Tag: celebration

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Authoring Cons & Appearances Detours Writing Life

C2E2 2019: the final chapter

I know I said I probably wouldn’t write a day 3 post, but…my final art purchase from the con — a commission from Ashley A. Woods — is so gorgeous I had to make time to write about it and the rest of the day.

This is a picture I never thought I would get. I had an impossible time reducing Ruth from “Roundup” in Rough Passages to a proper artist’s reference full of physical details. She’s o full of anger, love and patience…but what did she look like? Errrm. I never felt the recitation of dry facts (gray hair, older woman’s body and skin…) did her justice.

I knew I liked this artist’s work — check out Niobe: She Is Life from Stranger Comics, or Millenia Wars if you can find it — and knew she did an incredible job capturing personality in lines. So. I happened past her table and was looking at prints, and when I saw she was sketching, I gathered up ALL MY NERVES and asked if she did commissions.

Yes? YES?! W00T! I babbled various bits of description, she jotted notes, and this is the result. Ruth at the end of the story after her powers roll in, surveying her new land.

Oh. Yass.

Wow, right? RIGHT!

I got to watch the the last bit of marker work, and it was astonishing. It’s a craft I know takes hours & hours of practice, concentration, and effort, and it’s all the more amazing to watch because of that.

Other notes from Sunday? I picked up tea for myself and a friend, grabbed a print of Stitch wearing the Hogwarts Sorting hat and being sorted into Hufflepuff (Yes, he is so right for it, FIGHT ME) and generally enjoyed walking the aisles and seeing the things I missed because Saturday was so danged busy.

Next year, looking at the likelihood I still won’t be working a booth,  I might devote all of Saturday to attending panels  & not even go onto the vendor’s floor. There are so MANY folks who only come for that one day that even the super-wide aisles get crushingly crowded.

Crowds are not my thing. So. Very Much. NOT.

Happy note, though: I did not ever lose my con buddies. I remembered to memorize their clothes once we got to the con floor, and they made sure to wave to me when I got out of range (at 2-3 feet distance, I rely more on clothes/motion than faces)   So, yay, no panicky moments at all for once.

Rainy Sunday meant by the time we left the show we were all tremendously tired, footsore and achy. Came home, got all the stuff unpacked before exhaustion crashed in, and thanked past-me for making sure the house was in order because I was in no emotional state to deal with disorder.

Then came the dilemma of dinner. Neither I nor Spouseman could face cooking or even the work of deciding from a menu and speaking to a delivery person, but all ended well. Leftovers to the rescue. Dove into the freezer and pulled out hearty soup, applesauce, & bread for toast.

Lots of work to do in the weeks ahead: scan in art, do lots of writing, buy some food, start the next round of leftovers creation, laundry (AAAGGHHHH SO MUCH LAUNDRY) a couple of house projects, more authoring responsibilities, and a long, long list of other Usual Life Things, but…

This is all the all there is for now. Ta!

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Authoring Cons & Appearances Detours Writing Life

C2E2 getaway 2019: more random remarks

Thoughts in no particular order…

Today was Spouseman’s day for buying things. He bought me dice for my birthday. (The probability that I will forget their existence between now  & then approaches unity. Pretend you’re surprised when I exclaim happily about them later this year. ) Some lovely prints were purchased, too.  Our current art themes are “Fubsy-animals, fine art style,” Wonder Woman, and Le Chat Noir. (Toothless counts towards two themes.)

Anyway. Because we are not made of money and can’t possibly frame them all, we keep our print collection in a portfolio & pull it out to admire it now & then.  Gonna be a lot of page reorganizing this year.

Enamel pins are apparently The Hot New Thing. I bought too many, and got vendor recommendations, Hopefully one of them talk me through my “overwhelmed by choices and information” phase into actually ordering Poz pins. And another artist gave me the name of a reputable printer (in Columbus OH, of all places) who may be able to do packs of Rough Passages Character Cards.

I AM SORRY, FRIENDLY HELPFUL WONDERFUL ARTISTS, I DO NOT RECALL WHICH OF YOU GAVE ME WHICH GOOD RECOMMENDATIONS. But I did write down the names you gave me. So, thank you all again.

I went to a panel moderated by my friend Jody on magic & mayhem in fantasy, but with six other great authors on the panel (full panel list: Alison Wilgus, Cory Doctorow, Mary Robinette Kowal, Mirah Bolender, S.A. Chakraborty, & Sue Burke, moderator: Jody Lynn Nye) and only an hour to talk it was really “Magic in Fantasy.”

Which was fine. The hour flew by. The discussion of different presentations of magic in fiction was fruitful, funny, and practical, and some fine points were made. Words like numinous and epistemological, and irreproducible got bandied about.

Side note: turns out I’m NOT the only person who thinks for magic to be magic and not simply science with different foundation principles,  it has to operate without hard rules. Many an online discussion had me wondering if I was a unique curmudgeon for believing this, but no. Cory Doctorow mentioned points I’ve raised time and again. (Yay, bias affirmed!) Did everyone on the panel agree? Far from it, but it made a good debate.

One sad point: as the panel ended I got sidetracked into a books conversation with another audience member and one thing led to another until tired friends needed to leave and took me away to early supper at Greek Isles. So, I missed the autographing after the panel &  didn’t get to meet back up with Jody.  (It was a great convo, tho. I got to recommend Susan Cooper and Robin McKinley, and that makes my bookseller’s heart all warm.)

Despite a gajillion schedule mismatches and mishaps, I did get to give my friend Jen a hug in passing & will see her tomorrow. And I got to see my con friend Toby, who I didn’t know was AT C2E2. So. There’s those two good things too.

