Once more, into the breach!

It's about 5:10 PM right now, and I'm propped up in bed, resting my feet because it's been a bugger of a long day on them. The day started out at 8:00 AM, when I crawled out of my nest between the bed and window (air mattress -- I hate hotel beds) and somehow got myself upright and dressed -- not the easiest task in the world when you went to sleep sometime after 2:30 AM.

And no, the early rising was not my idea -- I had a writer's workshop to do at 10:00 AM, however, and needed to make some last-minute notes to the three stories I'd critiqued. I staggered downstairs to the hotel restaurant, had a very nice and astoundingly expensive buffet breakfast, then went up to the mezzanine level to make my notes. The mezzanine has a lovely view of the hotel lobby, and sometime today I'll probably go back up there and take pictures. I had my camera with me this morning, but realized somewhat too late that I'd left my memory card back in the room. Bad Mellie, no biscuit.

The workshop itself was good -- I do the same thing with FutureClassics every other week, so I was pretty comfortable with the requirements. We had two first chapters and a short story, which were all pretty good -- they just needed some judicious editing. The moderator ran the section by having the writers do a critique first, then her critique, then the pros, and I managed to make most of the writers laugh with my comments, which is nice.

Unfortunately I had to leave right after my last critique, because I was expected to be at the SFWA table in full Musketeer regalia to escort Esther Friesner around the dealer's room (which is astoundingly tiny this year) and offer the Queen's Healing (good for curing writer's block, keeping recalcitrant editors in line and convincing publishers to give you a hefty advance) and a souvenir certificate for a mere $5.00. We made an astounding amount of money, too -- some people wanted Esther to do the proper laying on of hands, and some wanted a remote healing, but they all coughed up for the EMF. By the time we got back to the table I estimate we made somewhere between $50 and $75 -- not bad for a half hour's worth of work.

Unfortunately this was all done on a polished concrete floor, and both our feet were complaining after awhile, so we went back to the SFWA table and chatted with passersby. Esther went off to get changed out of her queen getup for a panel right around the time Lee showed up in uniform (we were going to be runners at the EMF auction at 3:00 PM), and we hung out and talked with Madeline Robbins and Teresa Patterson for a bit. Lee headed off for something else, and Mad and I decided that we were in desperate need of food before the auction. Luckily there's a rather nice and decidedly cheap food court across the street from the convention center, so we braved Front Street for sesame chicken on pad thai (her) and beef and vegetables with fried rice and won ton soup (me). C.J. Jones joined us, and we spent the meal talking about attractive actors and other amusing men.

Speaking of amusing men, I finally ran into Terry Pratchett on the escalators. He looked at me, blinked and said, "You've lost weight!" Ah, how I love to hear those words. We talked for a bit about the lack of Musketeering demo here due to the border controls on fencing weapons, and how we managed to successfully fence in Chicago using rubber chickens. Afterwards, Mad and I headed down to the Pit for the auction, which was a stone success. While Lee and Peter Heck auctioneered, Laura Anne Gilman and I acted as runners for the various items. The SFWA Musketeer doll went for $185 to Harriet Culver, which is extremely cool, and someone else won a Tuckerization in Laura Anne's next book for $500. I finally left at 4:15 PM when I realized that my feet, which had been in boots for the last 4 hours, were about to explode.

Con tip: sore feet. Odds are that you'll wind up with extremely sore feet at some point during Worldcon, simply from the sheer amount of walking you'll do. The best way to combat this is to take a twenty minute break back in your hotel room. Sit on the edge of your bathtub and wash your feet thoroughly with warm water, soap and a washcloth (the massaging action helps), then pop in the plug and fill the tub partway so that you can soak your feet for about 10 minutes. They'll feel much better afterwards, trust me.

I'm going to sprawl here for another half hour, then go out in search of cheap food and the ATMs that Lyndon said would take our Texans ATM cards, then get ready for the Hugos. Check back later for reports and pictures!

Post Hugos

The Hugos were absolutely jammed, and George R. R. Martin can teach Connie Willis a thing or two about delaying the delivery of an award. I was bummed that Stan Robinson didn't win for THE YEARS OF RICE AND SALT, but Geoff Landis did take the Best Short Story for "Falling Onto Mars," so that's extremely cool. Unfortunately Bob Eggleton couldn't make it this year, so Sharon Sbarsky had to do his patented hair flip while accepting for him.

Afterwards, while Lyndon made the rounds of the parties on the first and second floors, I spent the bulk of the evening in the Ace party, enjoying the company, the champagne and yummy cake, and the free books -- yay! Ginjer Buchanan knows how to throw one heck of a party, judging from the happy people circulating around the room. I goofed around with Laura Anne Gilman, Kris Smith, Keith DeCandido and Teresa Patterson some more, chatted briefly with Lisa Tuttle and Kim Stanley Robinson, and generally had a really nice time. If only my camera hadn't shut down when I finally got a chance to get a picture of Robert Silverberg -- rats!

Around 1:00 AM I went up briefly to the SFWA suite for a Pepsi and some slightly more substantial munchies -- ran into Sam Ling and Daniel Korn, was treated to a pictorial display of upraised middle fingers like none I've seen before, and fled to my room for some badly needed sleep.