By The Plaid Adder
Comments: plaidder@mindspring.com
Lock up the kids and hide the china, folks. It's Plaidder's first con report.
WISCON 24: MAIDEN VOYAGE OF THE S.S. PLAIDDER
Before we start the saga, let me give you some of the backstory. Freddie started encouraging me to go to Wiscon a couple months ago, being as Wiscon is a feminist SF/fantasy con and I am writing, what, feminist fantasy. If one robs banks because that's where the money is, one should promote a book at cons because that's where the fans are. Seemed like a good idea to me, especially since for the past few years Wiscon has hosted a writer's workshop as part of the con, where they hook up a small group of writers with one professional editor/agent/author and they read each other's stuff and do a mess of critiquing. So I signed up for that, which took place the morning before the con got underway. The report on the workshop will be of more interest to WOFsters so I will not include it here, although I will be mentioning the highlights.
DAY 1: COMINGS AND GOINGS
I drove in to Madison. I was sad to be leaving Liza for the long weekend, although she had a lot of work to do anyway; so before I left I wrote a number of little haikus for her and left them on the bed. We got into emailing each other in haiku format for a while our last year in Texas, and although it is of course partly a joke we have come to have a great fondness for the form. I decided that some of these were unsuitable for a communication that has to be read at work (don't get excited; I am not an NC-17 person), so I left them for her. I will give only the final one here:
IX.
I will resist cheese
And all its blandishments
To live long for you.
This references the fact that having been in Wisconsin, Liza was very worried about my arteries. We've been doing pretty well on the low-fat thing so far, aside from my falling off the wagon a couple times at moments of great stress, but the cheese is a very sad thing to have given up, and for a person to whom cheese is poison to go to Wisconsin is like an alcoholic walking into a bar. But I am strong. I am invincible. I am woman. So I held out past all the McD's till I found a Subway, and when I got to Madison I did ultimately find the hotel, although I had to take a gratuitous trip around the Capitol first.
Madison is a real college town. You can tell this even from the area immediately adjacent to the Madison Concourse Hotel: a lot of restaurants with cheap, tasty food, much vegetarian fare, people passing out free samples of Boca burgers on streetcorners, etc. I didn't know this yet, of course, because after parking I just went up to the room and collapsed. I had brought Taken Child with me in a box, along with 100 WOF brochures and my T-shirt.
Cynthia appeared at around 9:00, raising my Six Degrees score by one point. We then went down to Freddie's room, except that Cynthia had forgotten the number, so after wandering the floor forlornly calling, "Freddie? Freddie, where are ya Freddie?" we had to go down to the front desk and call up. But we did eventually get there, whereupon Freddie proceeded to shower us with gifts, including Vinny's Tampon Cases for both of us. I laughed very, very hard. My favorite thing is the little "Know Your Flow" balloon. I wonder if the Car Guys have seen these.
DAY 2: SELLING YOURSELF 101
I got up way too early, having not slept very well, and went down to the lobby to wait for there to be something to do. While there I got accosted by another congoer who was kind enough to divert me by telling me all about Las Vegas, and eventually I went back up to where things were supposed to be being organized. I hung around with some of the other writer people while the organization began slowly to coalesce. It was once I got my con packet that I noticed that they had put "The Plaid Adder" on my nametag.
They did ask on the form whether there was another name we wanted to be known as, but I didn't know that was going to be the only name they put on the thing. I pinned it on and felt kind of stupid. I don't think anyone there really knew me as Plaidder (except of course for Freddie and Cynthia) and I'm just not used to presenting as Plaidder in real life. Editor guy eventually showed up, and the workshop began.
As I said, I'll do a more extended version of this for the WOFsters, but there were a few surprises. The biggest one was that nobody objected to what I thought the biggest problem would be, which was the length of the "sling that exposition, Theamh" lecture scene in the law school. They all thought that was cool. Joan was right. All hail Joan.
Of course, I had cherished these hopes that the editor guy who was running the workshop (a guy named Jim Minz from Tor Books) would corner me in the hallway afterward and say, "Send this to us! We want it right now! The longer the better!" This, of course, did not happen, although he seemed to have liked it well enough. His major criticism was that he thought I was controlling Theamh too much. The main example he gave was that he thought Theamh got over being mad at Aine too fast. I resisted saying, "But if I don't control her, this novel will be 400,000 words instead of 200,000!"
Anyway, at the end of this I passed out the flyers. The editor guy thought the flyer was funny, especially the "Women You Won't Meet Here" section. So if nothing else I made some people laugh.
