#chattacon

Lots of stuff going on and ongoing.

Number One -- Google Tasks is the bomb. Seriously. I'm, like, getting shit done. I'm remembering to do things because my exobrain is remembering it for me. If I can get one thing done around the house each day, on consecutive days, for days at a time, dagnabbit I'm getting shit done. You put it on the Tasks app, it fragging puts it on your Calendar, I keep it open on the phone, it stays in the back of my mind because I see it multiple times in a day, and it gets done. Schedule dog walks, schedule washing dishes, schedule writing, schedule whatever, it's there, you see it, it gets done. Between Tasks, Keep, Gmail and Calendar, I've got the means to keep up with dang near anything. The danger is not overdoing it, because here be burnout yo.

Number Two -- I never got the hang of drinking coffee, y'know? I tried, when I was younger, but it always messed up my stomach and I wasn't thrilled with the taste. My thing was Diet Coke, which I love with the force of a thousand exploding suns. And, later, I developed a love of fine Chinese black teas. (I freely and cheerfully direct your attention to Upton Tea Imports for further information. I loves me some good Chinese Keemuns, that's fine drinking.)

However, in the last week I have discovered a coffee drink I can actually stomach. And it has been educational.

It goes like this: 1 tbsp instant espresso powder, 3 tbsp your choice of creamer powder, 1/4 cup or more chocolate syrup, 8 ounces boiling water. Mix well, with a milk frother mixer thing if you have one but spoon's fine. It's a sort of half-assed mocha thing. I call it 'hellbrew' or Liquid Mania depending on my mood. And speaking of mood ...

The first one I drank it kept me up to 3 AM despite the fact I drank it at least twelve hours earlier.

I've had several since then (I'm afraid to have more than 1 a day), and yesterday it cranked me up so high that I spent more than an hour unable to sit still and stimming like you would not believe. I don't stim physically. Usually. But yesterday dear gods I stimmed. I stimmed so freaking much and suddenly I understand the whole thing now and oh yeah my skin felt like it was vibrating. All over. MY ENTIRE BODY WAS VIBRATING.

I was working at the time. Like I said, educational.

Speaking of ...

Number Three -- I have finally finished training for my job so Monday morning I am turned loose on my own recognizance. It's been 5 weeks? Or six? Five, I think. Regardless, I am working full time and funds are available in abundant supply. Just in time to replace all 4 tires on my car. But still, there have been groceries bought and eaten, and I was able to replace my earbuds when the case on my old ones got messed up. And last night I signed up for health insurance for the new year. And I'll be able to start paying my mortgage again. The reduction of stress has been restful. I am on the verge of not just surviving, but thriving.

Number Four -- Pathfinder Progress. Two nights ago I wrote what is probably the exact midpoint of the book, my protagonist and antagonists finally met face to face. Still not able to speak to each other, but it's only a matter of time. The Taelai have survived the Surprise Asteroid and now outright treachery from some of their own people. They're halfway back to civilization, given their means of travel they've got at least a week to ten days til they reach a friendly port and another week to ten days after that to their throneworld system of Daitengu. There's a lot still left to do. But I am making progress. It's getting done.

And beyond Pathfinder, I now have a third story planned. Tentative title: Cinder. There is a preliminary outline, and because this is me and the theater of the mind has no budget, Imma imagine Tom Cruise starring in it.

Because he's pretty, that's why.

Number Five -- I briefly considered attending the Saga Writer's Conference which is scheduled for July 2024 as my birthday present for my 55th birthday, but honestly I don't think I can justify the expense. I estimate I'd be spending at least $1k if one includes lost wages, and I just can't afford that. I have no doubt it would be a great time and I'd learn a lot of stuff I desperately need to know, plus it's being held at ConGregate and that would be just gravy on the potato cake so to speak. But alas, no.

However! I have been looking in to what I could learn on Skillshare, and the answer is quite a lot. Copyediting, social media marketing, Wordpress skillz, creating author platforms, AI art generation (yeah I know, but professional artists don't work for free and you guys have noticed I'm starting from zero, right?). Also, fiction writing. There's also a lot just for free on YouTube and various podcasts such as the excellent Writing Excuses.

Speaking of ...

Number Six -- ChattaCon is coming up in January, and Imma determined to stalk Mary Robinette Kowal, pin her down and massage her brain.

Number Seven -- I'm actually participating in a local speculative fiction writer's group, a subsect of the Chattanooga Writer's Guild. Like, I went to a real-time, real-life meeting (usually it's over video). This was at a coffee shop but pre- Liquid Mania so there was not 'dance a jig in your chair' or vibrating eyeballs. Next time, I will know what to order to make the proceedings much more entertaining.

The turning, the turning, the turning of the year ... those moments when you hear the creaking of the wheel as it grinds, carrying you even as it plows you under.

My first ChattaCon was ChattaCon 11. I was 16 years old, and the ecstatic joy I felt in those first few moments when I walked in and saw a guy dressed as Nightcrawler from the X-Men, leaping across the Consuite ... that moment has lived within me ever since. I picked up my first sword at that ChattaCon. I met people who delighted in talking about comic books without shame. I saw D&D books for sale like so many magical tomes proudly displayed in the markets of a mystical town. This was home, this gypsy circus village of madmen and tavern wenches.

It's been home ever since. And no more so than when I met the three men who have been my family ever since. My soul family.

