San Jose

You know, I find that I don’t have a terrible lot to say on the subject of World Fantasy Convention 2009. I mean, I had a fantastic time, but I didn’t really do much that would make really interesting reading. Sure, I went to one or two programme items – of which the highlight was Jeff and Ann Vandermeer’s double headed interview, which was revealing, hilarious and touching all at the same time. And I went to a fair few readings – of which Zoran Zivkovic, Jeff Vandermeer, Jeff Ford and Jesse Bullington were really top notch, and special mention to Jetse DeVries’s Daybreak/Shine event which assured all that attended of a rosy future through the medium of an outstanding 18yr old Highland Park. And the parties were good too – including the launches for Marie and Paul’s Hellbound Hearts and the wacky-as-you’d-expect Last Drink Bird Head anthology (and what a beautiful artifact that is now I have it in my hands!).  And I mooched around the dealer’s room, bought a handful of great new books to top off the 20-odd assorted hardbacks, paperbacks and magazines that came in the WFC gift bag. And I generally hung out with old friends and was introduced to some excellent new ones.

All of which is a superb way to spend four days.

But I didn’t see much of San Jose itself. I had no great dramas (once I was finally allowed into the country, was reunited with my bag and had persuaded my credit card company that going on holiday does not equate to fraud). It was just a Nice Time, but it’s difficult to convey that special superlative WFC definition of “nice” unless you’ve experienced it for yourself.

From a writer’s perspective there simply is NO equivalent on this planet. None.

And suddenly it’s…

…three days til I fly out to San Jose for WFC.

I cannot…CANNOT…believe it’s come up so fast. There’s been so much to do over the last few weeks (and so much still to do before I leave), but here it is. And I’m suddenly really looking forward to it. Looking forward to the LDBH launch. Looking forward to hanging out with old friends. Looking forward to the special WFC atmosphere. It’s all going to be great.

The only thing that annoys me is I had a breakthrough on the novel this morning and suddenly feel that the last thing I need at the moment is time away from the keyboard.

Ah well, it’ll keep. It’ll keep.

A Grand Weekend, And A Well-timed Shot In The Arm

I’ve been going to conventions a long time now, certainly long enough to have the occasional bum one. The event that you turn up to feeling out of sorts and where you never manage to engage with the event. Where you linger on the periphery while everyone else is having a ball or trawl the dealers tables too many times just for something to do or sit through a programme item you have no interest in or stay in your hotel room until the biscuits run out or spend hours out exploring the environs of some dismal district of a town you would never otherwise have chosen to visit. I’ve not had many conventions like that, but they do happen. And sometimes you ask yourself why you go to them at all.

Well, it’s the people, obviously. The old social networkings is brilliant for keeping up to date with friends, but nothing beats the Saturday night conversations that encompass everything (yes, I went to Fantasycon and had excellent conversations about football and songwriting, bite me!) and swallow the hours. Nothing beats seeing one friend win an award and then hearing that another has sold their first story, and being equally pleased about both. Nothing beats HAVING to break your own limit on how many books you were going to buy because there are so many beautiful, intriguing ones there and the people selling them are so persuasive. Nothing beats those truly original  thoughts that spark out of those long conversations:

SOUND EFFECT: A long, lazy, snuggly, underwater  yawn.

VO: “And when Cthulhu wakes up, all his friends wake up. Hastur, the rag doll. Blind Azathoth, the carved wooden bookend in the shape of an abomination. And all of Shug-Nigurath’s thousand young on the mouse organ wake up too.”

Everyone looks at the found “thing” that has been placed before Bagpu… Cthulhu. The “thing” screams in unimaginable, mind-shattering terror.

But there’s more. It’s the creative boost too. The recharging of the writing cells, the topping up of the story tanks. And there’s the occasional shot of nitrous to the mix too, the belt that sends you home fizzing with ideas, with the knowledge how to fix this story, how to complete that one, and the germs of five or six more.

At FantasyCon this year, my nitrous came afterwards, when I read a story from Patrick O’Leary’s new collection from PS, The Black Heart. I love O’Leary’s work but he is published so disparately that I miss a lot of his stories when they come out, so this was a must-have for me. And on the homeward journey it was my first choice for inflight reading. Spurred by James Morrow’s introduction, I picked a beautiful, gentle story called “The Dreaming Bird”, that would have enchanted me enough on its own even without the *incredible* four-page paragraph at its heart that encompasses much of the tragedy of modern living in one gorgeous feat of writing skill. After I finished the story, I closed my eyes and enjoyed the simple act of thinking about what I’d read.

And I stepped off the plane with such renewed ambition you wouldn’t believe. And that’s why I go to conventions. They heal the writer’s soul.

Easter, here and gone

This being the obligatory post-Eastercon post, although to be honest it all passed in more of a blur than usual.

