So, day one of VCon has come and gone.
As noted earlier, I started the day by finding a Second Cup so I could work on the new novel. I need to pick up the pace, I think; I’ve probably averaged a little better than 1,000 words a day on it, and at that rate, while I get to my 100,000 before December 20, it’s not much before December 20…and that’s first draft. There’s just as much work needed to turn it into a finished novel after that. So I’m going to have to increase the amount of time I spend on it each day.
Registration opened at 12 noon and I was there shortly thereafter. Then I had lunch at the Foggy Dew (the supposedly Irish pub attached to the hotel) and tried to track down someone who could tell me what room my book launch would be in tonight. No one knew, because the bartender for the hospitality suite hadn’t shown up and it’s his room (which turns into the late-night hospitality suite after 1 a.m.) that had been arranged for the book launch.
My first panel at 2 p.m. was on endings: what makes a good one, what makes a bad one. I think we all agreed that an ending can be either tragic or triumphant and still be satisfying, provided it flows naturally out of the story and is justified by the story’s tone and the actions and personalities of the characters. We also had a bit of a discussion on whether J.K. Rowling is likely to kill Harry Potter in Book 7. I don’t think she will; others weren’t so sure.
Then I spent more time trying to figure out what room I’d be in tonight. I was on a panel aimed at concocting a list of novels for kids (and others) who enjoyed Harry Potter and were wondering what else they might like (a panel, alas, rather hijacked by the audience, which seemed more interested in what they had to say than what the panelists had to say) when Chang the Barbarian, who runs the hospitality suite, popped in to say he’d gotten a room and to give me a key.
Well and good. I left the panel early (and gratefully) to go do a radio interview with a local college radio program, which went pretty well, then went around the hotel posting the pre-printed posters for my book launch I’d brought, after first scrounging tictac (you know, that sticky gum stuff) from wherever I could find it. I ran into Robert J. Sawyer while I was about it. Then it was off to the opening ceremonies, after which I popped up to the pre-ordained room, only to find that the key didn’t work. Oy. I went on an increasingly frantic search for Chang the Barbarian again, finally tracking him down in the Foggy Dew. He went and got a new key made (apparently I’d managed to demagnetize it by carrying it in my pocket next to my cellphone–at least, that’s our best guess) and I made it back up to the room just in time to open it for the first arrivals.
I’d also scrounged some soft drinks from the hospitality suite, so there were at least a few of the poster-promised refreshments on hand. I did a brief reading and in the end sold 10 of about 15 books provided for me by White Dwarf Books–pretty good, I thought. After Rob Sawyer showed up, toward the end of our time in the suite, I also had to sing “Old Man River,” which I always have to do at some point for Rob. Also turning up over the course of the evening was my friend Kathy Tyers, whom I’ve mentioned before, and several others, some of whom I knew, some of whom I didn’t.
And meanwhile back in Regina, my wife was going to the Rolling Stones concert, which she said was fabulous–and, she said, she and her friend had some of the best seats in the house.
So a good day all around. Tomorrow I’ve got a panel on playwriting, an autograph session and a reading, if I remember right…and a second panel on something else, I forget what.
More tomorrow night!