Spouseman & I wandered back to the con after supper, arriving after the cosplay contest ended and a Very Loud Party began. People appeared to be having a fab time. But did I mention LOUD? Spouseman got some pics of costumes. I had my fingers in my ears. But I’m glad we went to see it, because I got to chat more with Laura from the ‘brar.

Here are two original arts I’ve gotten back:

Mike Manomivibul’s awesome take on Serena from Flight Plan
Isabella Rotman’s interpretation of my beloved Grawlix. <3

And this isn’t original art, but it’s something an artist is doing that I want to get later.

And I am quote sure this Tarot with Isabella’s illustrations will be EPIC.  Just sayin’

Other randoms: the elevators at our hotel have lush contralto voices (at least two different ones, I’m pretty sure) and they get very excited about announcing floors and directions. “Twenty-first <voice drops to a sultry growl> floor,” they will say, followed by “Going…down.”

bonus: view from the elevator lobby on our floor.

One last pic: the delicious decaf tea that I got after supper.

because it’s tasty, that’s why.

Are y’all still reading? Good heavens.  Wow. Good for you. Kudos.

I could type more babble, or I could read a little and then go to sleep. I vote for option two. More tomorrow? Probably not. Tomorrow will about getting art, swing past a few vendors, a panel, and then getting everything home. Not expecting anything new.

And after we’re home, I have book revisions to finish and a cover blurb to write. Rumor has it a few people might want to buy this novel once I get it into print. So. Less blogging, more booking.

Until later, all!

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3. Other Things Cons & Appearances Detours Writing Life

C2E2 Getaway 2019. Day 1 Report.

Spouseman & I are taking a little vacation to recover from our last vacation. Okay, not really-truly, but we have splurged on a stay-at-the-hotel convention weekend right here in our home territory. Staying in a hotel only an hour from home feels positively decadent.

We’re downtown for the Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo, aka C2E2. This big convention fills up a good chunk of McCormick Place, and it’s my annual save-the-pennies-get-original-art commission con. There are always good panels too, (Saturday I’ll be trying to go see three different ones)  and of course, there’s the vendor floor full of things I like to admire and might buy someday and loads of amazing cosplay to watch.

And this year, I’m sticking around for the evening. 

Here’s today’s report. 

We took our time getting here in the morning. Arrived around noon and stayed until the Dealer Floor closed. I know lots of FB and Twitter frenz are in attendance, but I only ran across a few.

I got to say hello to the amazing Jim McClain on Artist’s Alley (table Y-3, go see his stuff, Poe & The Mysteriads is a delight)  ANYway. I also ran across the marvelous Laura Bos from Mount Prospect Public Library) as I was walking by a library-sponsored booth.

This booth had books, and floor pilows and chairs and a kid’s tent, and how did it manage t be an oasis of peace in the clamor of the vendor floor? I dunno, librarian magic? ANYway. Hi, Laura & nice person from ALA whose name I’ve misplaced! It was great chatting!

Other news: I found fabulous artists for all three of my sketchbooks, plus set up some potential commissions for a Rough Passages character portfolio with Daniel Govar (Artist’s Alley in the Ms) He’s the artist who designed my Dawnrigger colophon. Keep an eye out for the incredible graphic novel he’s doing called Tuskers. Conservationists and orphaned baby elephants fighting poachers–and of course phenomenal art.) 

I will post pics of my new arts with credit to the artists…tomorrow night, prolly? I have this year’s new gargoyle back, but the Restoration portraits book and the Rough Passages sketchbook are still out.

But the best part of today? After all the neat stuff, instead of the hour’s drive dragging back to the burbs to collapse in utter exhaustion, Spouseman and I strolled over to our hotel and collapsed there in cozy comfort.

Later we had some tasty foods & beverages, took a stroll and now we’re tucked in for the night.  We can’t make a habit of this, but wow, it’s an amazing treat.

This was the sunset view out our hotel room window. Pretty nifty.

That’s all until later.

 

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Teacup Posts Writing Life

Celebrate: Christmas (Eve) is here!

It’s the last Adventword, not an order. It’s also another word that leaves me wrinkling my nose.  Celebrate. It really shouldn’t be an imperative. Stress, pressure, tension, baggage–they all conspire to make Special Occasions less than celebratory.

And yet I love to celebrate. I live to celebrate. I only hate forced pep, not genuine joy.  Spontaneity and freedom are the key. Celebrating is not an event. It happens at a lot of celebrations, but correlation is not causation.  The verb is an action.

To celebrate is to magnify happiness. Celebrating amplifies delight by sharing it.  Joy to the world, and all that. I adore that kind of celebrating. It makes life sparkle in a way that doesn’t need vacuuming the way real glitter does.

The flip side of the nihilist “Life has no meaning” philosophy is that life has exactly as much meaning as we give it, so why not bring life some joyous fun? Why bother celebrating? the nihilist asks. Me, I ask, why not celebrate?

Anyway. Genuine glee resulting from any old occurrence or item or act is always worth broadcasting. Doesn’t have to be a big thing. Give me a snack, and I will celebrate it. Just ask Spouseman about the happy food dance.

(I swear I had no idea I did little chair dances when I eat until he teased me. And then I tried to stop, because attention=bad is an ingrained response, but it didn’t work. Celebratory impulses will beat all restraint, even the amazing power of self-consciousness.)

So anyway.

Celebrating at celebration times can be hard when the associations are the opposite of joyful. But it is possible. It’s worth trying and trying again. And share even the small celebrations whenever you can.  Joy has a way of being contagious in ways mere cheer can never imitate.

May your days be merry and bright, and all that. It’s a good blessing.

Click here to see the global #AdventWord event/calendar I’ve been bending to my bloggish purposes: AdventWord

image: epicantus via pixabay.com