After that all the workshop participants and the pros went to lunch at a place called Dotty's Dumpling Dowry. I knew that Liza would want me to schmooze, even at the cost of my arteries, because she's just like that about WOF, so I went along, and ordered the chicken breast sandwich--which of course arrived with cheese on it. There were a bunch of different workshops, and I ended up stuck at one end of the table and the rest of my workshop at the other, whcih limited my schmoozing capabilities. After getting over my initial shyness I was able to chat with some of the other women around me.
Eventually I worked my way back to the other end of the table, and then we all went back to the hotel, where I caught up wtih Freddie and Cynthia. Freddie helped me put the brochures around and then we all went to the "Applying Sharkscreen" panel run by an agent named Jennifer Jackson, from Donald Maass.
It was a very interesting panel, although depressing. First of all, I realized after a certain point that this agency had already rejected my query, about 2 years ago. Second, everyone in there was, of course, an aspiring SF/F writer, and there were a lot of 'em, and they were all very concerned with their own novels and asking a lot of anxious questions. Somehow it just kind of saddened me to realize that to the rest of the world, I am just one of a huge horde of wannabes, all of whom look about equally sad and desperate to those who already are.
I got even more saddened when I finally got a chance to ask my question, which went like this:
ME: I know I don't wanna hear the answer to this but I'm gonna ask it anyway...you know you were talking about those rules you're willing to break for the right novel...is maximum length one of 'em?
HER: Oh, like, you mean if your novel is 200,000 words?
ME: Well, say like 195,000. For instance. [audience laughs]
She went through this thing about how publishers do a profit analysis on every project and in order to make a profit on a 200,000 word book they have to charge more than $6.00 and they assume that not enough people will be willing to pay more than $6.00 for a first-time author's book. Then she said, "Why don't you just break it into two books?" at which point I fear I said, forlornly, "But I've already done that!"
Eventually this became a discussion about how one breaks books up into several and the focus fortunately shifted off me, as I sat somewhat disconsolate. Afterward, Freddie tried valiantly to cheer me up, and partially succeeded. I decided to skip the 4:00-5:30 panel slot and went upstairs to have a little lie-down and contemplate the unpublishability of WOF.
After I was done doing that, I went back and met Freddie and Cynthia in the lobby, along with Freddie's pals Kathleen and Penny, Mikki, and Cheryl. We all trooped off to the local Thai restaurant and had a large amount of tasty Thai food. I perked up enough to sing the first three lines of Beowulf to the tune of Sesame Street. We all went back to the hotel and the opening ceremonies.
We missed the first half of the opening skit, but we got there for the important part, which was seeing Freddie embarrassed in public. This woman named Ellen Klages who appears to be the Wiscon emcee for everything of importance announced that Freddie had been nominated for a Hugo again, and exhorted the Wiscon masses to attend Worldcon and make it so. Freddie, of course, would not stand up so people could see her, but Cynthia and I pointed her out from behind, so she got to turn red and have her ears fall off anyhow.
The rest of the evening's scheduled entertainment was a concert by the guest of honor and his wife. Charles de Lint is a famous fantasy author, but he has also been performing as a folk musician with his lovely partner Marianne for some time now. So I stayed for the concert. It was pleasant, although I have to say that if I ever *should* happen to become a famous fantasy author I at least will know enough not to try to parlay that into a singing career. Anyone who has heard that "Songs of WOF" tape I sent Joan will understand why.
We then went up to the party floor. Cynthia and I ended up in some kind of suite talking to some of the other workshop people, spending most of the evening in a conversation that began with Barth (not Darth, but a guy who had "lit major" written all over him but seemed nice enough) asking me, "So what does a 195,000 word novel eat?" I said, "ANYTHING IT WANTS." He and this woman Jennifer were both trying to sell novels; Jennifer has an agent and an editor reading hers, which she said was a "sprightly" 323 pages about a 2500 year old vampire having a midlife crisis. She said her agent told her the vampire spent too much time hanging around in bars talking to people, and that there wasn't really much of a plot. I said, "So your hook is, 'Talkative Vampire Goes On Plotless Midlife Rampage!'" Barth is writing an alternative history book about a virus let loose in Mexico City. At around midnight I turned into a pumpkin and went down to call Liza and go to sleep.
DAY 3: SELLING YOURSELF, 102
We had fixed on Saturday, 5:30 for the WOF reading, so all three of us wore our WOF T-shirts that day. Cynthia and I went out to the farmer's market, where Cynthia bought cheeses for the Potlatch party and I bought Liza 2 quarts of maple syrup. At one point two women asked us about the shirts, whereupon I discovered just how much I suck at self promotion.
Them: "Wow! Women on fire! What's that?"
Me: "Uh...it's a bunch of books that I write..."
After Cynthia modeled the URL for them, they wished us luck and left, after which point I realized I had forgotten to hand them the flyers. Sigh.
