Please pardon the dust.

As I ring in the new year, I’m of course contemplating resolutions. I have a lot of the standards: lose weight, get more exercise, lower my blood pressure, write more… Only the blood pressure one is unique to this year (hooray for getting old). The odds of me sticking to any of them aren’t much better than the odds of 2022 being a superior year to 2021…which we had such high hopes for as an improvement to 2020.

Then I started to realize that the quality of a year and my ability to maintain resolutions could possibly be correlated. I have no control over pandemics and politics and supply chains, but I do control what I do. Sounds pretty obvious, right? But if I lose 30 pounds, stop worrying about my bp, improve my physicality enough that simple things don’t wear me down, and get a few stories out the door, I’m pretty sure that my corner of 2022 could be an improvement.

I’ll add one more: this blog. I need to give it more attention. It could use a redesign, sure, but it also needs some consistent content. Once a week? Ambitious. I’ll target a couple times a month (which I can align with my school’s Creative Writing Club meetings to help me remember). There are a lot of things to discuss: TV shows (Wheel of Time, the Marvel stuff, Expanse), movies (SpiderMan, Matrix, more Marvel stuff), books, writing, cons and their formats, video games… Yeah, I’ll try to remember to come back to this list. Maybe I should talk about one now. Let’s talk cons.

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Even Deadpool can wear a mask

Con crud has been a thing as far back as cons go. So yes, virus transmission is a very real thing at conventions. It’s the reason so many cons were cancelled last year, even with the push to get back to

C H A T T A C O N
Chattacon: my home con

“normal”. It’s the reason that a lot of the cons that weren’t cancelled had mask mandates or even vaccine mandates. I’m supposed to be hitting ChattaCon in a couple weeks and I have no idea what their policy will be. I’m hoping for a mask mandate. I’ll likely wear one whether it’s required or not. I wear a mask every day at school (another place where germ exchange is rampant) despite the mandate having lifted a month or so ago. Last year’s ChattaCon was virtual, so masks would be a significant improvement. It also occurs to me that a hybrid in-person/online con is a possibility (panels streaming on Zoom).

8,834 Whiskey Tasting Stock Photos, Pictures & Royalty-Free Images - iStock
Ah, the whiskey tasting…

I’m excited to get back together with my con pals. I’ve been in touch with some in the hiatus, but that’s not the same. For instance, we have a perennial whiskey tasting that lost some of its “perennial” with last year’s con being virtual. Cons are a big way that I refuel my writing tank, something that definitely ran dry last year. It’ll likely be summer before I get to another con, but even one gets me pumped up.

Have your local sci-fi cons been happening? With masks? Virtual? Let me know in the comments.

I’ll see you soon. I promise. Or at least, I resolve.

Con Time

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

ChattaCon is this weekend.  I haven’t blogged about it but I’ve been looking forward to it for months.  I’m doing two panels Saturday and an autograph session Sunday, but otherwise I’m chilling with old friends and making new ones.  ChattaCon is a laid back kind of Con with a lot of social and a little business.  Very little.  Trust me when I tell you that I could really use some social time with “my people”.

In other news — rather, non-news — I’m still waiting to hear from DSF on my latest sub NwR.  The story is a Codex flash contest creation from last year.  As it turns out, the same contest is going on right now.  I’ve written 3 stories, gotten meh reviews on two and I’m yet to see the scores on the third.  I love kicking the year off with this contest because it gives me stuff to submit and tinker with all year long.

I have some big changes coming in my life.  Nothing I’m ready to talk about yet, but significant stuff.  Some pretty upsetting, some a little exciting.  Amid all that, anything that brings me back to focusing on writing and SF is very welcome.  A con will go a long way to improving my calm.  And a short story sale would do wonders, too.  With luck, this weekend could be a windfall of good vibrations for me.  At the very least, it’ll be fun.

Finished my novel…outline

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

I’ve had 70% of a working outline for my NaNo project for a few weeks, but I just finished sculpting the last few chapters, at least in broad strokes.  The map is drawn, my compass has a heading.  Insert your own cliched metaphor here.  And I’m kind of happy with it.

I’ve known for a while where I was going in a very broad, hand-waving sense.  Now I have a very concrete, hand-waving sense of it.  Next step is to give each of those chapters a point-by-point skeleton.  It’s the most over-wrought outline I’ve ever made, yet I still get to fill in a lot with the writing.

