My Con Schedule

Once again I’m headed to Balticon over Memorial Day weekend. I’ve been attending there for decades, and speaking or presenting there for a few years now. I consider them my “home con” if you will. They have had some struggles of late and some of my friends have moved away from this convention in particular. We’ll see what it brings this year.


My schedule for the panels I’ll be on:

 Start Time      Duration            Room Name          Session ID                      Title
Sat 2:30 PM    1 Hr          James                      45          What Makes a Good Player                         
Sat 5:30 PM    1 Hr          James                      29          Coming out of the Dungeon                         
Sun 1:00 PM    1 Hr          Guilford                   24          So you want to be a Game Master?                 
Sun 2:30 PM    1 Hr          Room 7029                  167         Making a Book Club Work                           
Sun 4:00 PM    1 Hr          James                      140         Being a bad guy without being a Bad Guy           
Sun 7:00 PM    1 Hr          James                      43          Your Player Said What??                           
Mon 10:00 AM   1 Hr          Mount Washington           259         Knights of the Virtual Table 

Con Trouble

I’ve seen a couple of different posts lately that talk in various aspects about how poorly certain conventions either have been run or are currently being run. I think a new pastime is going after convention staff and criticising what they do. Admittedly, some of them do need a critical eye turned their way. Creating something for other people to consume is not an easy thing. Doing that – putting your work out there for the scrutiny of others – is no easy thing. Creating something… anything is work. I have found it very difficult dealing with people who make nothing of their own but take great joy when they criticize or tear down the things that others have made. I know, I know – not something new. Internet trolls have been around and they are not going away.

Let’s start with World Con. A group of volunteers working to create something for the world and getting bashed left and right. Sometimes (often) justified, and sometimes not. Their choices for the current incarnation have been subject to a lot of scrutiny. I don’t know if the current set of choices under the critical eye were given much in the way of thought in terms of how others may react. Using tools like AI to create their convention seems like a time saving idea. Others have seen that as catastrophic and called it that. Do I think that using AI is some desperate or despicable act in terms of running a convention? No. No I do not. Do I think that it’s very easy to point fingers at a volunteer crowd when they are overwhelmed with work and say clearly you should have thought this out? Yes, it’s very easy to point fingers. Do I think there are better choices out there? Maybe. I’m not a fan of AI. I don’t suspect that I ever will be. Do I think that worldcon should use all the tools at its disposal? Absolutely. I would say that there needed to be some thought given to how those tools are presented. I think AI at this stage of its development is problematic on a good day, but I don’t know that it’s an end of the world scenario. They’re not creating Skynet, they’re sorting panelists and other information sorting tasks. Is a human touch better? When it comes to dealing with people and how they feel, it sure is. Worldcon has done enough damage to itself over the past few years that this just feels like piling on.

Worldcon clearly has a long way to go. They have struggled and they will continue to struggle. I actually hope the learning curve will help them to become a better and stronger convention going forward in the future. Long ago the con that presented the Hugo was a powerful thing. Now? Now I wonder at the value of the brand. I have stopped advocating to get onto the Hugo nomination list. Maybe someday that will change. Here’s a thing I wrote about my last interaction with them: https://www.ehardenbrook.com/withdrawal/

The other convention is a convention debacle that has been making the rounds on book tok and reviewer blogs. It is either a monumental underestimation by those without experience OR a naked cash grab by some less than scrupulous company. I’m talking about the “Million Lives” convention for ‘Romantasy’ authors and fans. I have no first hand knowledge of the event – but the reports are calling this the equal to the Fyre Festival. Check out one of the reports here

The thing about this kind of event is… effort. Fans, particularly fans laying out hundreds of their hard earned bucks, want results. I’ve seen it first hand. I know the sort of effort it took when the kids programming team set out to run a successful weekend for a few dozen children. Now amplify that to a point where you believe you’re going to fill a section of the Baltimore convention center. That’s a tall order.

This debacle feels like one of two things. First, it could be an ‘event company’ that really overshot on their first attempt. If that’s true, this will kill that company. Second, and the more cynical part of me believes this, the so called event company is at least a partial scam because they can skate away with the cash and it doesn’t really matter what happens with the attendees in their view. This particular convention (from all accounts) was a complete disaster. When I say complete – I mean from the things that people take for granted, like directional signage, all the way through an entertainment venues layout. The use and decoration of spaces in a convention location will only go so far. A bare concrete floor generally doesn’t say fantasy ball to me.

