WisCon, the world’s largest feminist sci-fi/fantasy convention, concluded yesterday. It was their 29th convention and my 1st of any kind. Publishing magnate Peter Burtis of Shadows of Saturn fame asked me to keep an audio journal of my experiences which I did but since that won’t be out for awhile, I’ll give some overarching thoughts.

WisCon is a bit like a great buffet. You pay a $50 registration fee for all the sci-fi/fantasy you can eat over a period of four (unofficially five) days. Let me tell you people, there’s a lot of interesting things to try and you get full long before the good stuff runs out.

I also volunteered to be on two panels. One was entitled “Glory of God in the Heavens: Religion and Spec Fic” and the other “Unconventional Religion and SF.” I’m glad I did it as I had a lot of fun.

Here’s a rundown of my experiences by day:

THURSDAY
There was a reading given by the Guests of Honor Gwyneth Jones and Robin McKinley at a local feminist bookstore. Technically, this is a pre-event event but still well over 100 people showed up. This was followed up by a sushi dinner with Clarion buddy
Dr. Phil and his lovely wife Debbie. That was followed by staying up until about midnight working on a story collaboration and much futzing with the hotel’s wireless Internet.

FRIDAY
I worked until 4:30 and then moseyed down to the convention. I browsed the art show and looked through the bazillion handouts and fliers and tried to plan which workshops to go to. This is a bigger job than it sounds as there are nearly 200 different activities crammed into the four-day weekend. Met up with Phil and attended the amusing opening ceremonies replete with musical skit. Lovely.

The first panel I attended was called “Using the Lesser-Known Mythologies” and, to be honest, I was a little let down. Suzanne Alles Blom was the moderator and wrote a book called “Inca” that’s about, well, Incas. Marie Jakober was also on the panel and she used Norse myth for her acclaimed book “The Black Chalice.” One panelist (and the best, in my opinion) was a local graduate student in anthropology and the other was one of the convention coordinators. The conversation, remarkably, concentrated on Norse myth. Not only do I know quite a bit about it already, it’s a push to call this “lesser-known.” Surprisingly, very little was said about the Icelandic Sagas and more about general Norse myth which is odd because there’s not many primary sources for Norse myth except the Eddas which aren’t entirely accessible for the lay reader. It got a bit tetchy at the end when the conversation veered towards culutral appropriation, especially when Ms. Jakober said “the story must come first” and made it seem like the author had a limited responisibility to factual history. In the closing comments, the anthropology student said, “Just to point it out, we never discussed African myth, Indian myth, Middle Eastern myth, or anything from Australia or Southeast Asia.” Um…that might have been what a number of us came for.

That night I went up to the party floor and said hi to Kelly Link and Gavin Grant at the Small Beer Press party room. There are usually pressing crowds around both of them but I ended up meeting a few of the Clarion West crowd and compared notes with Deb (Smith?) and Robert Angell for a good long while. I also talked to a nice guy named Bob who taught 20th century poetry in Tennessee until about 3:00 am. Then I went home.

SATURDAY
None of the morning panels enticed me enough to get out of bed and actually get to them. Herein lies one of my problems this WisCon. The programming schedule begins at 8:45 am and the second morning session is at 10:00 am. Unless I sleep at the hotel, there’s no way I’m making the early one and if I want to sleep in at all the second one is out, too. Sleep is precious to me. After the 10:00 session ends, there’s nothing until 1:00. So I took some quality family time instead and took the dog to the dog park.

I wandered for an hour or so before I took part in my first panel on religion and SF. It was a crowded, five-member panel but it went well. One of my panel-mates was G. Scott Huggins who is a former Clarion grad who now lives in Madison. We spoke later about starting a writing group. Another panel member was Guest of Honor Gwyn Jones. The conversation went well although there was a little stepping over each other to speak. Predictably, many of my comments were geared around Tolkien and people seemed genuinely interested. One guy asked for a copy of my senior thesis after the session!

After the panel, I talked with a couple attendees in the hallway for literally another hour. It was mostly religion based (one of the girls took lots of religious studies classes in college and shared a similar viewpoint) but extended to politics, race, religion, and everything else. There’s another late afternoon programming lull and I walked to the library to get some writing done.

I returned at 9:30 pm when the Tor books party and others raged on the sixth floor. I also attended a reading given by a number of people from Clarion West. Some stories were good, some sounded decidedly like Clarion stories. I didn’t have the energy to stay very late and left before midnight.