Let’s do a little math here. I currently have 35 chapters planned and most of those should come in around 2-3k words, a few I suspect scraping as much as 5k, so let’s set the average to 3000.  3000 x 35 = 105,000 words.  Ahem.  Yeah, that won’t be finished by the end of November.  And that will be a tough first-novel sale, though it doesn’t seem impossible.  However, I’m (somewhat of a) realist; not all those words will survive the editing apocalypse.  I’m anticipating 95k when the red ink settles, though don’t tie me to that.  I’m giving myself as much permission as possible to expound, be verbose, describe, and generally write like a novelist and not a short story writer.  At the same time, the story is being told through five PoV characters, so each is getting his/her own novella, only diced up and spread through the book chronologically along with the others.  And once characters come together, the story lines bleed into one another.  It is an ambitious project, but I am an ambitious guy I’d like to be an ambitious guy.

There is almost no doubt that the outline will change as I write.  I am comfortable with that and I look forward to it.  And as for the character that I created for a specific purpose but never quite put into the outline…well, she may make a brief appearance and a bloody exit if I truly need her for what I designed her to do.  I’m hoping to just write her out.  There will be enough unpleasant character death as the outline stands, though not quite GRRM standards.

I’m setting myself a moderately soft deadline of Jan. 31 to finish the entirety of the draft.  I really wanted to draw the line at Jan. 1, but there’s way too much happening in December (state tests, end of semester, bitty birthday, X-mas, etc.) to believe in that.  Though I confess, it would be great to have the whole thing submission-ready before ChattaCon (Jan. 25-27).  But finished draft is not submission ready.  But perhaps that makes a better draft deadline…

Anyway, I’m looking at about 72 hours and counting before I can start tapping out prose.  NaNoWriMo, here I come.

Oh yeah, I have three days of work first.  :-/

The Post-Con Hangover

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

I might have consumed a few beers this weekend at ChattaCon, but that’s not the kind of hangover I’m talking about.  The return to reality bears a pain and drudgery no amount of hydration or aspirin can combat.  Life moves on after a Con, whether we’re ready for it or not.

I have a mountain of work to do for school and here I am typing a blog entry.  The thought of real work is so painful, though.  Why can’t my work be hobnobbing and talking on panels and browsing dealer rooms?  Well for one, that’s not work.  None of those things pay the bills.  Writing might one day pay some bills, but being at a con isn’t particularly conducive to writing, either.  Reality comes for us all.  Here are some tips for how to survive the painful transition between the con and the real world.

  1. Catch up with work before the con starts.  Coming back to a pile of tests that need grading or files that need updating or invoices that need invoicing just makes it that much harder to dive back into work.  Moving forward is easier.  I bet you took the time to get your costume ready or compile a stack of books that need autographing or to fine tune your Halo strategy; apply the same kid of effort to catching up the job-type-job and you’ll be a happy worker Monday morning.  Well, happier.  (No, I did not do this.)
  2. Go to bed early Sunday night.  As long as the commute isn’t standing in the way, get thee to a bed.  You’re probably sleep deprived and an extra hour or so will do you wonders.  Getting out of bed may still feel like pushing a rope, but it’ll be easier to get back up to speed.  (No, I didn’t do this, either.)
  3. Wake up earlier than usual Monday morning.  That sounds counter-intuitive, but the extra prep time will be useful as you stare at the showerhead and remember the cools pipes and nozzles on those steampunk costumes or you eat your oatmeal and wish you had one of those stale con-suite donuts to go with it.  (I’m 0 for 3.  This may just be a list of things I wish I had done.)
  4. Buy a souvenir.  A tee shirt, a book, a costume component, a bauble…something to remind you of the con experience.  It makes the experience concrete and shows that you got something you wanted out.  Otherwise you’re likely to sit and pine over how you wasted the moment and want to go back and try again, like that time you didn’t kiss what’s-her-name.  Seriously, this can help.  Just don’t catch yourself staring into your dragon snow globe like some mesmerizing crystal ball trying to relive the con.  (Ooh, I did this one!  A Fireflly Venn diagram shirt.  Very nerdy.)
  5. Suck it up and get back to work.  That is a tip but also a directive to myself, right now.  Cons are great, but like any recreational drug, they should be used with caution.  (This was a metaphor.  Drugs are bad, m’kay.)

Now on to lesson plans.  😦  Wish me luck.

Chugga-chugga-chugga-chugga….

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

Time to pack for ChattaCon.  What do I need?  Hawaiian shirts?  It’s out of season, but it’s my thing.  Plus I got a new one for Christmas, so yup, the Don Ho collection comes with.  What else?  Laptop, as always, but I doubt I’ll have much time to write.  Forecast suggests a raincoat might be worth the trouble.  Doesn’t look like I own any books to get signed by guests…so just the Kindle for reading (plus whatever I buy there). Oh, and my business cards.  Other than that, no special equipment required.  I don’t costume or game and I have nothing to sell.  Just a weekend being a SF fan and writer.  Yippee.

