[Writer Post] ConDFW, Writing Excuses, Etc.
I know. I know. I missed my Wednesday post. My husband actually asked me if I posted on Wednesday. I had to admit, alas, I’m running late this week. I have excuses. Which is ironic, since that was one of the panels I sat on at ConDFW – Writing Excuses: Timing is Everything.
The panel was on how we come up with the time to write, and what our excuses are not to write. This week, I’m late on this because I was writing an essay for another possible book. This essay had a deadline of the end of the week. Deadlines always take precedence. So my excuse for NOT writing was that I was writing…freaky.
That was actually a fun panel (different kind of fun than the YDP Road Show) with a great group of panelists: Brandon Sanderson, Teresa Patterson, Lillian Stewart Carl, and Tom Knowles – and me. I was the small fish on the panel, but it was great. There was a good audience with good questions. I think we were able to both help and inform the audience on not being alone in the struggle to come up with time and energy to write. Sometimes it’s a major struggle.
I was also on a Religion in Science Fiction panel with Tim Powers, Shanna Swendson, Taylor Anderson, and Angeline Hawks. The panel manifest said to keep things simple. We girls kept making jokes during the panel to keep it light – yeah, that’s it. Sure. But it was a decent panel. No fights or name calling. Which is always good – fighting is only good when it’s planned and part of the Road Show.
The Religion panel was between my 4 p.m. signing with the Redheads and my 6 p.m. reading with Rachel Caine (I was the “warm up act”). We had about 10 people stay for the whole hour in a very warm room. Sunday was the “For Dummies” panel – and turned out to be much more fun than I thought – Dusty Rainbolt is a fantastic moderator.
But I realized at that 3 p.m. Sunday afternoon panel, that that was the first time since breakfast that I SAT DOWN. That’s a good thing. I spent all late morning and early afternoon talking to Christine Rose about writerly business stuff or at the Yard Dog Press table selling books. It was very productive, but also very tiring. It’s taken a few days to get back to work and back up to speed.
Then we found out officially that we won’t be out at Scarborough this year. This saddens me greatly. Though it’s a lot of hard work, it’s also a lot of fun. Those of you who were expecting to see us there, I’m really sorry. I’m trying to figure out some things to do to promote the books and stuff – maybe out there, maybe not. If anyone has suggestions, I’m open for them and will post this more individually around the web.
Now…back to writing.