Science fiction conventions | Donna Maree Hanson, Author, Phd in Creative Writing

Archive for the ‘Science fiction conventions’ Category

Tomorrow is the day

Posted in Book launch, Conflux 9, Digital Publishing, Rayessa, Rejections, Science fiction conventions on January 9, 2013| 3 Comments »

As Rayessa and the Space Pirates comes out tomorrow, I have to make some changes to this blog, such as putting up a page for ‘My Books!’ So I do a happy dance. It will be listed on Escape’s website here.

The week has not been all smooth sailing. I have teenager issues. Just picture a very ripe thunderhead inhabiting a bedroom at the other end of the house. Picture the forks of lightning that lash out randomly. Hear the growls of thunder, enough to shake you to the core and make your heart stutter. Lovely.

I sent out invitations to the party to celebrate the launch, which will be on the 19th. Unfortunately, I got distracted by MS Publisher software giving me grief over the document and didn’t see the typo. So over half of the invites went out with a silly typo. That just inspires confidence in me doesn’t it?

Early this week I got a rejection for a novel I’ve put my heart and soul into. I thought it might make it but it wasn’t quite what the market requires. I’m still thinking about that one. However, I think trying to make it fit the market is a big job and it would be easier to write a new story. So I promptly got an idea for a romantic fantasy, called Into the Dark Glass. I have the opening in my head but I’ll have to jot down notes when the idea forms up a bit more. I have the beginning in my head. It’s going to be dark and gritty, ya, romance (not erotic).

Then this morning I got the HarperVoyager rejection for Dragon Wine. Hey I was expecting this when the announced how many submissions they had. How does one stand out in such a big crowd. Kudos to those who do. I’m so glad they wrote to people as they hadn’t intended to originally. Sending that particular MS to HarperVoyager’s digital call was a difficult choice for me because it meant (at the time) giving up the dream of a traditional deal. It didn’t help that the editor had it all year and didn’t get to read it either. I’d revised it and cut 50,000 words from it. But that’s life. It’s my job to make it better and keep on submitting. So I did already.

I had another MS and that one was wait for a month, then it became three months and I haven’t heard so that’s means it’s the silent rejection or maybe stealth rejection. But that’s fine because you know I sort of changed my mind about submitting it there.

On twitter this morning I called these rejections ‘daggers of spurn’ and if I get another one this week, I’ll be a porcupine of spurn. (Picture me with daggers sticking out of my back). The spurn word comes from Ian McHugh. He was showing us (the CSFG group) his submissions’ spreadsheet. Instead of ‘rejected’ under result he had ‘spurned’. The group thought that was pretty cool.

This week, I’ve been caught up with Conflux program set up. (if you are coming to Conflux9 in April and haven’t told me you want in, your time is running out). It’s taken me a lot longer than I thought. Tinkering and checking is more time consuming than the initial set up. I’d pretty much given up the thought of doing any writing this week. I had planned to write the whole week but the Conflux stuff just derailed me. Logistics vs creativity. Logistics wipes me every time. It’s like doing your taxes. All creative thought goes out the window as your jaw clenches and your eyes narrow as you start the quest to find all your receipts etc. However, I surprised myself today. I’ve been doing revision and getting through it.

Revision is like clipping toenails and reorganising your bookshelf. Satisfying as you cut the excess, but requires one to be logical and make sure things are sorted where they should be. Having beta reading comments helps.

So until tomorrow.

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A full day, phew!

Posted in Conflux 9, General excitment, Having a sore arm day, Science fiction conventions on January 5, 2013| Leave a Comment »

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.

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A new year, a new book

Posted in General excitment, Having a sore arm day, Paranormal romance, Paranormal romance writing, RSI, Science fiction conventions on January 1, 2013| Leave a Comment »

I’ve sent the first draft of Bespelled out to two beta readers. I’m very happy and doing a happy dance!

I had a tough time with my hands over the last few days. They were swollen and achy. They are much better today. I had to resort to anti-imflammatories and voltaren cream. My feet are sore too, so I’m not sure if it is the RSI or the heat and arthritis. Who knows. (It’s done though. Yay!)