I’m slated for just one panel: surviving the zombie apocalypse.  That will be fun.  Has it been done?  Sure, but that won’t stop us.  I’ll probably try to sneak onto another panel or two or at least be that obnoxious guy in the audience that thinks he’s on the panel.  There’s one on newbie writers where my Writers of the Future experiences might be appreciated.  Then there’s always the hang-at-the-bar panel, always a crowd pleaser.  I’m quite certain I’ll be on that panel at some point.

If you’re anywhere near the Chattanooga area this weekend (that’s the south-east corner of Tennessee), consider hopping by the Chattanooga Choo Choo Hotel for ChattaCon.  The consuite is killer and has two of my favorite double-e words: free beer.  What more needs to be said?

First con of the year

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

It’s probably not the first con in the nation or anything, but ChattaCon will be my first con of the year.  It was a fun little con last year where I made some friends.  They are having me back as an “Also Attending” guest.  Not sure what panels I’ll have, but we shall see.

Tis also the season for Codex‘s Weekend Warrior contest.  It’s really just an excuse to use my competitive spirit to reload my inventory with flash fiction stories, those being my best sellers.  Prompts appear on Friday evening and I have until Sunday evening to submit my story.  This was the first weekend and the story I produced is…I’m predicting top third of the pack, though it’ll be hard to tell since the pack is allegedly numbering in the forties this time around.  But it’s not really about the voting results; it’s about the feedback and having stories to send out.  I have my reading cut out for me this week if I have 40+ stories to read and rate and comment on.  Thank goodness none will be over 750 words!

My new school schedule is giving me a reality kick in the cajones.  Three different classes that are just similar enough to confuse me.  More prep time this semester than last, that’s for sure.  That means less writing time.  Oh please, weather, be good in 11 days so I can get to ChattaCon.  After that, snow school out all you want.

Walking on the Respectable Side

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 2 Comments

I’m off to ConCarolinas soon. (Hooray!) I actually leave Thursday for my parents’ place for a short visit and to hand off the kiddo, then on to Charlotte.

The con got me thinking about business cards.  I mocked up a design and may or may not distribute a few while I’m there.  Anyway, business cards got me thinking about my amateurish email address.  How juvenile is it to put an unpronounceable email on a business card?  So I set out to explore the options of receiving email through this site’s domain name.  Thanks to Google Apps, it turns out it’s easy.  So now I can be reached at writer@scottwbaker.net.  I have not abandoned my old addresses, osomuerte@gmail.com or osomuerte@hotmail.com, so there’s no need to alter any contact info you have for me.  I have simply added a small degree of legitimacy to my persona.

Is it that important to portray myself professionally?  Probably not.  But here;s a short list of things I have done over the past year or so to improve my apparent professionalism:

  • Purchase my domain name.  It’s cheap, like 15 bucks a year, if I recall.  I was too late to grab the .com name, but it’s tough to mistake me for a NYC photographer.
  • Abandoned my web handle.  I’m still “Oso” in a few circles, but mostly I use my name.  A handle from a character in a role playing game is not the way to present myself to the SF world.  Not that the SF world doesn’t get it (most do), just that the SF world knows that I should know better.
  • Cons.  I’ve been a guest at a con (thanks ChattaCon!) and am doing what I can to attend cons periodically.  Why?  Connections!  I made some great ones in Chattanooga in January and I hope to continue the trend this weekend.  The best way to do that?  So far my luck has been at the bar.  Just saying…

…and that’s about it.  I’ve done so little to seem like a pro.  The most important things to do are writing (which I need to do more of) and selling (which I need to do a LOT more of).  Until then I will present myself with dignity and competence, even though I’ll still do it in a Hawaiian shirt.

My First Guest Appearance

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 3 Comments

ChattaCon marked my first time as a guest at a con and only my second con overall.  It was a small con, rar smaller than ConCarolinas.  But I’m pretty sure I was ten times more successful with my networking.  I think the size made that easier.

Registration was quick and easy.  Rumor has it this has not always been the case for ChattaCon, so I thought I’d mention it.

Things started with a meet the guests panel, meaning the guests of honor.  Kristine Kathryn Rusch (hereafter called Kris to save time) was the guest I was primarily there to see, having missed the opportunity at WotF since her husband (Dean Wesley Smith) was ill.  I also found Chelsea Quinn Yarbro and Toni Weisskopf fascinating. After the panel was a reception.  I shoehorned myself shamelessly into the big names’ conversation but didn’t quite get the opportunity to introduce myself to Kris until afterward on her way to the bar (where she did not consume alcohol…but others did).  I introduced myself and we briefly discussed Writers of the Future and she invited me to sit with her and a group of guests.