SUNDAY
The in-laws arrived Sunday morning around 9:00 am and I spent the morning finishing off our seemingly never-ending basement project. Again, I wasn’t motivated enough to get up and go to the convention early and besides, I felt bad leaving my father-in-law with a bunch of ugly work. But I did it at noon anyway!

Sunday was a mixed bag. I went to a weapons demonstration in the afternoon that showed how a variety of martial arts weapons are properly used. There was some info on medieval swords but it was mostly eastern weaponry. While it was cool, it was supposed to be supplemented with info pertaining to writing, specifically “How do you write a good fight scene?” The panelists basically said, you can’t include too much detail or the story gets bogged down. Thanks for that insight…

Afterwards I attended the Strange Horizons Tea Party. Editor-In-Chief Susan Marie Groppi came up to me and asked if I knew about Strange Horizons and that led to a nice conversation. I had to split to catch a panel but not before I approached David J. Schwartz who wrote a great, great story called The New Year’s Party or Dancing on Sleipner’s Bones a few months back and I wanted to tell him how much I enjoyed it. So we talked for about twenty minutes about Ragnarok, writing, and everything else. A genuinely nice guy who was really interested in what I was writing. Common interest in all things Norse and the fact that he used to live Madison didn’t hurt.

The panel I was hurrying to ended up being quite disappointing. It was called “Rewrite” that was supposed to discuss the difficulties rewriting and how writers can ease the process of rewriting. Instead, the panel spent most of its time dwelling on the fact that, love them or hate them, rewrites are necessary. Which seems to be self-evident to this writer and I didn’t need to be cooped up in a small room for over an hour hearing about it.

I left after that and didn’t come back. No energy to get stuck into any more conversations.

MONDAY
For the morning, see “Sunday.”

This is also known as “Does this *&$%ing convention everend?”-day. Cummulative exhaustion and travel necessities saw a much, much lighter day at WisCon with a good half the people gone by noon. I planned on going to my panel and coming home, which is what I did.

The second panel was entitled “Unconventional Myth & SF” and only had three panel members and fifteen in the audience. The conversation was a little more open and free-flowing with more people from the audience participating. We tried to keep more interesting for writers in the crowd and we all dropped book titles. I was quite surprised how enthusiastically some of my suggestions were taken because I mentioned some strange titles: Njal’s Saga, Honor Thy Gods (non-fiction about Greek religion), Hero With a Thousand Faces, as well as possibly strange non-fiction like the Autobiography of Malcolm X and Black Elk Speaks.

CONCLUSION
Overall, an awesome, awesome time and a bargain at $50. Like Clarion, it’s great to be around like-minded people and be able to intelligently discuss the broader issues and ideas in sf/f without looking or feeling like a leper. Next year I plan to submit an academic paper for reading as well.

It would be a different experience going with a few friends and staying in the host hotel, too. Living in the same city is a bit of a blessing and a curse. It’s nice to sleep in my own bed and eat my own food, but it would have been interesting to be steeped in the con culture 24-7. Although I think there’s a saturation point. At US Soccer and US Youth Soccer conventions I’d always end up ducking out of things towards the end because you just can’t take any more of something, even if you love it.

Still, it’s really cool to talk to other writers and editors. It’s extremely helpful to have an “in” with some of these folks who can introduce you to other people. I don’t know how much help any of the panel discussions would be for a newbie writer (not much, I think) and I didn’t go to the critique session, but I got to meet a bunch of new people and may have started a writing circle with Scott. Or a line I guess, because right now we’re just two points.

Can’t wait to do it again next year.

I cannot believe the Champions League final yesterday. There’s no point to recap the whole drama. In short, Liverpool came back from three goals down to AC Milan to tie the game at 3-3 and then went on to win in penalties. Full report here:http://soccernet.espn.go.com/report?id=183634&cc=5901

First of all, Liverpool’s Champs League success has been built on not giving away boatloads of goals. They did. You certainly don’t want to go even one goal down to an Italian side much less three. They did. If you are going to give three goals away to an Italian side, you hope it’s Atalanta and certainly not AC Milan, a powerhouse team capable of killing off a game. It all defies belief. Yet so has Liverpool’s European jaunt from beginning to end. If UEFA does not grant Liverpool a spot in next year’s competition there’s something seriously wrong. The Reds finished fifth in the Premier League and the cut-off for Champs League qualifying is fourth. But in a competition like this you need to give the winner the right to defend their trophy.

In other news, I’m off to WisCon this weekend and looking forward to it. Full reports to follow.