This means that in 2012, I finished first drafts of two novels- The Sorcerer’s Spell at 80,000 words and Bespelled at nearly 50,000 words (both paranormal romance). That means I’ll have two more books to shop around in 2013. This brings a smile to my face. I have to revise them, of course. I have comments on The Sorcerer’s Spell to start on with, which should keep me busy.

In 2012, I revised Ruby Heart and it’s ready to head out into the world and so is Dragon Wine. I feel like I’m ready for 2013.

I have a national science fiction convention to run with Nicole Murphy, but after that, I’m head down on the writing side. There is a degree in there somewhere.

I have some outlining to do. After I finished Bespelled, I started getting ideas for two more stories in the same setting, using different characters. I shake my head at myself. I think I’m addicted to being in the worlds I create. I haven’t yet thought up ideas for more stories in The Sorcerer’s Spell and I have yet to write down the ideas for a sequel to Rayessa and the Space Pirates. I have had ideas for Rayessa since I first wrote the book (nearly 9 years ago), but I haven’t written them down and have to drag them from my subconscious.

It’s been a fabulous first day of the year. Quiet, warm and relaxed. Matthew’s been doing stuff on his PC and I’ve been hooked into mine. I had a lovely visit from Ella and her son, Oliver and we had date scones and a lovely catch up. Something about having a young child in the house on the first day of the year. If felt very nice. He’s very cute too.

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Getting the promotion machinery going

Posted in Book launch, Digital Publishing, General excitment, Promotion, Science fiction conventions, Science Fiction Romance on December 15, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Now I have a cover and a release date (10 Jan 2013) I can plan what promotion (mostly celebration) is going to happen. Today the lovely Nicole Murphy (http://nicolermurphy.com/) came over to do some Conflux organising and launch party brain storming.

For those of you who don’t know, Nicole and I are running the National Science Fiction Convention next year in Canberra over the Anzac Day period. Today we were scheduling the 20 diverse workshops we will be running as part of the convention. We are very excited about it. After we had settled that, we got down to brainstorming my launch party.

The launch party planning became a big thing. Here I was thinking I would have a themed party with people dressing up as space pirates or slaves. You can tell from the title there are space pirates and there is also a Centauri Slave Market featured. The lovely Matthew Farrer (http://matterfarrer.wordpress.com/) also piped in with his ideas and now I’m doing a ‘Welcome to AllEarth Corp induction pack’ including a few novelties I will have to create or supply. (this means I have some work to do). We discussed props/house decorating stuff, food (including meatball asteroids and chocolate crackle asteroids), a purple coloured punch served out of haz chem bucket (Matt’s brilliant idea). I was thinking it would be a punch bowl and have been told a bucket with a haz chem symbol is what I need. There is going to be a lucky door prize, a pass the parcel prize, a trailer viewing, a reading (apparently I can’t outsource that part).

Because I have no physical book to display, I’ve been thinking hard about what I can do to let people take away something. My idea was a book mark thingy, with space on the back for an autograph. So I have that ball rolling. I’m just hoping Nicole doesn’t tell me my design is sucky, because it’s TOO LATE , Nicole! Also, as Conflux is coming up, the bookmarks can go into conbags. I’m sure I’ll get a discount, Hey Nicole? I’ll possibly have enough for another convention I’m going to in June.

While I was at the supermarket after Nicole went home, I also had the idea to make a cake in the shape of a space ship, my version of a space ship. So that’s all happening on the 19th of January and now I have to put my thinking cap on about the invites. As the launch party is at my house I have limited space. As it is in January a lot of people will be away so maybe it will work out.

I’ve already been on http://www.thinkgeek.com to get a few things I’ll need. The trouble with to do lists is that they give you things to do.

Also, promoting your work in this digital age is a new and exciting frontier. Will it work? I have no idea.

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Delayed Conflux 8 post

Posted in Cake, Science fiction conventions, Steampunk on November 18, 2012| Leave a Comment »

This blog post is also delayed. No excuses this time.

This will be a short post because I hung out in the dealers’ room promoting Conflux 9 (the 52^nd Australian National Science Fiction Convention) in April next year. Link here. So I didn’t get to many panels (1.5 I think) so I can’t rave about how fantastic they were.

What I can report is that it went off swimmingly. The atmosphere was lovely and supportive and there were more people that I thought were coming.

