The Church of the Immaculate Roast

The grower...
The roaster...
The French press...
May the Bean be with you!

In other words? SpoCon had some damn good coffee.

I know I said I would be posting voraciously all throughout SpoCon.

I lied.

Now, however, I can really hook you up--as well as insert some shameless promotions for certain amazing people.

Now, on Saturday there were some decent panels--there were, I promise--but the crowning achievement of the day was the last two set of blogs. Paramore in paranormal romance and adult themes in science fiction and fantasy. The first was a hellaciously awesome line-up to begin with--Courtney Breazile, Moira J. Moore, and one of my new favorite people, Lilith Saintcrow (see my previous blog post). That panel discussed very serious issues--the power differential between a human and the other in paranormal romance, the believability of an obscenely pwerful creature being led around by a mere human, and the important issue of bestiality when it comes to werewolves.

After that, Erik Scott de Bie joined us for adult themes ranging from violence to sexuality and even touching a bit on psychological darkness. That panel stretched on another hour or so after it was supposed to end and definintely got derailed by our moderator--but that made it so very memorable and enjoyable.

Then came Sunday, a day devoted to gaming. However, I still attended the brilliant NaNoWriMo panel (Frances Pauli, Lilith Saintcrow, and a woman I sadly cannot remember the name of...for shame) and an end of day panel on metaphysical crystals.

All in all, I give this particular con a 4.5 out of 5, which I understand is somewhat because of their new switch to a hotel instead of Gonzaga. I still preferred RadCon, however. But not a lot.

Wishing I had more Cold Forge coffee,
Voss

Con Day One

If you've been paying any attention to me at all, you should know I'm currently at SpoCon 2011.

Well, aside from the hour plus wait for pre-registration, everything was fairly smashing.

First panel I went to was this brilliant thing with Patricia Briggs, Frances Pauli, and my new favorite chocolate-toting alpha-heroine, Lilith Saintcrow on the uses of myth in urban fantasy. While it degraded slightly into a talk of magic dinguses (or is the plural dingi?) and bronze rubbers (she meant a rubber of bronze, apparently), it was still rather enlightening.

The brainstorming panel was, admittedly, the same old smae old.

All in all, though, things are going pretty well. I mean, where else can you see Patti Briggs stake Edward Cullen?

I give this a 4 of five so far--and I have two days left.

Optimistically yours,
Voss

Con Weekend

This weekend is the weekend of SpoCon 2011.

That means I get to pretened to hob-nob with the big name authors. Exciting for me, and that's what you, the public, really cares about, so it's good for everyone. Maybe I'll actually get someone to look at something I post for once if I quote Patricia Briggs enough. Yes, I'm bitter about having no views on my blog. Sue me.

So, as the weekend progresses, you all will be seeing copious updates about this convention and the things I'm seeing, learning, and being inspired by. That means, in layman's terms, a whole lot of posts. A LOT of posts about SpoCon.

While I'll be almost completely holed up in the LIT Room (301) listening to things about worldbuilding, descriptions, brainstorming, and stealing some tips from the Novel Writing Master Class (Deby Fredericks, Patricia Briggs, John Dalmas, Jane Fancher, Kathy McCracken, and C J Cherryh on one panel), that's not all. I'm here for fun, of course, and inspiration--plus other tools for writing. Character voicing/accents and creating interesting characters for LARPing, metaphysical uses of crystals, screenwriting, and the obligatory dance performance or two--all there for fun and inspiration for writing.

So, what was my point? I can't remember at all. At any rate, though, I'll be there and you'll be hooked to a direct source--all eight of you. Mind, a goodly number of you will be there with me, but I digress.

I don't digress to anything important, but I digress,
Voss