I cannot believe the Champions League final yesterday. There’s no point to recap the whole drama. In short, Liverpool came back from three goals down to AC Milan to tie the game at 3-3 and then went on to win in penalties. Full report here:http://soccernet.espn.go.com/report?id=183634&cc=5901

First of all, Liverpool’s Champs League success has been built on not giving away boatloads of goals. They did. You certainly don’t want to go even one goal down to an Italian side much less three. They did. If you are going to give three goals away to an Italian side, you hope it’s Atalanta and certainly not AC Milan, a powerhouse team capable of killing off a game. It all defies belief. Yet so has Liverpool’s European jaunt from beginning to end. If UEFA does not grant Liverpool a spot in next year’s competition there’s something seriously wrong. The Reds finished fifth in the Premier League and the cut-off for Champs League qualifying is fourth. But in a competition like this you need to give the winner the right to defend their trophy.

In other news, I’m off to WisCon this weekend and looking forward to it. Full reports to follow.

Oh, I almost forgot:

(4/26/05) - I know Spurs will go 1-1-1 in these games to finish with 52 points and in 9th place which gets them nothing, nor should it.

Guess how it ended? Tottenham - 52 pts. and 9th place. Oh, and nothing to show for it.

Their last three results were:
(W) Tottenham Hotspur 5, Aston Villa 1
(L) Tottenham Hotspur 0, Middlesbrough 1
(D) Tottenham Hotspur 0, Blackburn 0

Yes, it would have been much more impressive had I specifically called the results (I probably would have said L-D-W instead) but that won’t keep me from patting my own back. The loss at Boro killed them. They still have a 1-in-5 chance of qualifying via the Fairy Play league which means they were one of the nicest teams on the pitch all season. Still, this team would be methodically dismantled by a half-decent Spanish or German side so even if they get in there’s little hope of them going far.

FA Cup this weekend, Man Utd and Ars*nal. While this is a bit like choosing the noose or the gun, I say go Man Ure. It would be delightful to see the Arse finish the season empty handed. How’s that undefeated season taste now?

Here’s another something I take exception to regarding Star Wars:
http://movies.msn.com/news/article.aspx?news=191342

Aside from the political teases, “Sith” is pretty much what you’d expect from this increasingly tired series. Perhaps it was inevitable that once Han Solo disappeared, so would the fun of “Star Wars.”

First, I object to calling Star Wars “increasingly tired.” The Bradys go to Hawaii, the Keatons visit London, or there’s the introduction of a precocious child–these are the hallmarks of a series well past its shelf life. Grasping at straws for plot, one might say. This is not the problem with the recent Star Wars movies.

Their problem is poor storytelling, which is further highlighted by the fact that the storytelling was the major appeal to the original three movies. Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers never had the same appeal or commanded the same sense of wonder as Star Wars, primarily because Luke Skywalker’s story–the archetypal “hero’s journey” if you’ve a Joseph Campbell fan–was far more gripping. The scenery and effects were fantastic window dressing to a classic story. The glimpses of other worlds, other wars, and other histories work in the original three Star Wars the same way snatches of antiquity add depth to “Lord of the Rings.”

The major difference? Tolkien had a rock-solid back story; Lucas did not. I prefer Tolkien’s “Silmarillion” to “Lord of the Rings” because it’s a wider and deeper story, and even there we get hints of “lost” stories (this something I mentioned in yesterday’s blog.) Tolkien did not franchise Middle-Earth by allowing spin-offs; he had one world, one history, and one interpretation of events in his mind: namely, his own. As row after row of Star Wars books in the bookstores tell us, Lucas franchised the shit out of his created world.

I believe Lucas had a rough idea of Annakin Skywalker’s history and the formative events in his life and a general idea of how the Empire formed, but that’s it. I don’t want to go into all the reasons episodes one and two are disappointing, but I still contend it could have been done well–it just wasn’t. The movies are short on charm, long on CGI, and bereft of fun. But it’s not because the story went stale or there isn’t enough interesting material in the Star Wars universe to mine, but rather Lucas completely lost the grip on what made the originals so appealing.

I think we’re all tired of watching a flailing Lucas sully his image. I watched about 1/3 of Star Wars the other night and it’s good, good stuff–minus the needless CGI crap they “added” to the DVDs. How I wish I could get that “bonus” material removed and just have the original recipe instead of the XTRA CRISPY!!! version.

It’s tiring being annoyed all the time.

The Kalevala is picking up speed again, first with Lemminkainen’s decision to wage war on North Farm and how Jack Frost stops him (the character of Jack Frost might be a bit of a stretch for the translator since I don’t think the text means that exact figure from Norse mythology but, hey, it’s fun), and now I’ve started the Kullervo episode.