I’d been helping out with payments in the lead up to Conflux 8, but the sheer luck of having the eftpos machine. The workshops were selling like hotcakes and so were memberships. So by helping out a little bit, I got an invite to the night before dinner with the committee and guests. We went to Sammys and that was awesome.

I met Tor Roxburgh at dinner, and she was great to talk to. She had been previously published in the young adult area many years ago. Took a break from writing and is now writing fantasy. Apparently, her agent doesn’t do fantasy so she went down the self-publishing route. I was very pleased to make Tor’s acquaintance. I got to say a quick hello to Keri Arthur, Traci O’Hara, Kaaron Warren and Dawn Meredith.

The interesting thing about Conflux 8 was that there was a lunch on the Saturday, included in the cost of the membership. It was a great idea and there was plenty of food and the theme was 1950s. There was a prize for the best 1950s get up and the best Hawaiian shirt. So all day I wore my lovely 50s dress and I’d made a little fascinator/hat thing with a veil. I don’t have a photo. Pooh! If someone has a shot, please let me know.

Kaaron Warren and I were the only ones to dress up. We tied for the prize. She wore her amazing pineapple dress she bought in a market in Nadi, Fiji. I was there. I saw her. She was very clever and told a story about the dress. Me…nah my head was empty.

At lunch I got to sit with Ingrid Jonach, who is soon to be published with Strange Chemistry. We had a long chat about her book, about books and about the convention. Fab Oh!

In the dealers’ room I had been tasked with supervising the decoration of Dalek cookies. This was fun and wiled away the time a bit. I got to mix with people. Pressure them into decorating cookies!

Here are some shots.

There is Yaritji in the purple scarf having a go at decorating the cookies.

One of the decorated cookies

I even have a shot with Nicole, who had the munchies, I think.

Nicole Murphy with her fire spitting cookie

Even the big Keith Stevenson got into the dalek action.

Keith Stevenson with the icing in his hand

On Saturday night I went to the book launches. I dressed in my jeans and t-shirt by then. I think there were five books launched, Craig Cormick’s, Greg Mellor, Jodi Cleghorn’s anthology, Gillian Polack’s and Tor Roxburgh. (I don’t think I left anyone out). That was a hoot. Jack Dann worked hard launching those books.

I got to hang with Keri Arthur, Janeen Webb and Kaaron Warren at the launch. Then we nicked down the pub for steak and chips.

Let’s see if this works. Photo by Cat Sparx here.

Sunday I was in my Victorian gear to promote Conflux 9 and my ol’ time fav event, the steam punk themed high tea. This time Cat Sparks did manage to get a shot of me in it. I was wearing my new hat.

Let me see if I can link to Cat’s photo of me. Here.

I talked to people, got a few people to sign up to the high tea, chatting with KJ Taylor (as she was author in residence) and she talked to me about her latest idea and read a bit from her notebook. It was a fantastic idea and I can’t wait to read that one. I also caught up with Adam Browne, who also launched a book.

My steampunk themed cake was on display all weekend. It was getting photos taken.

Here is one or two here.

This is Katie Taylor checking whether her pocket watch matches the time on the cake.

Katy Taylor with the steampunk cake

I caught up with Keri Arthur and Cora Wright for lunch. We also dead dogged together. Keri is a very generous person. She shares her experience and gives advice and encouragement.

Here is a close up of my cake.

The cake

I managed to get into a panel session on indie publishing. Keri Arthur talked about her hybrid model. She is traditionally published but is also going to self-publish through her agent. The other panel I half got to was the one on point of view, but I got pulled out to attend to closing ceremony business.

At the closing ceremony there was more Jack Dann excellent shtick and Jack auctioned of my steampunk cake. I was hoping to raise some money for Conflux 9 and not bring the cake home to eat. Anyway, the lovely and excellent, Craig Cormick bought the cake for $100 on the condition that all the members of the con ate it. (Craig can’t eat cake himself) so it was cut up etc. Bloody amazing man. I hope we can lure Craig to more conventions because he is good value and way to clever and talented.

So that was my convention. I caught up with friends, Kimberley Gaal, Nicole Murphy (ok she lives up the road). Actually I spilled my tea all over her. Oops!

Here is a great shot of Kimberley in a hat borrowed from Lewis Morley.

Now for those photos from Cat Sparx try here.