Ironically, the fourth man, the man I married who introduced me to the other three, that man I haven't seen in twenty years. But the other three who attended our wedding, those three stooges I have kept firm ties.

We're all old now. They're in their 60's now. I'm not far behind. I know I'll be there when they take the last journey. Someday I'll get The Call for each of them. And I will feel grief for them. Every last one. Every moment.

But this last Friday and Saturday, we staked a claim on a table in the Consuite and we talked and talked and talked. It was about equal time how to game Medicare and so many memories of our imaginary conquests in Dungeons & Dragons. I'd leave only to attend panels, come right back and resume my place among them. My oldest friends.

I was safe, I was supremely happy, surrounded by these dear souls, once more in the heart of our ephemeral caravan home. The turning of our year.

Then Sunday dawned, and the party was over.

I washed, dressed in black, and made the drive to the funeral home.

And there was no greater contrast.

I sat silent and alone in a room with my mother's ashes while my blood family fought a furtive war all around me, faction against faction, my stepfather fighting by his absence and flat refusal to have anything to do with any of them. I was left, alone, silent, speaking to no one, watching the strained conversations. And the hyperactive screaming to two little boys that forced me to get out my ear plugs. Kids who haven't apparently been taught appropriate behavior at a funeral.

No one bothered to talk to me, and I was frankly afraid to talk to any of them. No matter who I spoke to the "other side" would take note of it and use it against me. While my uncle urged me to just take my mom's ashes and bury them where he wanted, though I've told him repeatedly in the last few weeks that I don't have that legal right.

Everyone fighting, everyone trying to use me for their own ends. When they aren't ignoring me for being inconveniently moral.

No one seemed to remember we were there for a funeral.

I know who my real family are now. And it's not the people I share genetics with.

It's those three dear souls who opened their arms to me at ChattaCon. Three great bears of men -- each well over six feet tall! -- with expansive intellects and hilarious good humor and unmatched kindness. My dear ones. My best friends.

A New Year, New Books, and New Conventions!

(Well, that last part isn’t quite true, but it sounded good so I went with it.) We’re already two weeks into January, and the first convention has come and gone! Chattacon 49 went from January 12th to 14th and, according to William Joseph Roberts, it couldn’t have gone better. Ol’ Hillbilly served as Toastmaster for the event, giving him a chance to trade stories with some of the industry’s…

I had an amazing time at Chattacon over the past weekend. Got to hang out, laugh, and swap stories with con family and new attendees. I think the most enjoyable panel that I attended was the Anthology panel that Jody Lyn Nye moderated. The guys over at Chattooine had myself and John B. Pyka from “Back of the cereal box” on their late-night quiz show that my team nearly won, then were horribly…

So I went to my hometown con yesterday.  

I’ve spoken before regarding my antipathy toward drinking and drunk people, so I don’t stay for the goings-on after about 7 PM.  I am drawn primarily to the panel discussions, and if I have money to spend I’ll take a turn or two through the dealers room.  But quite unexpectedly there was a panel on “normalizing disabilities and neurodivergence”.  

So I have met my first autistic peeps.  And I don’t quite know what to think.   But I feel ... I dunno.  Not alone.  They’re part of a local anime club and have started a neurodivergent thing on Facebook.  So I’m trying to get back into the Facebook account I made once and now can’t get back into.  So we’ll see.  If nothing else Genji’s social circle is on there so that would be useful.  But I trust Facebook about as far as I could spit a rat.  I’m told that’s where all the cool kids go, so who knows.  I think it’s more a “heaven doesn’t want me and hell’s afraid I’ll take over” kind of thing.  

And I attended a couple other panels for writing.  There’s an indie publishing outfit here local who look useful, I may be able to submit Watchtower to them.  I dunno, we’ll see.  There are options.  

One of the things the girls at the neurodivergence panel talked about was getting involved in fandom, by just speaking to the folks who run conventions and above all “speak your need”.  I’m not going to get back into fandom if I don’t actually do anything to get back into fandom, and I understand that.  It’s all well and good to say “I’m participating in fandom by writing sci-fi, by contributing to the genre”.  But fanac is not just writing the genre.  It’s making connections.  It’s actively trying to make friends in fandom, not just pining away waiting for it to magically happen.  

And for a wonder, I saw three old friends there, and for a while -- a little while -- I wasn’t alone.  I was with people who know me down to the atoms, and who have known me for more than thirty years, who listened to me say “I am autistic” and hugged me tight the same as they always did.  

Sometimes, under the right stars, with the right people, it isn’t a curse.  Or a cross to bear.  It’s just the way I am.  

I have hope now, that I’ll get to the bottom of this someday, this bottomless pit of revelations and floors that collapse beneath me to new states of normal.  I have hope that I might find myself back where I started all those years ago when I walked into the consuite of my first con and saw a guy dressed as Nightcrawler leaping across the room.  That moment of the most profound connection has been my light all these years that in the end I was not alone.  

Chattacon 47 After Action Report, recovery, and new books!

The weekend was long, exhaustive, and seemed to fly by in the blink of an eye all at the same time. It was great to be back at a convention to see old friends and to make new ones. Even though the turn-out wasn’t massive, everyone had a great time. I worked most of the con, either moderating or participating in panels almost every other hour the first two days. It was freaking awesome! Between…