The Kullervo episode is about revenge, incest, and suicide so what’s not to like? Tolkien modeled the section of Túrin Turambar in “The Silmarillion” after this portion of the Kalevala.

I’m also starting a paper on Tolkien’s use of northern myth in his work that, if it’s any good, will be part of my submission package for graduate school when I apply this fall. I wrote a piece entitled “Echoes of Echoes” that was short–about 1500 words–that described how Tolkien uses the structure of “Beowulf” to add depth and a sense of antiquity and sorrow to “Lord of the Rings.” I need to expand it considerably and will discuss more of the little-known sources Tolkien used (it annoys me to no end that most critics point only to the origin of the dwarf names in the Hobbit (which Tolkien lifted directly from the Old Icelandic poem “Voluspa”) and that the “Kalevala” has singing, dueling wizards similar to Gandalf and Saruman in LOTR, and then quickly move on; while both statements are certainly true it does a disservice to the whole of northern European literature Tolkien drew from and isn’t very insightful) as well as using the “but those are lost stories” backdrop Tolkien uses liberally in LOTR, something he found most moving in “Beowulf.”

I finally read the entire “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” by Tolkien the other day. Considering how highly it’s regarded as criticism of the poem it’s damn hard to find other than excerpts. The Norton and other annotated editions have pared down versions. Turns out I’d read probably 85% of it in various places. [sarcasm]The last 15% only had to do with uninteresting things–things like the nature of the Greek gods, the Norse gods, and the Christian God. And who really cares about that?[end sarcasm]

This quote from an MSN article on the final episode of Star Wars (linked here) I find completely perplexing:

In the last two movies, Lucas put too much focus on delivering the big Industrial Light and Magic action scenes to the attention-deficit kiddies instead of a well-crafted story for those of us who are his real target audience, the children of the original “Star Wars” generation.

Um…I have a couple of serious problems with this, mostly about the “real target audience.”

1) No matter what way you cut it this I don’t see how the author can be a child of someone from the Star Wars generation. Star Wars came out in 1977 and I would think the “Star Wars” generation would begin with six-year-olds and extend to fifteen-year-olds and I still think that’s being generous. In order to be part of that generation, I think Star Wars had to fundamentally become intwined with your imagination. I mean, can you really claim to be part of the Star Wars generation if you didn’t run around your basement with the Millenium Falcon toy? I don’t think many fifteen-year-olds did. It’s much more probable that Star Wars is entrenched in my imagination (the movies were released when I was 3, 6, and 9 years old) as I had all the action figures and watched the movies a thousand times, as a child is wont to do. My older brothers probably fit the bill even more as they’re three years older: the fertile field of a child’s free roaming imagination tends to go fallow around 12 when, lamentably, we begin to look forward to more adult things like changing clothes in front of other people in a locker room. So back to the article, I would dispute this author’s claim that his parents were of the Star Wars generation. Unless he’s seven-years-old writing for MSN.

2) It’s even more naive to claim that anyone old enough to write an article for MSN would be part of the “real” target audience. Didn’t the Ewoks prove the target market for the Star Wars franchise once and for all? Adults will see the movie once or twice and maybe buy the DVD. In short, they’ll shell out a grand total of $50 if Lucas and Co. is lucky. $50 won’t put a dent in a kid’s Star Wars wishlist. There are toys, animated DVD spin-offs, T-shirts, lunch boxes, jammies, books, etc. Again, even a thirteen-year-old isn’t the target market: that’s just too old.

Seriously, think about it: who was Jar-Jar Binks supposed to appeal to? Anyone remotely close to adulthood?

Star Wars is great entertainment and it had a profound impact on my imagination as a child, no doubt. I love the first three, even if I turn a blind eye to the Ewoks (could you imagine how much “Return of the Jedi” would have kicked ass if it had been a planet full of Wookies instead?). But the franchise has clearly suffered by being “strengthened” by the corporate machine (a la Vader and his mechanical implements) and, more frankly, through the author’s collapsing vision. I will argue until I’m blue in the face that Star Wars packs a big punch for entertainment value–and it’s good entertainment, not completely mindless–but people are cracked if they think Lucas successfully forwards any philosophy or world-view.

Sadly, the European soccer season draws to a close in the coming weeks.

