Life has been busy is chez Donna. Nicole and I spent nearly 6 hours working on the Conflux program today (not counting all the other hours we spent). This is getting the whole weekend down on paper, checking the balance, adding extra panels, shifting them around etc.
I started before she got here so technically it was 7 hours. It was intense but hey, we have a working draft of the program and it’s awesome! Some of the panels made us squee. It’s so not fair that we’ll be so busy with running the convention that we’ll be lucky to get to the panels at all.
We even talked Matthew Farrer into to panels. (If you knew Matthew you know what a feat this is). He also helped us with ideas when we came unstuck, such as realising that we should have a topic about x but didn’t. We were texting people, checking emails that came in with suggestions, going over emails people already sent.
We’d come up with names of panelists to add to the topics and I loved it when Nicole did a little wiggly in her seat and said. I so want to go to that panel session.
We have a lot of workshops and a lot of the writing craft stuff is covered in those, so the program has lots of other interesting stuff!
The Conflux 9 program is jam packed. It really is and in a few weeks we’ll share. Right now, I have to type it up and then pass it on to the lovely Maxine McArthur who is doing the logistics of emailing the proposed panelists to see if they want to do the panels etc. (My joke to Nicole is: I so want to give this to Maxine and say “Make is so.” We both laughed but we’re geeks!). The logistical part a lot of work, but for Nicole and I, getting the program down on paper is a major hurdle. It’s not like we can sit on our assess and swill champagne until the convention starts, but for the both of us the core of the convention is the program. Get that right and everything else hangs together.
Then after a quick nap and very good steak, I had to write some guest blog posts for lovely people who are inviting me around to talk about Rayessa and the Space Pirates. That’s on top of some Conflux emails and various other bits. I’m going to have a cuppa now and rest up with a book. I’m currently reading Twilight. My lecturer suggested the class do it and I was lucky that Trudi Canavan had given me a copy. After two sweeps of my book shelves I found it.
For the record I have very sore hands. So we did the work in my A3 sketch book by hand. It now has to be transcribed. It was better for me to do it that way than try to sit at the computer all day. I’m hoping the hand thing is the heat. I have sore feet too. Please god, do not let it be RSI.
Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing 