Quick recap

Armadillocon was a pleasant, low-key experience for me this year. I haven't quite recovered my energy from the vacation road trip to NASFiC, so I took it easy for the most part. I saw many old friends and had some stimulating (as usual) conversation. Alan Porter's import of Dave Gibbon's "Hypotheticals" comic book panel was a blast, tempered only by the relatively sparse audience (somewhat understandable, since few at the con had any idea what it would entail).

I delivered half a dozen maypop passion fruit to Elizabeth Moon, who is trying to establish them on her 80 acres of wildlife habitat up in Florence. Lillian and Paul Carl happened by about this time, and I've promised to send them some as well for their home in Fort Worth. Even at SF conventions, I'm still obsessing over passiflora it seems.



Sara Felix asked me a couple of months ago to create some homebrew for the guest of honor gift baskets. In the past, she'd included Shiner Bock as a sort of local Taste of Texas, but after the beer I brewed for Mark Finn's book launch last year, she thought it'd be more fun for me to do some for the con. Which I did--"DilloBrau" is a variant of my tried and true nut brown ale, but this time I used dark toasted malt, which gave it a slight chocolate touch. And since you can't brew just five bottles of beer (for the five Guests of Honor) I carried another case of brew along to the con, which was distributed at the Space Squid/RevolutionSF party. More than a few people (con com included) were snagging the garish-labeled bottles as souvenirs, which made me happy. And lots of people sampled it, and even fewer people went blind, which is always good.

The rest of the time I pretty much spent stalking Sharyn November. I'm never going to be a professional book editor, but editing anthologies and magazines and other such animals is something that interests me greatly (as evidenced by my impressive trail of failed anthology proposals). When I have an opportunity to hear an editor critique a story, I pay particular attention to not only the points they pick out that I also zeroed in on, but also those areas where our opinions differ or I just flat-out missed. I dissect and obsess over these points, trying to understand and digest the reasoning behind the comments. Ultimately, I don't always agree, but I think it helps me grow as an editor.

I actually spent more time tracking her down to introduce writers and artists who'd like to do work for her than pitching myself (silent stalker guy isn't the best persona from which to pitch) but we did have a useful conversation regarding my long-delayed, much-researched Sailing Venus novel. As I suspected, she agreed there isn't much being published now in the YA field that falls into the science fiction adventure mold of the old Winston juveniles, but that such a book could potentially stand out among all the fantasy adventures and soft, near-future SF currently filling YA booklists. She asked to see it whenever I get it finished, provided it doesn't utterly suck (she didn't actually say that, but it pretty much goes without saying, you know?). Sharyn is blunt and outspoken, and sometimes hard to read (I'm not the only one who stumbles over that whole East Coast cultural thing) but I understand why she's one of the few editors who has something of a fan following--when you're discussing a project with her, even in passing, there is a tangible feeling that you and your work have her fullest attention at that time. When she gives her thoughts, they feel genuine and honest, as opposed to an evasive answer that is non-committal enough to not burn any bridges. There is a blunt directness about her that can be intimidating at first, but it's easy to see how this would be a great trait in an editor to work with. Now I just have to get my lazy butt in gear and write the damn thing.

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