Grandiose visions, expansive events and immersive atmosphere  take time, effort and cash. Emphasis on the effort.

I guess (in this jumble of words that I have just sort of laid out here) what I’m trying to say is creating a thing like a convention is not easy. It is time-consuming and takes a team of dedicated people to do it. Sometimes things go wrong. Sometimes things go catastrophically wrong. Sometimes that is the fault of the staff and sometimes it’s not.

I hope, as I head out next weekend, to attend a convention, that Lessons Learned and growth will be part of how things are moving forward. I really wanted to go over these things just because I want to see Science Fiction and Fantasy conventions succeed. What does that level of success look like? I don’t know. Maybe everyone wants it to become Comic-Con but what we will be left with in the end is returning to something like what conventions were in the past. Smaller events, more tightly controlled and made for and with the Fans.

After I return from the Baltimore science fiction convention this year I intend to do a write-up as I always have in the past about my personal experiences and my thoughts on how things went. Maybe, if I’m really energetic, I’ll be able to post while I’m there! Stay tuned to find out!

Process and Choices

Along with writing, running games and creating stories I still create art. Well ‘art’ is a strong word, but I still make covers for Watch The Skies. At this point I know I’ve done more than 200 different pieces. Working and reworking those covers is a process. I’ve gotten a lot better and a lot faster at the process over time, but there are still a series of choices that have to be made each time. Sometimes I create options for the covers that never see the light of day. This month was an example of my method and I thought it would be a good idea to post up a couple of the options just for the sake of seeing the process. 

 When I’m working with photos in particular for any of the things that I’m creating, I often will use various filters through the computer to make these pictures look more seamless than they really are after I’ve compiled all the pieces. I know that using filters isn’t necessarily the same as drawing and/or painting with color to create the same effect, but given a shortened time frame the computerized tools are generally the option I need to go with.

 Here are a couple of alternates that I created for this month’s cover of our Fanzine.

Copies for each variation. I'm still partial to the neon in the bottom left corner.

Hopefully seeing these variations and knowing that there were other covers, other pieces that were attempted and discarded would help anyone who’s looking at the process of others in order to inform their own working steps. Creating a draft for writing is essentially the same thing. Computers are fantastic for copies. You have the ability to create a thing, then take that base and start again in a different direction. Running multiple iterations until you find the one that you think will work can be a long process. I think that could be an interesting discussion topic actually – how many iterations of a thing are you comfortable with before you put it out where the public can see it?

Quiet time

There’s something important about quiet times. I can’t put a finger on exactly what it is, but it matters.

As I’m writing this it is one of those quiet times. A damp and grey morning all the colors outside seem muted. Rain is alternating between a sad drizzle and a cutting, diagonal downpour. A warm cup of coffee fits, along with a book to read. Music with few words and soothing tones playing in the background.

Perhaps the important thing is that this is a short lived thing. I know that I’ve got a slate of things set up to do later today, grey weather or not. That will mean preparation and travel, filled with people and noise. The schedule will pick up and, if I am not careful, my energy level will drop precipitously.

This is recharge time. This is inspiration time. Time to drift and wonder and dream.

Take advantage of those times when you get them. I know I will.

Dungeons & Dragons – The Series?

There has been some recent (well, relatively recent but I’ve been slow to post) buzz around a television series based on Dungeons & Dragons.

In theory, this makes me happy. The issue is that being too excited to see something like this frequently leads to a big let down or massive disappointment. I’ve been burned in that department before (looking at you D&D movie from 2000). Sure, the latest film Honor Among Thieves did really well and was a lot of fun to watch. It had some great moments and an enjoyable story. There were big name actors involved who actually took on the story, rather than taking on the roll as a… diversion or escape from some other engagement they didn’t want to deal with. I liked it and I’ve watched it more than once. I went and bought a DVD (yes, hard copies personally owned are still a thing) to support the idea that they should make more.

So, why am I not more excited about this?

Fantasy is a very easy genre to do badly. It’s also super easy to mock when it all goes wrong. It’s also maddening when the ‘fantasy’ aspect is wrecked in order to shoe horn in some standard Hollyweird bullshit that some executive who’s never liked that “geeky stuff” anyway thinks it needs. “Where’s the lovers triangle and who’s playing the handsome but misunderstood hero”? Insert vomit noises here.

The good – D&D is now socially mainstream enough that shows and movies are not immediately shelved. There’s hope that this new TV show (streaming show likely) will actually show D&D related things. Real actors, quality effects and a decent story. One article I read (like here) also gives some “geek cred” to the creators behind the process.