The convention was well run, with a lot of thought and work clearly going into filling Bradford’s Cedar Court hotel with as much to do as possible. I got to bang on about Delia Derbyshire for a bit on the Friday night, and I sat in on a discussion about flooding which was food for thought. Tim Powers’ guest of honour interview was full of personality and humour too.

I felt a little out of it for much of the time, a feeling exacerbated by the distributed nature of the accommodation that made it difficult to catch up on the old zzz’s, but I was right as rain come the Sunday and on balance have to say I thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing, yet again.

And as ever the best thing about it is the copious numbers of great people  – the ones you’ve known for years and the ones you meet for the first time – to spend your time with.

Aye, a good one indeed.

Aftercon

So, Newcon went well. Three days of chat, drink, chat, drink, the occasional panel (I was on one, but wasn’t able to offer much of a contribution) and lovely books.

Top five moments:

• Meeting up with friends – Gary, Andrew, Michaela, Sam, Paul, Al, Heather, Debbie, Tiffany, Chaz, John (of course), Chris, Tony (but no Eric, sadly) and actually getting time to talk to them for a change as a result of the membership being so petite, and making many new ones too
• Understanding why Resurrection Cola is so named, and being glad to see the restorative effects of the convention experience taking effect too
• Getting that old inspiration rush once again, boosted by – rather than dampened – public humiliation by certain well kent faces in the business. I shall never watch Family Guy in the same way again.
• Holding the marvellous Subterfuge anthology in my sticky little hands
• Una McCormack’s story “The Great Gig In The Sky” in said book, read on the long journey homeward.

Newcon was well timed for me in a multitude of ways, and I’ve rolled out the other side of it in great creative shape. And that – as they say in the hokey-cokey – is what it’s all about.

Roll on Eastercon.

In with the New/Ain’t no lie

Conventions. I love them. They come at just the right times to wrench you out of the workaday and let you just hang out with your friends in a bar, for three or four days. Usually, I do two a year. Eastercon at, well, Easter, and Fantasycon in September. Occasionally, if I’m feeling flush I might fly over to World Fantasy, but those two are my routine. This year, for various and banal reasons, I had to miss Fcon, but I’m making up for it this coming weekend with Newcon in Northampton. Guests of honour are Iain M Banks, Ken McLeod and Storm Constantine, and there will be a whole bunch of other writery types in attendance too. So, if you’re in the area, I can recommend it.

Also, at Newcon, will be the launch of the Newcon Press anthology (yes, they’re related – there’s two incredibly hard working and enthusiastic men called Ian behind the whole thing).  The Newcon Press anthology series has now reached its 4th volume (5th if you count the BSFA 50th anniversary book, Celebration), and they have all carried a great mix of well known names and newcomers in the UK SF scene. The new volume, titled Subterfuge, looks like it will be no exception. There are new stories by John Meaney, Neal Asher, Pat Cadigan, Tanith Lee, Tony Ballantine, Juliet McKenna and Gary Couzens (and I was delighted to contribute a little something too).

So, if you make it to Northampton – see you at the launch.

Post-orbital

So Eastercon has been and gone once again in an other-worldly flash.

I’m not going to do a con report – there wouldn’t be any point because I didn’t do much except talk to people – but here are ten impressions that have managed to persist through the haze of alcohol and sleep deprivation.

1/ Where did they put them all? I’ve been at every Eastercon since my first one in 1994, bar one – which was the last time it was held at Heathrow. I think that was 1996, and I remember thinking it was a weird sort of place to hold a convention. Would anyone go? Well loads of people went to this one, many more than an Eastercon normal sees. The funny thing was that you never really saw them. I suspect the hotel’s weird geometry neatly packed the extra bodies into alternative dimensional spaces.

2/ The business end The first (and really only) thing that I really had to do during the weekend was have the “agent chat”. Having arrived in the bar a little early I got myself a drink and waited while he conducted a meeting with another client. Only, as the hour arrived, for him to get up suddenly and sprint out the door. Not the most encouraging start, but once we’d sorted things out it was a good meeting. Meetings with my agent are always good meetings, and I always leave inspired, enthused and optimistic.

3/ Comparative beerological economics So after last night’s GSFWC I bought a round of 2 pints of Smiths, 2 of Real Ale and 2 bags of crisps at the Wetherspoon. It cost me £8.70. A similar round in the Con bar (actually bars because you couldn’t have got all that in the one place) would have been half as much again. In the Polo Bar (I keep wanting to say “Polo Lounge” for some reason), it’d have been doubled. And the beer wasn’t as good. It’s a small gripe, but I’m just saying. It was a pricey old weekend.

4/ Oh, curry where art thou? The one thing I really missed this year was the communal curry. Some of the guys went for one on the Saturday when I wasn’t around, but in general Heathrow doesn’t lend itself to popping out to sample the local cuisine. Bradford, nxt year should solve that issue.

