Scarlett Letters

Busy day, this first day. I had two panels, lunch with irrationalrobot and AC, and dinner at Thai Ginger with a host of the finest people at the show including jackwilliambell, katatomic, coffeeem, willshetterly, nisi_la, oldmangrumpus and many more. My first panel, a workshop on writing setting, went very well, I thought. This evening, I found myself a contestant in the convention's game show and made a pretty poor showing of it, sadly. I shall have to redeem myself somehow tomorrow. Redemption may be hard to come by however....

I have managed to avoid spending untoward sums of money, though that restraint may melt away in the face of a Saturday fraught with financial peril, seeing as how the art show is offering some really fine art prints and the convention is being held in the heart of Redmond Town Center, where the shopping is pretty fine. (Mighty long sentence, that.)

So that's the scoop for the first day. I'm tired. Time for bed.

Photography: I've signed contracts for short stories and articles in the past, but yesterday was the first time I've ever signed a contract for a photo--for National Geographic! One of their designers apparently sniffs around on Flickr for source material. They found one of my Africa photos--no, none of the pretty wildlife pictures but, rather, the shot of the interior of my tent. They're going to use it for one of their educational programs. It's not glamorous and it's not sexy, but it's a sale to a venue I love and admire. It feels like coming full circle after spending time, as a kid, with my hobbyist photographer father reading NatGeo on the living room couch. I'll take it!

The hand: The hand heals apace. It appears to be stuck in a mild, semi-permanent Vulcan salute, with the pinkie and ring finger slightly separated from the middle and pointer fingers. I'm working to remedy this situation whenever the hand isn't in the splint. I should be getting to the doctor in a few days to get another x-ray to see how it's healing. I miss being two-handed: I hate the discomfort I feel when I drive, I hate the waste of using paper plates and plastic cups because I can't wash dishes, I actually miss housecleaning. And so I double-dose on the calcium and hope for health.

Book, publishing, and gaming: One of my recent freelance projects was editing The KOBOLD Guide to Game Design, Vol III: Tools & Techniques for Open Design and Kobold Quarterly. The book is on sale as a PDF now, and will be available in hard copy in a couple of weeks. If you have any interest in roleplaying games or designing same, you ought to check out this book as well as its predecessors (volume 1, volume 2). It includes essays by some of the major names in game design (including our own the_monkey_king whose work features prominently in the book, as well as folks like Ed Greenwood and Monte Cook), and nuts-and-bolts advice about game design. Pretty spiffy, if I do say so myself.

Foolscap's Twitter presence: Some of you may know that I'm on the con committee for Foolscap, a local convention that takes place every September. There's been a lot going on behind the scenes. I've been one of a group posting to our Twitter streams (@flatstuff, the fun one, and @foolscapcon, the informative one). There's been some great stuff on @flatstuff lately, including announcements of local genre readings, interesting articles from a wide selection of sources, live tweeting from other conventions and so on. Give it a look-see.

ETA: Zoo penny smashing: I've just heard that Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium in Tacoma has three new penny machines. It's time for a day trip. Anybody wanna go to the zoo in the next couple of weeks?

Much to my bemusement, I find myself on the convention committee for Foolscap, a local science fiction convention that celebrates flat stuff: books, comics, and art. Our Guests of Honor this year are Emma Bull and Will Shetterly, and Cory Ench and Catska Ench.

One of our new efforts is going to be our Twitter feeds. I'll be one of the folks posting to each feed. @foolscapcon will be the formal PR feed, a pure announcement outlet for Official Convention News. @flatstuff is where we expect the fun stuff to happen: reports from other conventions, posts about books we're reading, news about our GOHs and members (if they'll allow us), and so on. I hope you'll follow along.