Anyhow, I had come up with some poster ideas the night before while listening to the acoustic stylings of Charles de Lint and his merry band. There were three different posters, each advertising the reading with a different Ideiren Survival Tip, e.g.:
"Ideiren Survival Tip #27: Always Feed The Vigils."
"Ideiren Survival Tip #36: A Rapparan Is Not A Toy."
and so on. I went off to a panel about Judith Butler and *Shadowman,* and when I came back Freddie had made up 80 of these things and was sticking them up around the hotel like a crazy woman. I accompanied her for a short while until the embarrassment of standing there wearing a T-shirt based on my own books taping flyers promoting them all over the hallway became too much, and I retired gratefully to obscurity while she tirelessly posted them up one stairwell and down the other. I went off to lunch with Cynthia and a mess of other people while Freddie, who had already eaten, continued taping up my flyers, so that eventually you couldn't get on an elevator or turn a corner without seeing about 3 of them.
I would like to take this opportunity to say that if WOF does not get published, it will not be Freddie Baer's fault. In addition to being willing, like Cynthia, to turn herself into a human billboard all day long--and to do this with considerably less shame than I did--she postered the entire hotel, collared people she knew and dragged them to the reading, and was unflagging in her determination to pitch me and WOF to all of the people she knew who are in the business, and there are a thurking lot of 'em. I knew already that Freddie is one of the most generous-hearted people in the world, but I don't think this had quite impressed me with the appropriate gravity and magnitude until this weekend. I am really lucky to have the friends I have, and really lucky that Freddie and Cynthia were willing to help me chase this crazy pipe dream; and any of you who have not already been in the habit of bowing toward San Francisco and worshipping Freddie every morning, you should start.
Anyhow, I was very nervous about the thing the whole afternoon, although I dissipated some of that by going to a reading by Kelly Link, Delia Sherman and Pat Murphy right beforehand which was really good and took my mind off my own problems. Eventually they cleared out and I claimed one of the Comfy Chairs in the front, and waited for people to collect for the reading.
We ended up with nine people--Freddie, Cynthia, Penny, Kathleen, David from my workshop, Jennifer from the party the night before, a friend of Freddie's that she corralled in the dealer's room, and two people who had been drawn in by the enormous quantity of flyers. Nine is plenty--I've given conference papers to considerably smaller audiences--so I was less nervous when I got started. I read the opening section where she finds Mna and Crann, and then Freddie had asked specifically for the vigil fight scene so I read that, explaining first that the fact that one of the vigils is named Phredi is just a coincidence.
The vigil scene turns out to be a good one to read out loud because there's a lot of yelling, and people seemed to enjoy it. Then I read another chunk dealing with the ride after the rappari, and then I figured it was time for everyone to go eat. So Freddie, Cynthia, Penny and Kathleen and I all went to a noodles restaurant where we had many tasty noodles and I started feeling better. I realized I had been nervous not so much about the reading but about the "giving a party and nobody comes" thing. And it is fun reading this stuff out loud; and it'll be even more fun at Worldcon where everyone will have already read the books so I can read stuff that's spoilage.
We got back in time to see the Tiptree Auction happen. The James Tiptree Jr. award is given every year to a new novel that does something new and exciting with gender in sf/fantasy. Apparently it was started several years ago by a bunch of women authors and has now become huge. At least, Ellen, the emcee, was saying something about how one of the award winners had told her it meant more to her than the others because "the Nebula is political, and the Hugo is a popularity contest, but the Tiptree is actually about quality." Also, you should know that Freddie has been designing all the Tiptree award T-shirts and posters since it got started. So, every year at Wiscon they have an auction to raise money for the award ceremony, and it is an experience you really have to be there to appreciate.
Ellen did the auctioneering. So you can visualize this, Ellen is sort of a shorter, funnier version of Lea Delaria, and she approached the auction sort of like a night at the Improv, only raunchier. They auctioned off, in addition to a number of actually valuable items, stuff like a box of Hamburger Helper signed by Charles de Lint, a pink bra, rides in Ellen's car with her wearing the pink bra, and the prom night Holdfast Barbie. (This is a Barbie in a barbarian outfit holding the hoof of a stallion wearing a little bowtie. If you have read the Holdfast series, it's funny.) Our crowd didn't bid on much, although Freddie did go home with the Space Babe action figure. I'm afraid all I bid on was a kangaroo scrotum.
OK, see what happened was that when Freddie went to Australia to almost get her Hugo she brought back a pouch purportedly made from a kangaroo scrotum, packaged with a little box that had the "Golden Scrotum Legend" printed on the back. She donated it to the Tiptree Auction. Ellen, while auctioning this item off, began reading the Golden Scrotum Legend, which begins with some stuff about Jack the kangaroo and an encounter with a barbed-wire fence. At one point a guy in front of me shotued, "$30.00 to stop reading!"