5/ New books for old Allowed myself a small splurge on books for the first time in a few years. Here’s the haul: Celebration (BSFA 50th Anniversary anthology) edited by Ian Whates, Myth-Understandings (latest of the NewCon Press anthologies) also edited by the ubiquitous Mr Whates, Other Voices by Andrew Humphrey (bringing me up to date with Elastic Press, and pre-ordered the next two as well), The Reef by Mark Charan Newton (superbly presented novel from Pendragon Press, from a writer I have really high hopes for), The Situation by Jeff Vandermeer (georgeous wee novella just out from PS, see 6/), Debatable Space by Philip Palmer (was introduced to Philip during the weekend, and will be interested to see if the TV drama side of his work influences his space operas).

6/ Here’s The Situation I’ve been looking forward to reading Vandermeer’s The Situation ever since I heard he’d sold it to PS. Vandermeer and PS is a marriage made in heaven. Truly lovely book, I read a little each morning and a little each night during the con. It’s a baroque, grotesque redrawing of contemporary office politics that’s pretty hard to describe, but I saw a description of it that summed it up like this: Dilbert in Gormenghast. That pretty much nails it. Buy it and read it, and never complain about your 9 to 5 again.

7/ One for the road Monday at cons, you get restless and bored. You’re pretty much talked out, and everyone else feels the same, so you go looking for diversions. The book room’s a good standby for a diversion. Normally I go in looking for a handful of new books I’ve heard about and want to pick up, and my eye blocks out everything else. A convention Monday is the time to go and actually look at all those old PBs, and wonder what they’re actually like. I got it into my head that they were exactly the right size for my jacket pocket and would be ideal fodder for the airport, so I set myself the challenge of finding a classic novel of no more than 150 pages, with not too gaudy a cover and costing less than two quid. This proved a challenge because there were hundreds of books that fit that bill. In the end though I settled on Vance’s The Killing Machine, and you know what? It’s brilliant fun. I think I shall make this an Eastercon ritual.

8/ There’s a little sausage! I was accosted with those words on Saturday night. I won’t say by whom or what they meant by it, just that I took it as a compliment. Of sorts.

9/ All the people, so many people At this point I should point out that the thing I like most about cons is having chats with my friends. It’s great to meet old friends, even if it’s only in passing in the corridor, and meet new ones. That for me is what cons are all about, and the real reason I don’t go to that many programme items. And this year the programme was burgeoning with good and varied things to go see – of the things I did see I enjoyed a right good presentation of Andrew J Wilson’s play about Rod Serling, The Terminal Zone, Gaiman and Ryman talking enthusiastically about Fantastic London, and the rather giddy fnarrfest that was Sex And The Singularity that had moderator Paul Raven trying to hide in his beard in embarassment.

10/ The wheels on the bus Fun as the whole convention business is, I was very glad to get away from it all on Saturday and visit my sister’s house for dinner, where my brother, sister, brother in law and I were treated to a rock concert by my 2 year old nephew. The boy’s got talent. He’ll go far.

All in all a grand weekend.

WFC Not

Suddenly realised that it’s World Fantasy this week in Saratoga Springs. I’m not going, but I really wish I was.

Hope everyone has braw time of it.

Well it looks like Mr Duncan did (like I expected him not to???)!

Stop Press!

Just heard that The Ephemera has been shortlisted for the British Fantasy Award. It’ll be presented at Fantasycon in September. I’ve already signed up, but I’m not holding my breath – the competition looks fierce!

Not a ConReport

I’ve always thought that if you do Eastercon right you should emerge on the other side with very little you can remember to tell people about, just a sort of warm, fuzzy, drained feeling like you’ve been on a week-long stag-do with a happy-go-lucky bunch of psychic vampires. So, considering that I feel I pretty much did Eastercon (in Chester) right this year, I won’t be doing a report. I know these days people tend to blog on the spot, but c’mon for me that gets in the way of the slow and enjoyable process of Achieving Horizontal as the weekend progresses.But if you’re interested here’s what I do remember:
- I drank some beer (and a small quantity of strange Thai whisky and nasty raspberry vodka, although not at the same time)
- I ate some delicious food (particularly of the Thai variety)
- I toured the Ye Olde Disneyfest of the old town a couple of times
- I talked to many wonderful people
- and I got inspired.

This last point is very important. I usually find the interaction with other writers and the like at Eastercon an inspiring experience, a resetting of personal goals and receiving the energy to go and achieve them. Often – tired though I undoubtedly will be – I head up the road brimming with ideas and twitching to get back to the laptop. I love this aspect of it, but this year I really felt that I needed it, and am exceedingly grateful for the inspirational influx that came from talking to my agent and my friends and people I didn’t know, but do now; from seeing people I admire do well; from seeing the last copy of my collection being sold; from being asked to contribute to a forthcoming anthology; from even being asked to sign a copy of the very first anthology I was in. And if people ask why I go to Eastercon every year – even on a year like this when the event that took place was a, necessarily scaled-back and yet more expensive, replacement for the cancelled original, resulting of many familiar faces not making the trip down from Glasgow and other places – that’s why.

Thank gawd for Eastercon.