Publishing Parties Are Fun!

Especially when they serve free Bailey's, which is why I sound like Fan Barbie right now.

I think this is going to be one of those cons where I could eat my weight in chocolate and still wind up smaller at the end of it all, simply from the amount of miles I'm walking every day. Such as, say, today -- got up at 10:00 AM, jumped into clothes and grabbed a doughnut and iced cappuccino from Tim Horton's (Tim Horton's *droooool) before heading over to the convention center, where I ran into Samantha Ling from the WebRats and gabbed for a bit before heading with her to her panel "Travel as Research," with Melinda Kimberley, Mike Resnick, Elizabeth Moon and Josepha Sherman.

Needless to say, I know a little bit about this, and was able to make a few comments about Oxford and Stockholm from the audience. Mike passed out tips on how to write off trips as research on your tax returns, and Elizabeth told us stories about getting stuck in the back of beyond during the last Glasgow Worldcon and discovering an entire little world in that neighborhood. Oh, and apparently in the 1800's there were 700 prostitutes to 2000 miners in this little Western town Sam visited, and getting your rocks off cost anywhere between 25 cents to a whole dollar. The things you learn on trips.

Afterwards, I accompanied Elizabeth to her room so that I could measure and relieve her of her black silk twill trousers -- she's lost weight in the past couple of months, and really needed to have them taken in by the fastest seamstress in the west so that she could wear them to the Eos party this afternoon. She also gave me chocolate, blessed woman that she is, and we talked for awhile about various things going on in non-fan areas of our lives.

She then had to go do a signing at the SFWA table, so she dressed up in her Musketeer uniform and we headed down to the convention center. At the table I finally got to see the SFWA Musketeer doll created for the EMF auction, and a thing of beauty it is indeed -- if I didn't have to pay the rent this month, that puppy would be mine, bwahahahahahaha. As I am currently poor, I can only gaze upon it and dream.

I then ran into Kristine Smith, who was going to be our escort to the Eos party. Since I didn't know 1) when it was, 2) where it was or 3) when we should meet up, this meeting was kinda critical. We decided to grab sandwiches from the CC's snack bar (very nice egg salad sammich, by the way) and plot out the rendevous that afternoon, when she mentioned that she was about to go to Terry Pratchett's reading.

Go back to the room and work on Elizabeth's pants, or go listen to Terry read from his current work in progress? It wasn't even a contest -- we headed into the lowest level of the CC (naturally termed The Pit) and wound up in the back of the room, laughing at what sounds like a brilliant Discworld mirror of current military events while I knitted away at my Torcon socks. This was actually the second time I've been in the same room as Terry -- the third time would be this afternoon at the Eos party, and I still haven't been able to say hello. Bugger.

After the reading I headed back here to do my seamstress bit, and met up with Lyndon. He was looking forward to a leatherworking panel on the costuming track, and we had to juggle bathroom time while trying to get ready for our respective events. He finally cleared out, I finished up Elizabeth's pants, jumped in the shower, dried off, struggled into spandex undergarments (which is always so much fun with slightly damp skin -- once again I was channelling Sumerian swear words as I twisted and tore at the blasted bustier), and did all the other girly things that made me look halfway presentable to the public. Headed back to the Crowne Plaza Hotel (second time today -- you may want to start counting) to Elizabeth's room, and took in the splendour of her surroundings (on the concierge floor -- totally sweet) while she got dressed.

Kris was waiting for us in the lobby, and we grabbed a cab (with a somewhat fragrant driver, and yes, I'm being sarcastic here) to the Academy of Spherical Arts on Hanna Avenue. The Academy is a collection of beautifully restored antique pool tables, plus a bar to die for, and the place was loaded with munchies, free Eos books and any drink you wanted. We immediately claimed a table, and I taught Elizabeth the basics of playing pool while a LOCUS photographer hovered around us, snapping pictures. I must note here that I was wearing a fairly short purple dress, and, under the effect of three Bailey's on ice, was quite happy to lean over the table in order to line up a shot, so if you see pictures of a chunky redhead flashing her panties in the Worldcon issue of LOCUS, that's me.