Naturally someone else yelled out, "$35.00 to keep going!"
Caught up in the bidding frenzy, I yelled, "$40.00 to set it to music!"
While I was still wondering whether they took checks, and what I was going to do with a kangaroo scrotum, someone else upped the ante to singing *and* dancing. Ellen said that she would only dance if we broke $100.00. They passed a box around and took donations from the audience. By the time they were done people had contributed a total of $139.00 for the Golden Scrotum Dance. I had chipped in $1.00, which turned out to be all the cash I had on me.
Ellen then performed the Scrotum Song And Dance, which was greated with screams of delight by all, and tossed the scrotum into the audience, where it fell just short of me in the lap of a guy who didn't quite seem to know how to take this.
Much of the auction was about comedy, as you can see, but there was a serious side to it which I would like to celebrate for a moment. The thing that impressed me most about this was seeing how much people loved some of these things and how excited they were about these books that had meant so much to them. The best example, perhaps, was the auction of a first edition of Ursula LeGuin's "The Dispossessed":
ELLEN: I have a first issue of Ursula K. LeGuin's *The Dispossessed*...
WOMAN AT THE BACK: $50.00!
ELLEN: OK, wait a second. It's signed--
WOMAN AT THE BACK: $100.00!
ELLEN: And the inscription reads, "Feminism forever, cheers, Ursula--"
WOMAN AT THE BACK: [with squeal of desire and longing] A HUNDRED AND FIFTY!!!!
ELLEN: Sold, for $150.00 to the ecstatic woman at the back!
I don't know, to someone as knocked around by the whole publishing enterprise as I have been it is just really refreshing to see people who genuinely care thsi much about books. And feminism. It was moving to me in the same way that it was moving to see people falling over each other to bid on Freddie's posters and T-shirts. You could tell sitting in that room that it was full of people who really love that art, who really care about it and who really want it to be in their lives. While I was waiting for the thing to wind down one of the congoers came back to talk to Freddie about this one poster she had done where half the posters had not turned out well enough (by Freddie's standards) to sell, and there were only two left in existence. Having been unable to capture the one being auctioned, this woman was trying to get Freddie to sell her one of the damaged ones because it was her favorite Tiptree poster. I know it seems paradoxical because an auction is, of course, all about money. But it seemed to me like it was really about love--about people getting together to try to support people who do work that they love and who are willing to pay more than stuff is worth in the cold hard light of economic rationality because the money is going to fund an award that rewards people for trying to think of different ways to be. Love, and kangaroo scrota.
The auction ran on forever, so by the time they were done the thrifting clothing exchange had already begun in the lobby adjacent. Freddie was overseeing that, so I went upstairs to the Tor party. I gave up on the schmoozing idea and spent most of the time hanging out with some of the other writer type people, and really enjoyed getting to talk to them about writing and stuff like that. They all said that their families don't read their writing. It reminded me of how lucky I am to have Liza and how much it means to me that she's part of WOF and that she believes in it even more than I do. When it was pumpkin time I decided to stop by and say goodbye to Jim the editor for my workshop.
He seemed happier to see me than I had thought he would be, and ended up introducing me to this author whose name I unfortunately forget but whose new book is called *Juniper, Gentian and Rosemary.* He also said I should keep writing, which was nice of him. Anyhow, I finally went back to the room feeling a little better and slightly more hopeful about all this.
DAY 4: NONTRIUMPHAL RETURN
By Sunday I was kind of exhausted, and I wanted to get home to Liza, so I left after lunch. I was sad to miss the dessert party, but of course desserts are full of forbidden fruits nowadays. I will get to see Freddie again Tuesday, which is nice, and of course Cynthia will be back for Worldcon; but in the meantime I must return to the real world, which is so much more heinous than the one I make up.
David, the guy from the workshop who came to my reading, had suggested trying to get my foot in the door by doing short stories based on the world and selling them. I'm thinking this may be a better idea than the prequel. I have been considering maybe doing one from Keanrih's point of view about his possession, which would also include some stuff from Lythril's POV and introduce Theamh only through the perceptions of the other characters. So while there's life there's hope, and I am really glad I went to Wiscon because it was really good to get to devote a weekend to this stuff, and take care of the part of me that cares about it. Liza has promised to come with me to Wiscon 25. Hopefully they'll still be doing that midnight showing of *Coven* that I never got around to attending.
With much gratitude and a big thank you to Freddie and Cynthia, here endeth the con report,
The Plaid Adder
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