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This will be a little stream-of-consciousness; I had a long week and only five hours of sleep last night; now that the adrenaline of getting here and doing panels has worn off, I'm rapidly hitting "fire bad, bread good" territory.
Getting here was... eventful. Southwest, in their infinite wisdom, connected me through Chicago. That part makes sense, but delivering me at 8:40 when their early connection to Minneapolis left at 8:30 didn't. I was booked for the 10:40 plane that would completely wipe my ability to be on the general panfandom discussion panel and barely get me in in time for the main reviewing panel. So I was pretty worried when I hit Chicago and saw that my flight was delayed an unspecified amount of time. I didn't have wriggle room to be delayed! BUT... the flight I was supposed to have missed was still listed as "boarding."
You will believe that a dumpy middle-aged woman can fly.
Thanks to a lovely Southwest counter woman, who remained calm even with me squeaking and twitching as they kept announcing "Flight X has boarded," I made the earlier flight. Which means I also made the panel, albeit a little bit late.
It was about how much fandoms have in common, focusing mainly on the heroic journey. (I was also just in a panel on writing longer fiction and story arcs also leaning heavily on the heroic journey.) Problem is... I personally think the heroic journey is only marginally valid as a story arc. Scarred by a college lit prof who thought that any journey, even down the hall to the bathroom, was a heroic journey of change and enlightenment, I came firmly to the conclusion a long time ago that sometimes your character just has to pee.
I did get a chance to bring up at the discussions panel the cozy/hardboiled worldviews, which I feel are a better taxonomy for character motivations: is the world essentially good and just, with a protagonist who has to restore the inherent balance, as in cozies? Or is the world dark, selfish, and chaotic, with the hero/ine's only real job being to hold off entropy as long as possible until s/he inevitably fails and falls? It's a good way of illustrating the underlying sensibilities even of characters in similar worlds - Who vs Torchwood; Superman vs Batman, Buffy vs Angel, etc.
My review panel was intimate - ~17 people - and (with me wired on expresso and lack of sleep) probably a bit chaotic. But I did have a set of lecture notes and hands-on exercises allowing me to hit the important points, few people left, and many industriously took notes. So for an unsexy panel topic, I think it went quite well.
So far, the only fly in the ointment is the Radisson as a con hotel. They're not feral, fortunately - but with different wireless networks covering different rooms and a confusing room layout (complete with two separate elevator systems covering bedrooms vs event rooms), they're not really set up for events like this. They're obviously a good luxury hotel - my room is lovely, even with the view of another corridor, but not so strong on the event side.
Will be catching up on the flist after another strafing run at the consuite fordinner munchies.
Getting here was... eventful. Southwest, in their infinite wisdom, connected me through Chicago. That part makes sense, but delivering me at 8:40 when their early connection to Minneapolis left at 8:30 didn't. I was booked for the 10:40 plane that would completely wipe my ability to be on the general panfandom discussion panel and barely get me in in time for the main reviewing panel. So I was pretty worried when I hit Chicago and saw that my flight was delayed an unspecified amount of time. I didn't have wriggle room to be delayed! BUT... the flight I was supposed to have missed was still listed as "boarding."
You will believe that a dumpy middle-aged woman can fly.
Thanks to a lovely Southwest counter woman, who remained calm even with me squeaking and twitching as they kept announcing "Flight X has boarded," I made the earlier flight. Which means I also made the panel, albeit a little bit late.
It was about how much fandoms have in common, focusing mainly on the heroic journey. (I was also just in a panel on writing longer fiction and story arcs also leaning heavily on the heroic journey.) Problem is... I personally think the heroic journey is only marginally valid as a story arc. Scarred by a college lit prof who thought that any journey, even down the hall to the bathroom, was a heroic journey of change and enlightenment, I came firmly to the conclusion a long time ago that sometimes your character just has to pee.
I did get a chance to bring up at the discussions panel the cozy/hardboiled worldviews, which I feel are a better taxonomy for character motivations: is the world essentially good and just, with a protagonist who has to restore the inherent balance, as in cozies? Or is the world dark, selfish, and chaotic, with the hero/ine's only real job being to hold off entropy as long as possible until s/he inevitably fails and falls? It's a good way of illustrating the underlying sensibilities even of characters in similar worlds - Who vs Torchwood; Superman vs Batman, Buffy vs Angel, etc.
My review panel was intimate - ~17 people - and (with me wired on expresso and lack of sleep) probably a bit chaotic. But I did have a set of lecture notes and hands-on exercises allowing me to hit the important points, few people left, and many industriously took notes. So for an unsexy panel topic, I think it went quite well.
So far, the only fly in the ointment is the Radisson as a con hotel. They're not feral, fortunately - but with different wireless networks covering different rooms and a confusing room layout (complete with two separate elevator systems covering bedrooms vs event rooms), they're not really set up for events like this. They're obviously a good luxury hotel - my room is lovely, even with the view of another corridor, but not so strong on the event side.
Will be catching up on the flist after another strafing run at the consuite for