Oy. But it was fun -- I played Elizabeth, then Elizabeth played an increasingly merry Kris (who threatened me with unpleasant insertion of a pool cue when I told her she wrote military SF and didn't have to worry about tone), then their agent Joshua played Ellen Klages while waiters brought us drinks and plates of duck wraps, mini quiches, California rolls, chicken kebabs in peanut sauce and other extremely tasty nibbles. Yeah, I could get used to this.

Kris also suggested that I go circulate and meet people, since this was a publishing party and I am a writer who will eventually have a novel to peddle. So I wandered around, took pictures, chatted with people (including Kris's editor) and generally had a good time. Believe it or not, I'm somewhat hesitant to walk up to people and start chatting at this sort of event, mainly because I don't want them to think I'm just there to schmooze. A bit of schmoozing is necessary, mind you, but just as you shouldn't climb into an editor's face and start telling them all about your wonderful novel, you also shouldn't suck up to them -- that's just creepy, and a lot of them have excellent built-in bullshit detectors. But I didn't piss anyone off and Kris said I'm fun and pleasant, so hopefully I left a good impression.

Once Ellen was finished with Joshua, I was supposed to play her, but she had a 7:00 PM reading and it was already 6:30 (I found out later that she used to play tournament pool, so obviously someone Up There was looking out for me). We went outside to hail a cab back to the hotel, and heard what had to be a fighter jet making low continued passes behind the surrounding buildings. "Oh, yeah, there's an air show going on right now," one of the people waiting with us said, which explains the fighter jet we saw at the airport yesterday while pulling up to the gate. We never actually saw the one in the air, more's the pity, but it was certainly loud.

Back at the hotel, Kris and Ellen peeled off to Ellen's reading, Elizabeth went up to her room and I headed back to the Royal York to drop off my stash. I spent a half hour processing some of the pictures, then headed back to the Crowne Plaza (third time) to meet up with Elizabeth, Kris and Ellen in the bar.

Except they had no bar in the CP -- Ellen just assumed they did, which was perfectly logical. Or maybe she meant the bar at the Royal York, who knows. Elizabeth and I were already tired and had to do panels in the connecting Convention Center in less than an hour anyway, so we hung out in the lobby and chatted with Tom Powers, Tom and Jan Hise, and Dan (Cruel Yet Beautiful) Procoprio until 9:00PM

At the stroke of the hour Elizabeth headed off to "Big Girls and Boy's Toys -- Women and Guns" while I hosted the SFF.Net mixer with Tom. Well, hosted for a half hour, anyway -- once things were going and people were munching on a $200 platter of cookies, I slipped out and caught the last half of the Women and Guns panel, which was a cool look at women's roles in the military, writing mil SF with female protagonists, and other related stuff. Near the end Terry Fong, the Programming Division Head and a buddy of mine from Montreal, slipped in, and we had a whispered chat while the panel wrapped up.

Afterwards we all headed back to the Royal York for the parties, and I ran into two other Con*Cept alumni, Rene Walling and Rebecca Downey, which was great. Rene found out that I was doing this website, and invited me to inspect the closet under the stairs, AKA Programming Ops, tomorrow. I promised I'd stop by, and caught up with Elizabeth, John Hemry and a friend. Once at the Royal York we went straight upstairs to the Tor Party, which was hot, crowded and noisy. Nice nibbles though -- the Academy food had worn off by then, so I had a plate of veggies and bread with cheese while chatting with Julie Mandala, a Plano writer, belly dancer and editor of the upcoming Hell anthology. She asked me if I knew about it, and I told her I already had a story in progress and she'd probably get it sometime next week. I also volunteered to come to the slush reading party, so I have now been anointed as a willing slush slave -- whee! I also finally got to meet John Scalzi, someone I've known via email and his blog for a couple of years, now. John is a professional journalist and just sold his first novel to Tor, so he was understandably excited to be there.

Eventually the sauna atmosphere got to me, so I wandered around the various other parties, hitting (in order) the Friends of Liaden party (got a sticker and a green lizard), the Circlet Press party (got an invitation to come to Confusion in Michigan in January), the Toronto TrekCon party (got a sticker and a program book), and the SimeGen party (got a new Pepsi). I mused over the idea of going to the SFWA suite, but figured it would be as crowded, if not more so, than the Tor party.

Instead, I returned to my snug little hotel room, there to peel off my spandex things and breathe for the first time in seven hours. Ahhhhh. . . And now, to do a final readthrough of the manuscripts for tomorrow's workshop!