Brief notes from Chessiecon Part 2

[hrj]

I had half a dozen people at my reading -- not spectacular attendance, but probably par for the course for the convention size. I rewarded those who showed up with the booklet version of "Three Nights at the Opera" (still leftover from GCLS this summer). Read section 3 of that (not really chapters, so I don't know what to call them), then one of Antuniet's chapters from an earliest part of The Mystic Marriage, and finished with the opening section of my Queer Mabinogi story "Hoywverch". May have sold one or two copies of Daughter of Mystery on that basis. (The main bookseller in the dealer's room was out of copies, so I handed him what I'd brought with me and well settle up whether he wants to keep any beyond what he sells at the end of the con. I was somewhat gratified to discover that he was "out" as opposed to "never heard of it".)

Went to a panel on "non-kick-ass female protagonists" or: who gets to have adventures without having to be Special. Decided on dinner in the hotel coffee shop despite knowing from breakfast that they had (as has happened before) badly under-projected how much business the con would give them--and then on top of that they had a no-show waiter. We did get fed eventually and were very nice to the sole waiter covering both the tables and the bar. Caught a little of the Tom Smith concert, but it isn't really in my style and Lauri wasn't getting enough of the in-jokes to appreciate it. May stay up to catch the Hallelujah Chorus sing-along--we'll see.

Comments

[klwilliams.livejournal.com]

One of my favorite protagonists is Ista from Paladin of Souls, who is in her forties and not kick-ass, yet is very strong and has agency throughout the story. I want more like her.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I agree on that one. (The panel composition tended to skew toward YA, so there wasn't as much focus on older protagonists.) When I think over my protagonists (both published and forthcoming), the only one who really comes close to the sterotype of "kick-ass" is Barbara, and even there she makes a regular point about violence being a last option and evidence of failure.