Chelsea has to be one of the biggest surprises, for me at least. With Mourinho and a cast of thousands coming to Stamford Bridge this season I expected them to take more time to gel. When you think about what the Portugese did with his time and money compared to his predecessor Ranieri… I knew they’d be in the top three, suspected they’d be in the top two, and wouldn’t have been too surprised to hear they’d won the league; but to do it in such a convincing fashion, beating Man Utd’s EPL point total record and nearly matching Arse’s unbeaten record, it’s pretty amazing. John Terry has already said next year’s goal is an undefeated season. Considering the way they turned over Man Utd the other night and look to finish a full ten or eleven points over the runners-up, who’s to argue? I’m glad they got knocked out of the FA Cup and Champions League, though.

Speaking of surprises, Liverpool’s performance in the Champs League is even more unexpected. The fact they got past Juventus still boggles the mind. Knocking out Leverkusen, okay, but Juve? And then Chelsea? They’re likely to finish 40 points behind the Blues in the league. How’d that happen?

Well, with good defense basically. Which means the final with AC Milan will probably be dull, dull, dull. Liverpool needs to win just to have a chance of competing in the tournament next year (it’s disgusting to think that the cup holder doesn’t necessarily get free passage into the next year’s competition when all the second-placed teams in leagues around Europe do). Both sides will be ultracautious and we might end up with a 0-0 draw and penalties, a la the all-Italian snorefest a few years back. For all the glitter and glam surrounding the tournament the final usually disappoints.

And finally, we’ll see how my powers of prognostication fare. On 4/26 I wrote:

In my heart, I know Spurs will go 1-1-1 in these games to finish with 52 points and in 9th place…

As of today, Spurs have won one and lost one, and they’re in ninth place on 51 points with virtually nothing to play for on Saturday. It’s mathematically possible for them to finish in that seventh spot which would get them into Europe but it would mean both Man City and Boro would have to lose and Spurs would have to win by two clear goals. I can’t decide whether I’d rather have them win or whether I’d rather have them draw this weekend just so I was right…

Well, the Kalevala ground to a halt for me. There’s a big chunk dealing with Ilmarinen’s wedding that goes on for a number of chapters. It’s lay after lay after lay about married life for the bride-to-be with advice like “be nice to your mother-in-law even when she treats you like dirt” and the general sentiment that “life as you know it is over.” It’s probably quite interesting from an anthropologic/ethnographic context, but gimmie singing wizards and I’ll be more happy. I’ve been wading through it for days now and even when I decided to skip ahead (normally considered a mortal sin for me) I still don’t have the same level of excitement as I did for the first third.

I need to get back on the writing wagon, too. BJD went out almost a week ago now and I’ve done very little serious work since. There are a number of stories that need a spit polish (meaning a day or two of editing) and they’ll go out. Not sure where yet and that might be part of the problem. Now that I’m more familiar with the markets I’ve got a better idea of what they’ll tolerate. Stories with a marginal (or lessor) speculative fiction element seem to have more luck at Asimov’s, Strange Horizons and SCIFI.com–or at least that’s my perception. F&SF stories typically have a strong spec fic element right up front, something Gordon mentioned at Clarion. It’s funny–before Clarion I had no idea why editors choose the stories they do for their mags but now (and thanks in no small part to the sometimes conversations on our Clarion group’s private website) I can see much more clearly what kinds of stories specific editors are drawn to–or at least that’s my perception.

F&SF has had “From the Mouths of Babes” for 21 days. This is quite a bit longer than usual and means absolutely nothing. They ask for eight weeks for a reply but my previous submissions have been answered in about 10 days. My initial reaction is that it must be lost. I’ve only had one lost submission (to Ideomancer) and it’s annoying when it happens; you check your mailbox (email box, in this case) waiting for a response and none ever comes. Querying about the status of your story is an uncomfortable matter; you don’t want to be pushy or overbearing (I can’t belive the unprofessional demeanor of hacks amateur writers I’ve seen on spec fic message boards) but on the other hand the editors give their response time windows for a reason and if you’re waiting past that time… It just feels like a no-win situation. Point being, F&SF says eight weeks, I’m used to under two, and I shouldn’t be getting antsy for a response at three weeks. I just shouldn’t.

But I am.

What is Your World View?
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QuizFarm.com

You scored as Cultural Creative. Cultural Creatives are probably the newest group to enter this realm. You are a modern thinker who tends to shy away from organized religion but still feels as if there is something greater than ourselves. You are very spiritual, even if you are not religious. Life has a meaning outside of the rational. Cultural Creative 69% Materialist 69% Idealist 63% Postmodernist 56% Modernist 38% Romanticist 25% Existentialist 19% Fundamentalist 19%

Saw this on John Schofftstall’s blog. It’s pretty interesting and pretty accurate I guess.