Can it really be that Fantasycon will be my first convention of 2017? Apparently it can. But at least I'm making up for my absences at - well, every other con on the planet, I suppose - by keeping myself busy. And the other notable fact this time around is that everything I'm doing has neatly ranked itself in order of most to least petrifying, so that I get to begin on a note of sweaty-palmed terror and slowly calm down from there, until be the time I set off home I'll be merely mildly spooked.
So, without further adoing, here's what I'll be up to over the coming weekend:
Friday 6.30 pm ‐ Ready Steady Flash
Lee Harris (mod), Guy Adams, Anna Smith Spark, Jeanette Ng, David Tallerman
How hard can it be to write a complete short story in five minutes? On a topic that you didn't know until a moment before? And then to do the same thing again and again, in competition with three immensely talented writers? Well, I don't know, having never tried, but my guess would absolutely goddamn impossibly hard. The thing is, I'm not the quickest of thinkers; ideas don't explain just pop into my head. So, yes, I've very nervous about this one indeed. But unfortunately for me and everyone else, a few years back I decided to never say no when I was asked to do something, at least unless it was patently illegal and / or life-threatening; I mean, if you ask me to smuggle pandas into North Korea then the chances are I'll turn you down. Anyway, point being, why not come along and watch me stare in rigid horror at a sheet of paper for an hour while far sounder minds produce scintillating word-pictures of unadulterated wit and insight? It'll be fun!
Friday 7.30 pm ‐ Writing Fighting!
David Tallerman (mod), Anna Smith Spark, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Simon Bestwick, Stewart Hotston
By comparison, plain old moderating a panel promises to be a relative breeze, assuming that the paramedics have managed to get my heart beating in time, of course. And what panelists I have! This one promises to be brilliant, and aside from my baseline level of nerves, I'm actually pretty excited for it. Especially because, with The Ursvaal Exchange, I finally feel like I've begun to really get the knack of this whole writing action sequences lark and won't feel like an utter fraud among such respectable company.
Saturday 4.30 pm ‐ Genre Films: Hidden Treasures
Eric Ian Steele (mod), Lynda Rucker, Gavin Williams, Gary Couzens, David Tallerman, Sean Hogan
Whereas this I'm just plain old looking forward to, no nerves or anything. Talking about movies? Yup, I will happily do that anywhere, at any time, in any circumstances and for any reason - which, thinking about it, probably has a lot to do with why I'm single and people don't like to sit next to me on trains. But hah, who cares! Movies are way more important than things like human interaction or not getting thrown out of funerals, right?
Sunday 10 am ‐ Reading: Fantasy
David Tallerman, Simon Bestwick, Joely Black
And lastly, at ten o'clock on the Sunday morning - which is basically my version of the crack of dawn - I will be reading, probably from The Ursvaal Exchange but maybe not, I haven't quite decided, in the company of Simon Bestwick and Joely Black. By this point I've no doubt that I'll be too tired and hungover to find anything short of an Ebola outbreak stressful, though the flip side of that is that I may well fall asleep mid-sentence. Either way, there's the promise of a restful hour!
But wait! I have a surprise last minute panel! What can I say? Someone dropped out, I got asked to fill in, and as noted above, I almost never so no to anything. So I'll also be moderating the following, which promises to be easy enough, because who out there doesn't hate film franchises?
Seriously? Almost nobody? Oh well, in that case this should be an even quieter end to the weekend than the reading!
Sunday 12.30 pm ‐ Genre Film Beyond the Franchises
David Tallerman (mod), Gary Couzens, Gavin Williams, Romain Collier, Nina Allan
And that really is it! If I get asked to do anything else, I'll almost certainly say no.
I mean, probably.
So, without further adoing, here's what I'll be up to over the coming weekend:
Friday 6.30 pm ‐ Ready Steady Flash
Lee Harris (mod), Guy Adams, Anna Smith Spark, Jeanette Ng, David Tallerman
How hard can it be to write a complete short story in five minutes? On a topic that you didn't know until a moment before? And then to do the same thing again and again, in competition with three immensely talented writers? Well, I don't know, having never tried, but my guess would absolutely goddamn impossibly hard. The thing is, I'm not the quickest of thinkers; ideas don't explain just pop into my head. So, yes, I've very nervous about this one indeed. But unfortunately for me and everyone else, a few years back I decided to never say no when I was asked to do something, at least unless it was patently illegal and / or life-threatening; I mean, if you ask me to smuggle pandas into North Korea then the chances are I'll turn you down. Anyway, point being, why not come along and watch me stare in rigid horror at a sheet of paper for an hour while far sounder minds produce scintillating word-pictures of unadulterated wit and insight? It'll be fun!
Friday 7.30 pm ‐ Writing Fighting!
David Tallerman (mod), Anna Smith Spark, Adrian Tchaikovsky, Simon Bestwick, Stewart Hotston
By comparison, plain old moderating a panel promises to be a relative breeze, assuming that the paramedics have managed to get my heart beating in time, of course. And what panelists I have! This one promises to be brilliant, and aside from my baseline level of nerves, I'm actually pretty excited for it. Especially because, with The Ursvaal Exchange, I finally feel like I've begun to really get the knack of this whole writing action sequences lark and won't feel like an utter fraud among such respectable company.
Saturday 4.30 pm ‐ Genre Films: Hidden Treasures
Eric Ian Steele (mod), Lynda Rucker, Gavin Williams, Gary Couzens, David Tallerman, Sean Hogan
Whereas this I'm just plain old looking forward to, no nerves or anything. Talking about movies? Yup, I will happily do that anywhere, at any time, in any circumstances and for any reason - which, thinking about it, probably has a lot to do with why I'm single and people don't like to sit next to me on trains. But hah, who cares! Movies are way more important than things like human interaction or not getting thrown out of funerals, right?
Sunday 10 am ‐ Reading: Fantasy
David Tallerman, Simon Bestwick, Joely Black
And lastly, at ten o'clock on the Sunday morning - which is basically my version of the crack of dawn - I will be reading, probably from The Ursvaal Exchange but maybe not, I haven't quite decided, in the company of Simon Bestwick and Joely Black. By this point I've no doubt that I'll be too tired and hungover to find anything short of an Ebola outbreak stressful, though the flip side of that is that I may well fall asleep mid-sentence. Either way, there's the promise of a restful hour!
But wait! I have a surprise last minute panel! What can I say? Someone dropped out, I got asked to fill in, and as noted above, I almost never so no to anything. So I'll also be moderating the following, which promises to be easy enough, because who out there doesn't hate film franchises?
Seriously? Almost nobody? Oh well, in that case this should be an even quieter end to the weekend than the reading!
Sunday 12.30 pm ‐ Genre Film Beyond the Franchises
David Tallerman (mod), Gary Couzens, Gavin Williams, Romain Collier, Nina Allan
And that really is it! If I get asked to do anything else, I'll almost certainly say no.
I mean, probably.
No comments:
Post a Comment