I won’t play-by-play everything, but I wanted to make it clear how timing and luck played into this con experience.  At the table with us were Toni Weisskopf (publisher of Baen books) and three guys involved in an upcoming anthology, Zombiesque.  (Maybe I’ll plug this book later; it comes out in a week.)  We’ll call these three guys Steve, Greg, and Rob since those were their names.  Anyway, these guys took me under their wing.  Toni knows who I am.  I ended up having breakfast on Sunday with Kris (more lucky timing) where we discussed he business of writing.  I think I made five good solid contacts.  Not that these people can directly advance my career, but they are people I can turn to for advice, guidance, or an introduction.

The con was enjoyable.  The con suite had free beer (!) and slightly questionable snacks.  Programming was thin but not terrible.  I was on two panels.  The first was the zombie panel and was great fun.  The second was “Getting off this rock: how and why.”  There was some difference of opinion as to the precise nature of the panel; was it colonization or just getting into space.  I was the only one on the panel without a significant an related scientific background, so I got steamrolled a bit.  The information was good but I would have like a bit more involvement.  It was a science fiction convention after all; it was a panel about bringing the speculative and the real together.  But I learned some from it so it wasn’t a wasted hour.

All in all it was enjoyable.  I would like to attend again, next year or the one after.  My wife has “suggested” that my writing needs to pay for my con habit.  A sound idea.

Attending the con did two things for my career.  It built contacts and it reminded me what I’m doing.  Science fiction is a community.  Lingering too long away from that community can make it tough to act in the community’s interest.  A little dose of “geek” has my fuel tank primed for more writing.  Maybe I’ll get to it now.

ChattaCon Choo Choo

~ Scott W. Baker ~ Leave a comment

Here I am at ChattaCon.  Got here just early enough, nothing going on yet.  I’m sleeping in the building with “all the party rooms”, so sleeping may prove a relative term.  I’ll likely feel like an old man by Sunday.  Or by….now.  I’ll be sure to post some sort of Con report.  It’s a small Con.  I’m hoping it’s the nice-cozy-intimate kind of small (not that intimate) as opposed to the dull-boring-yocal kind of small.  We shall see.

Revelation: I can write!

~ Scott W. Baker ~ 5 Comments

I can write.  There’s been evidence of this for a while, but it’s just dawned on me tonight.  I.  Can.  Write.

How did I reach this profound conclusion?  This requires a little backstory.  The culmination of the WotF workshop is the 24-hour story.  At some point during the week, you interview a stranger, receive an object, and research in a library all so you can combine these things into a story you start and finish writing in a 24 hour window.  I went through drafts and restarted and scratched and clawed until I had some sort of completed manuscript to turn in.  It was crap.  My characters were flat and cliche and there were loose ends and it was pulpy and I never wanted to see the thing again.

Anyway, “never” arrived today and I pulled this godawful manuscript up on the computer to read.  It was great.  I enjoyed the story in a did-I-really-write-that kind of way.  The woman’s manipulation escalated in a nice arc.  The main character’s internal conflict was not subtle but believable, especially since he was believably not-too-bright.  The antagonists were predictable in a good way, though maybe a little repetitive but that’s their shtick.  he tech was reasonable.  Descriptions seemed appropriate.

So I wrote a story I liked.  Lots of people write stories they like, does that mean they’re any good?  My revelation is in the fact that a story I forced out and thought was worthless may well be a marketable piece.  As in pro-market.  I intend to try it anyway.

A big thanks to Jordan who inspired me to pull the piece out.  (Sorry I wasn’t able to shave off the 1200 words I was hoping to for RGR.  Maybe I can grind something else out soon.)

I suspect this post seems a little egotistical or at the least self-indulgent.  It probably is.  But I felt like this moment was important to share for two reasons.  First, the secret to critiquing your own work is time.  The moment you finish a manuscript is not the time to look for flaws.  You’ll see none or you’ll see nothing but.    Set it aside and work on something else.  When you can barely recall what the story was about, that’s the time to read it.  You’ll see it more like a reader.  And second, and more importantly, a writer who can write well can do it under pressure, through writer’s block, underwater, against a deadline, or in any other case that might become an excuse.  If it types out like crap, you can fix it later.  I made a (large) number of fixes reading this story through, but I found the story in there and the fixes were so easy.  If I hadn’t finished, there would be nothing to fix and I’d likely scrap the whole story.  See, I told you there was a point.

In other news, I’m starting to fear I’ll miss ChattaCon.  Bad weather is moving in and I don’t do snow-driving.  Not a ton of snow so maybe it won’t be impassible; maybe the interstates and major highways will stay clear; maybe Chattanooga will be far enough south to miss it.  Maybe not.  We shall see.  I’m on two panels Saturday: Are zombies the new vampires? at 10 am and Getting off this rock, how and why @ 2 pm (presumably about space colonization).  Both should be good fun.  If I can get there.