Worldcon: Recap and What I've Learned

I won't make this recap an events recap, since if you've read my other posts you know full well what happened.  Instead I'll just summarize what I've learned from this experience.  Hopefully other people will find this short list useful.

Keep your physical health in mind:

You'll be doing a lot of walking, so proper footwear is essential.  Also consider doing some stretches, or light exercise each evening after you get back to your hotel room.

Keep your mental health in mind:

If you try to do too much you'll exhaust yourself mentally.  Know your limits, take some time to sit back and relax before you break down from exhaustion.  You're there to make a good impression, don't make a bad one because you can't think straight.

You're there to work:

If you're the kind of con attender me and my friends are, you're there to make contacts that will help you sell your book.  Who you know is most important, so get to know as many people as possible, and make a good first impression.  Find out what they're working on, what kind of books they're interested in.  Don't try selling your book to every agent or editor you meet.  They have an entire con full of people trying to do that.  Be the person they remember as a pleasant conversation, they'll be much more sympathetic towards your work if you send it to them.

Make friends with everyone, not just editors and agents, but other authors as well.  These people talk to each other, and if they all have something good to say about you the word will eventually spread.  Also, if you don't act like an ass you won't suddenly find someone warning the editor or agent you're trying to work with that you're an unpleasant person.

The most important rule: Don't be an asshole.

While you're there, dress appropriately.  If you're trying to break into the field, dress in nice, conservative clothing.  If you're there to have a good time and dress up in costumes you can't wear in public other times, then have a blast and enjoy yourself.  Just don't try to do both at the same time.

As a part of that, and everyone says that in their con advice articles, but be sure to be well groomed.  This means showering every day and using sufficient amounts of deodorant.

Finally:

The Corolla is a damn fine car.  We only spent a hundred dollars there and back.  Go out and buy yourself one today, your gas spending will be phenomenally low.

Worldcon: Day 4 - Saturday

I don't remember much about today, besides going to more panels, and doing our best to talk to people.  By this point we all knew we were conned out, and ready to be done.  We kept going out and meeting people though, since that's what we came for.  But due to a combination of mental fatigue and being way too absorbed by the latest Dresden Files I can't remember much of what happened.

Oh yeah, we tried to sign up for the Patrick Rothfuss Kaffeklatsch, but that filled up way too fast.  And for those interested, Kaffeeklatsch is german for Coffee Get-Together.  Basically the german version of tea time.  Klatsch is slang for chat, so you get together, drink coffee, and talk.

The hugos were a lot of fun to go to.  It was the first time I've been to an awards service like this.  Unfortunately Utah got pwned, and pwned hard.  I think only one thing I voted for got the Hugo, Girl Genius, but considering they've won for their category every year, that wasn't much of a stretch.

After the awards came the parties, and those were pretty fun.  Our nifty SFWA guest stickers got us in the doors there, where we had some good conversations.  Dan Willis was kind enough to take some time and give us aspiring authors some advice on breaking in to the field.  Though mostly it was, "This is what I did, it won't work again, so try something else."

I think we've made some progress getting to know the Utah authors at least.  As long as I feel a part of the community, then I can feel like I need to work harder to deserve to be among them.

Worldcon: Day 3 - Friday

I'm a little late with this, so I'll be brief.  I can't promise that I'll remember everything that happened.

In fact, I really can't.  The entire week kind of blurred together.  So much happened that by the time we realized we didn't have anything planned for the evening every one of us decided that we should all just go back to our hotel room and rest.

And by rest I mean write, and by write I mean the rest of us wrote while Jason took a nap.  By which I mean Jason, and possibly Adam were diligent, and I goofed off on the internet while Jason took a nap.  Still, it was a good, relaxing evening, and very necessary for our sanity.

I have learned, though, that while panels can be fun, they do get tiresome after a while.  And since the main purpose of these conventions is to make contacts, I think the only panels anyone should be going to are the ones that have people you want to talk to on them.  Take that with a grain of salt of course.

Also, flip flops may be comfy, but for goodness sake, bring proper shoes.  Even if your room is close to the convention, you're going to be doing a lot of walking.  So wear proper shoes.

Worldcon: Day 2 - Thursday

Good day today, we went to several panels, the most entertaining of which was Patrick Rothfuss' reading.  The man knows how to entertain an audience.  Really so far I've noticed that the panels are more something to do in between finding people to talk to.

We went to a Kaffeeklatsch, where we talked to an editor at Tor, and got to know some other people who we went to dinner with.  After dinner, we had pizza, we went and got ready to go to the Tor party.  At first it was really packed, but we met up with Brad Torgeson who hooked us up with some guest stickers for the SFWA party.  After hanging around there for a bit, we headed back down to the Tor party, where we kind of mingled with our own little group.

Up until Brandon Sanderson found us and told us to split up and go talk to people.  I'm guessing that since we're the students of his that bothered to come to Worldcon, he's considering us as worth his time to help out.  He pointed us in the direction of people to talk to, but we're starting to think that "Brandon's Students" is becoming a dirty word among the editors and agents, since they keep getting flooded by us.

Anyway, we talked to a few editors, even found some time to talk to Tom Doherty.  Oh yes, during dinner L.E. Modesitt showed up and talked to us for a while.  Turns out his wife got ill right after they landed in Reno, so she's in the hospital right now.  She should be released soon, but keep a prayer in mind for her folks.

Kind of hard to summarize everything after such a long day, I'm not the best at these kind of journal entry blog posts.

Worldcon: Day 1 - Wednesday

For just being the first day of Worldcon, we were surprisingly productive.  The panels were interesting, but nothing particularly worth writing home about.

While on our way down to registration, we passed an older gentleman, who looked very familiar.  Then I noticed that his badge read: George R. R. Martin.  It was at this point that I realized this was going to be a good convention.  This realization was confirmed when we saw Patrick Rothfuss in line ahead of us at registration.  After getting registered we stopped him and talked for a bit, I got my copy of Name of the Wind signed by him.  He's a really friendly, sociable guy, and with how well he writes I highly doubt he's going to be disappearing anywhere after finishing his current series.

Though what I consider the most important spot is that I spotted Moshe Feder, Brandon Sanderson's Editor, as we were leaving the ceremonial opening to the con.  He was talking to someone, so we followed after him for a bit, till he left, and then walked up to him and talked for a good forty five minutes to an hour.  He's a very sociable kind of guy, and when he found out that we are Brandon's students he was even more open.

We made an important contact today, and with this we should be able to get to know some more editors at Tor.  With any luck at least one of us will come away from this day with an editor asking for a sample submission.  If it happens to me then I'm going to have to finish what I'm writing likety-split.

Anyway, I'm pretty tired now, so I'm going to do some writing, relax for a bit, and then go to bed.  Tomorrow we're hoping to track Brandon down and see if we can get him to go to dinner with us.  Moshe already agreed that he'd like to go to lunch with us and Brandon, so that would be great.  We're also going to see if Larry Correia isn't filled up for his Kaffeeklatsch tomorrow.

Heading Out To Worldcon

Well, I'm just about packed, and waiting for the rest of my group to get to my place so we can carpool down to Reno.  We're going to be picking Adam up in Salt Lake, and then we're going to drive for about eight or so hours until we find a hotel to stay in, and then drive the rest of the way tomorrow.

This is my first major convention, so I'm really excited.  I'll try not to be a bum, and give a daily update of what happens during the convention.  So hopefully I make some good contacts and get to know some awesome people.