Lemme start on Thursday. We get to the hotel at about 2-ish and get told, your room isn't ready yet. SO we cool our heels in the foyer for an hour or so, in the company of some ten or eleven air hostesses from some Asian airline - all, apparently, cloned from the same genetic mold, same build (slender and fragile-boned), same grey uniform, same grey shoes, same hair, same HAIRSTYLE, if you put them in a line up and then shuffled them it would be hard to tell the difference. ANYWAY. Eventually, we get our room.
It's in the Con Suite corridor. On the ground floor. RIght next to a door leading outside through which supplies are being delivered (crash. Bang. Open. Close. Open. Close.) Constant yattering in the corridor. Can you say "not happy"?
Oh well. We'll live.
We went out to dinner Thursday night and had a wonderful time, and returned to the hotel, and grabbed some sleep.
Friday, first panel at 10 AM. Very ably moderated by
jpsorrow, on the subject of infodumping your worldbuilding info at the reader and how best (not) to do it. Was interesting, and I think we got a few fair points accross. Then I had a reading, straight after, which was VERY well attended for a con reading - and by at least two people who were strangers to me who made a point of telling me that they were there because they enjoyed my books. ALways nice to hear. I read the "Close ENcounters of the Urban Kind" story, and it was particularly well received - so this part of it was a fantastic success. Then we had scheduled lunch with a friend who was also a copanelist from that morning, and we were joined (in the time-honoured manner of con-agglutination) by criada which was very pleasant indeed. Then we had a bit of free time, and then I had the signing at 4 PM - and the first person who turned up had copies of the "Changer of Days" books, which I am always happy to see appear at these occasions. The hour was leavened by the twit who got into the GoH signing line (the GoH in question was Vernor VInge) carrying a double handful of thick Christopher Paolini novels, thus managing ably to insult both authors at the same time... you never know what could happen at a con... and usually does...We retired to the bar/restaurant with some Clint and Donna, Canadian friends whom we weren't expecting to see here but were very glad to see - and spent a couple of very nice hours catching up with them, and made plans for lunch the next day. Then, feeling slightly the worse for wear, I decided to call it an (early) night.
Satuday was the writing-for-YA panel with Steve Barnes, Cory Doctorow and Lisa Mantchev. In one of the biggest panel rooms of the hotel. Which was packed, pretty much. Moderated by Steve Barnes, the panel held up a very high level of discussion, and I've had several compliments about it since. Then we had lunch with Clint and Donna, and then I had another panel, a late addition, one of those "what do you suggest we read in the YA arena?" list panels, and it WAS a list panel, which meant that there was a limited amount of discussion engendered - but I made a couple of school librarian contacts there which were very valuable. So everything works out in the end.
Spent a lot of time socialising in the Green Room and the Dealer's ROom and the bar, and have one more panel this evening - to be updated later - and then a breakfast with a couple of friends tomorrow before we leave for home.
Better go rescue
rdeck now, because I didn't say I was going to make this detour and he must wonder what became of me.I'll probably update the rest of Norwescon after I get back home on Sunday.
Off to play the social game....