The bad – It’s a series, so there’s likely less in the effects budget and that’s kind of a big deal when it comes to magic spells and mythical creatures. It’s being set in the Forgotten Realms, but nothing more specific than that. That’s kind of like saying I’m making a TV show about the police and it’s being set in America. Thanks. Way to narrow it down. There’s an absolute mountain of material there, but that’s where the trouble always begins. The mountain of material falls into the trap of trying to mention it all. We even saw a peek of that in the movie. How many little ‘nod to the fans’ things were spliced between the scenes that moved the story? Can we use any of the things they used in the movie if this show isn’t attached to it? IF we can’t, does that mean we’ll never see anything else from the Red Wizards of Thay?

The worrisome – It’s being set up on Netflix as of right now. I like them as a streaming service generally. They are, however, notorious for giving a show five to eight episodes, letting it start to generate some buzz, then just killing it altogether. That would just make me more mad if all of the stuff above was actually navigated successfully and I was actually a fan of a good show and they axed it.

It’s a lot of unanswered questions. I’ll keep watching for more, but my hope is… guarded.

Upcoming Convention – Getting Ready

I’m happy to say that I’ve been invited to be a panelist at the annual convention of the Baltimore Science Fiction Society again this year. I’m very excited for it!

Fandom in general and conventions in particular have had a lot of hard times lately. Things that might have been easier to deal with in different social environments have become bigger and noticeably more damaging. Sometimes for the better – exposing less than wonderful people and removing them from the processes. Sometimes for the worse – bending to inappropriate social pressures and attacking people without just cause. All of these things have made what was once a shining thing for me a lot more tarnished.

I have been attending or speaking at this particular con for somewhere in the realm of 30 years. I’ve been through a number of things with them, a number of locations and a bunch of changes. I know a number of people who’ve decided to go other directions and can’t or won’t forgive the people running this convention enough to support them. I understand that – I have made that choice with a number of other conventions myself. I’ve decided to keep going here, and I’m glad they’ll have me.

I got my draft schedule the other day and I started digging into panels and descriptions.

I’ve shifted away from a lot of the author things. I haven’t had anything published in so long I almost don’t remember the process. I am still connected to fandom and gaming, so I’ve been added to a bunch of those panels. My draft list is:

What Makes a Good Player?

So you want to be a Game Master?

Coming out of the Dungeon

Being a bad guy without being a Bad Guy

Your Player Said What??

and – Making a Book Club Work

I spent a fair portion of my afternoon writing up a bunch of notes for these descriptions and doing some homework on my fellow panelists (not going to get caught off guard again if I can help it). I can’t wait to see what everyone else has to say… and I am really looking forward to coming back and giving a full report on it here. Stay tuned!

My Favorite

Some weeks ago I got a little break in the schedule and got to do something I wouldn’t have thought I’d enjoy. Turns out, it was great. I had a really fun, relaxing evening of entertainment with friends.

What was this magical thing?

I went to see a play.

My dear friend John had tickets to a local high school production of “My Favorite Year”. There was a moment when I stopped and questioned why my friend had tickets to a high school play in the area (and no kids in school), but then found we were going in support of a coworker’s kids. What the hell? I’m in.

We headed to the auditorium, grabbed our seats and got comfy. That’s when it really hit me – I actually missed that sort of thing. My kiddo is years out of high school at this point and there just aren’t any sort of events like this anymore. No school nights, no plays, no concerts, no games… all that is just over and done. God(s) help me, I actually had a bout of nostalgia and a real sense of loss.

Then there was the mess of a crowd getting out. All that nostalgia went away and I remembered all the pain in the ass parts. I had no connections of my own, no fellow parents to chat with, nor any of the ‘normal’ things associated with going to an event like that. The best possible thing for me was to get through the crowd and head out the doors. Easier said than done, but I managed.

I will say the kids in that production were great. The music, the dancing, the costumes were excellent. It was a great show. Start to finish, well done. If you can go and support the kids of your coworkers or friends, give it a shot!

First Casualty

The first casualty of stress isn’t free time, it’s creativity.

The real world has been conspiring against me for a while now, attempting to hamper my creative efforts. It has been quite successful – just not enough of anything to push forward. Get finished with the real world requirements and fall over, drained.

Yes, there are lots of ‘creative’ solutions to whatever thing is going on outside of computer land, but that is generally exhausting and limiting all bundled into one. I’ve had a handful of times when I was without “something to do” over the past couple of months, but never a time when I’d had the space or physical and emotional recovery time to make something of it.

