The rest of Darkovercon

Picking up from where I left off .... Saturday 4pm was the "everyone who wants to" autograph session and I actually had four people bring me things to sign, so I didn't feel like a total loser. For the rest of the session, well, I was sitting next to Esther Friesner and we had a delightful, if periodically interrupted, conversation about all manner of things. Immediately following was Dressing Your Characters which was just me and C.S. Friedman. On a selfish basis, this worked out far better than a larger panel would because I had much less compunction about breaking in to get a word in edgewise than I might have with more participants, and we ended up with a fairly high-energy back-and-forth (with a certain amount of poking fun at each other). Somehow even when the panel topics seemed to be the same ones we get every year, this year there seemed to be new and different things getting said. I was quite happy with all the programming I participated in.

I had arrangements for dinner with the_cheese_lady and husband and we pulled in C.S. Friedman and a friend of hers and after a couple of abortive attempts at unsatisfactory restaurants ended up in a hole-in-the-wall Italian place. The evening, as usual, rounded out with the midnight Hallelujah Chorus sing in the lobby. No swimming pool now, alas, to improve the acoustics. The spirit of the thing was supplied by a fake pool (blue plastic sheeting) complete with fake palm tree and flamingos.

Sunday started off (10am) with How Do You Say That? covering the use of new and old languages in stories. Again, though the topic is a perennial repeater, the coverage felt new this year. Maybe it's the different mix of speakers. Immediately following, I moderated Making it Real covering realistic everyday details in general (although we managed to avoid rehashing the clothing and language topics). And to make a continuous three hours on the same podium, I finished up as a participant on Respecting the Source on the appropriate use of "indigenous mythologies", which began immediately by challenging and redefining "respecting", "indigenous", and "mythology". After that it was a matter of hanging out, the traditional end-of-con dinner with Judy & Tero and whichever of the remaining guests wanted to join (we got GoH Patricia Briggs and husband).

Tomorrow I can sleep in, do my workout (yay for hotels with gyms), and as long as I get on the light-rail to BWI before noon, I'm on schedule. And I really do need to get something new in print for next year. Really I do.