Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

Me on Sunday

Sunday is always a short day at  Philcon, the annual Philadelphia science fiction convention run by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society.

It's usually a pretty relaxing day for me. I had to leave right from there to go to my improv class for our open class, so I dressed in layers. I wore a pair of brown cargo pants with a striped shirt, my peace argyle sweater and a chocolate brown jacket. I figured I could remove the jacket later, and even the sweater, if I needed to for the performance. It was important to me to look fairly professional, since I knew I'd be meeting editors and writers at the panels I was attending.

The Gryphon and I wanted to get in at around 10 again, but this time we ran into trouble because there was a marathon going on, and all sorts of streets were blocked off. Every time I tried to go around it, we found another police officer blocking off the street. Finally, we had to ask for directions to get around the blocked streets.

So this time we didn't arrive at the convention until about 10:30. The first thing I wanted to attend was a panel on networking at 11 a.m. It was aimed at beginning writers, to give them advice on how to make connections with other writers, editors, and agents, and parlay that into a career.

The panelists, John Passarella, Dan Cragg, Hildy Silverman and Gary Frank, provided some great tips. I took notes, of course. Somewhere near the end of it, I got a phone call from my sister. I took it out in the hallway. She wanted to let me know that she'd gotten sick and wouldn't be able to get to her local David's Bridal this weekend to look at the bridesmaids' dresses. I told her not to worry; she could just give me her measurements and I'd work something out with the other bridesmaids.

By the time I got off the phone with her, there were only two minutes left in the panel, so I just popped in and grabbed my bag and left.

Then I went to the next panel I'd selected, another writing panel. It was called "Promoting Your Work (Just) Short of a Tattoo on Your Forehead". Some of it was stuff I'd heard before. In fact, some of them were people who were on a similar panel last year. Still, there were some new tips, and I took notes.

I went up afterwards and apologized to Hildy for leaving her other panel early. She said it was no problem. We'd been on a panel before two years ago, and I chatted with her briefly.

The last writing panel I attended was on "Avoiding Publishing Scams". This was moderated by a woman who runs a web site warning writers away from scams. There was some good information, some of which I knew but some of which was new to me.

Afterwards, I said hi to one of the panelists, Scott Edelman, who'd been on a panel with me last year.

The last panel I attended was "Gaming as a Gateway Drug to Genre Literature", which was the only other panel The Gryphon was on this weekend. He was the moderator for this panel, so I'd helped him come up with ways to approach the subject.

I think he did a great job as a moderator. He kept the discussion flowing and made sure everyone had a chance to talk, as well as letting the audience participate. They talked about some literary works that had been turned into games, how even generic games can lead people to SF and fantasy, and near the end, how game designers turn a literary work into a game.

Walking past the game room, I noticed that someone had flipped over the signs they'd been reusing from Otakon 2006, which one of the staffers who worked both cons had rescued from the recycling bin. The out of place sign struck me as funny, as I imagine it had the person who'd done the mischief.

Before I headed to my final improv class, the open class I've already written about, I wanted to get something to eat. The Court Wizard stopped by The Gryphon's panel to let us both know that a group was getting together at 4 for dinner. But The Gryphon wanted to go to the Gripe Session for the convention and provide some constructive feedback.

I agreed to go, because I needed to eat early. The Court Wizard told me he had a book by Charles Stross that he wanted signed, and I suggested we try to find him. We consulted the schedule and discovered he'd just been in a panel on the mezzanine level, so we walked in that direction and kept an eye out for him.

Sure enough, I looked over the balcony and saw him sitting in a chair in the bar area, talking to some other authors. I suggested we go down and I'd let him know I'd just e-mailed him the rest of the questions, which would be a good opening.

So we made our way to the lobby, and I greeted him and thanked him again for the interview, letting him know I'd just sent him the rest of the questions that morning. Then I told him that a friend of mine wanted his book signed, and he was happy to oblige. We chatted briefly about his latest cool T-shirt, which was a mix between Spongebob Squarepants and Cthulhu

We hung out on some benches in the lobby, waiting for The White Rabbit, who was on an anime panel. But after a while, we couldn't wait any longer. The Court Wizard was on a tight schedule, because he had to make a flight. So The Paper agreed to wait at the rendezvous spot, since she has a cell phone. She promised to update us when she knew what was going on. If we had to, we could have brought a sub back for The White Rabbit and The Paper.

Actually, we weren't even all through the line when The Paper called to say they were heading over to join us. This particular Subway restaurant had a nice upstairs with plenty of seating, so we all managed to find a table where we could sit together.

All told, it was The Cheshire Cat, The Paper, The Dormouse, The White Rabbit, The Court Wizard, and the Video Editor. We talked about our Philcon experiences and also got into a conversation about what was funny and what was not funny. It was nice to have a little downtime with them before heading for my improv class.

After I said goodnight to everyone, I headed towards the theater for my class, stopping on the way for coffee.

More Musings from Philcon 2006:

November 21, 2006 - Cutting Edge Panels

November 27, 2006 - Funny Day

Philcon 2005:

December 13, 2005 - Light Side, Dark Side

Philcon 2004:

December 14, 2004 - Friendly Philcon Morning

Philcon 2003:

December 15, 2005 - Convention from Another Planet

Copyright 2006 by Alyce Wilson

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