Recovery time is an important aspect of that. Just because the immediate issue has passed doesn’t mean everything just pops over into the creative stream and gushes out full speed. More than once I’ve sat here with fingers on keys just trying to will myself to type anything and failing. I’ve watched hours of short videos on YouTube, sometimes repeating the same ones because there’s some spark there that isn’t challenging and there’s an odd comfort to that. That moment of “oh, there’s an idea” and it just falls apart or I can’t get the energy to move has been real.

Sometimes I can’t wait for the muse or the recovery. Sometimes I just need to push ahead and put words on a page. They might not be good words. They might not be spelled correctly or they’ll have terrible grammar, but they’ll push my body to remember the part where I can sit and type for something that doesn’t involve work or an insurance company.

The big hurdle will be taking that process and putting the creativity back into it. Let’s see how this challenge goes.

Upcoming Convention

I have volunteered as tribute… I mean, I volunteered to be on panels at the Baltimore science fiction society’s convention again this year. I made that choice back around the first of the year (or maybe earlier?) when they sent out invitations. I haven’t heard anything yet, but that’s typical for any convention – many details, including schedules, run close to the last minute. I expect the schedule won’t be final until close to Memorial Day weekend (when the convention happens).


I understand there are any number of folks out there who are very down on Balticon and the people running it. I’ve witnessed some people getting rotten treatment and half ass apologies or no apologies. I know a large number of authors and vendors who are specifically not going this year, and likely never will again. There have been struggles.

Part of me very much wants to support my friends. I know first hand how behind the scenes stuff spirals out of control and becomes ‘news’. I’ve stopped all support for any worldcon and Philcon specifically for personal reasons much like theirs. I’ve posted about that before, both here and other places. Treating people shabbily is not excusable.

Balticon was the first convention I ever attended back in 1993. They were the first convention to invite me as an author guest. They were the first convention I displayed art at. They’ve been my ‘home con’ where I’ve participated for more than 3 decades. I’m going again this year. I am hopeful for improvements, but mindful of what has gone before.

Preservation

I give way too much thought to my legacy for somebody that has barely cracked a dozen published works. Thing is, I can’t help it. I have binder upon binder of notes. I have this addiction to paper and all sorts of sketching and annotation and random outlining of ideas. It is admittedly less organized than I would want it to be, but in there is the culmination of years and years of world building and character notes and map sketches.

Who cares?

A fair question. First and foremost the person stuck cleaning things out I suppose. This is a difficult and sometimes tragic situation.

A long time ago I was asked for my opinion on some works left behind by a young creator. This young person had been killed in an accident and the grieving parents, in their quest for answers as to why this young person was gone far too soon, were lashing out at any and all entities involved in the accident. I was shown a sample of the young creator’s works and asked if I thought this was the seeds of a potentially legendary career cut short too soon.

It’s heartbreaking to see this kind of thing. One of the biggest factors in this particular case was the parents clearly having no interest or understanding in the work presented. Was this a factor in the so deemed ‘accident’? Hard to say. I had very limited access to information about the case (for that is exactly what it became when the parents brought lawsuits and criminal accusations). The scattered papers were gathered up and some notes attempting to bring order or sense were clipped to the front of the stack.

At the time I said I couldn’t see the level of potential claimed by the parents. The sketches were indifferent in skill, copying media available at the time. Fan fiction and use of copyrighted works without permission. I think about this from time to time. Would I see it differently now?

So, I have these thoughts. I have stacks of binders and reams of sketches, some in books and some floating freely across reference books or folded into game manuals. Will somebody look at those and claim there is more there than there is? I have my doubts, but I think about it anyway.

Then I wonder ~ what sort of gap in history will there be when these millions upon millions of words just go away? Yes, I have this addiction to paper, but how many notes, feelings, personal letters and all the other ephemera of an author’s life will be lost when (notably not IF) all the electronic records fail and the internet is gone? How will a researcher dig into the various aspects of what brought a story to life when all that life was held together with circuits and lights?

This is a thought I’ve had before, and one that will likely crop up again. The topic is worth the thought. How many thousands of my words would disappear if my website went away? Would anyone other them me care? What sort of personal correspondence would come up when somebody wondered if I bounced ideas off other authors? Will there be anything to find?

I think this article (link) is both hopeful and naïve at the same time. Not everyone has that addiction to paper. It’s worth reading and definitely worth considering.