Writing update

Word count: 2327 | Since last entry: 2880

The word count figures above make no sense, I know. The "word count" is the count for the current story in process ("the vampires-in-suburbia story," sequel to the previous witches-in-suburbia and werewolves-in-suburbia stories). The "since last entry" figure above is the total words generated on this story and the previous one ("the pupa story") since my last post with a wordcount, which was 2/7. It doesn't count 2719 words of notes and outline on the vampire story.

I've been maintaining my streak of 500 words a day since January 1, though that includes notes and outline and on a couple of those days I've had to state that 350 words is close enough to 500 for my purposes.

Apart from the daily grind of generating new words, I have a couple of pieces of writing news to report: there's a great review of Space Magic in the upcoming (and final, alas) issue of Realms of Fantasy; and the online anthology Diamonds in the Sky has been released, including my story "Galactic Stress." The anthology is free to read online, so go check it out. The hope is that this anthology will be used as a text by astronomy teachers looking for engaging SF stories to help their students understand astronomy concepts.

This is the first post with a new back-end script that should make it easier for me to post more than once a day. I know I don't usually, but that's been partly because it's a pain. I hope that this will encourage me to do more brief posts rather than the big catch-up posts I usually do.

And with that... I'm going to post it! I hope to have another small post soon.

Radcon

Last weekend I attended Radcon, an SF convention in Pasco, WA. The name and theme of the convention are derived from the Hanford nuclear reservation that dominates the town, which sports plenty of cafes, drycleaners, and high school sports teams with "atomic" in their names.

Last year some of the attending pros got a tour of the nuclear waste clean-up project, including a nifty folding robot bulldozer. I was fortunate enough to get another tour this year, a visit to the "In Vivo Radiobioassay and Research Facility." This is where Hanford workers are scanned for radioactive exposure. It includes several small rooms shielded with a foot or more of steel and concrete, in which the person under test sits quietly while sensitive radiation detectors listen for low levels of radiation in their lungs, bones, or other body parts. A rank of television monitors, each showing the quiet closed-eyes visage of an anonymous Hanford worker waiting for his test to be over, looked to me like an art installation. Also very cool were the plastic body parts they use to calibrate the equipment. Most of these are solid plastic, but a few include bones from people who suffered radioactive exposure during their lives. I took lots of pictures, but haven't posted them yet; for now you can check out Jay Lake's blog and Flickr set.

The convention was heavily populated with young people (mostly gamers, I think) who looked just like the fans at Orycon except that I didn't know any of them. Most of them were in costume, a motley assortment of furry, steampunk, video game, and Insane Clown Posse. I felt terribly underdressed, and on several occasions I had to stop myself from running into one of the costume dealers who had set up shop in guest rooms and shouting "Give me sometihng that fits! Ears, goggles, faerie wings, I don't care, I just need a costume!" But I stayed cool and professional and writer-like. Mostly.

I spent most of the time hanging out with writers and editors, includingcscole and kzmiller (who gave me a ride to and from the con, thanks!), scarlettina, jaylake, mcjulie, anghara, kenscholes, jens_fire, casacorona, tbclone47, bravado111, mikigarrison, criada, kehrli, joycemocha, tinaconnolly, coreolis, camillealexa, h_ingens, bethpeters3, and no doubt many others whose names or LJ handles I've neglected to remember.

I was on a lot of programming. My favorite was the "Who's Line Is It Any Way" [sic] hour right after opening ceremonies, which was actually a series of theatre games ring-led by GoH Joe Kucan. I'd never done most of those games before and it was a real hoot. I also participated in Pictionary and Charades. Pictionary was, as usual, highly biased by MC radconbob. The writers had to sketch words such as "smiley face" and "dog," while the artists were stuck with "the Louvre" and "the Pythagorean Theorem." Mind you, I could have done either of those in thirty seconds myself, but the artists were handicapped by a desire to draw properly rather than executing a quick sketch. The order in which the lines are laid down on the page is also key. Charades was cut short after two rounds due to lack of participants. The first round was a movie, which we quickly guessed was Star Wars. The second was announced to be a TV show; I said "Star Trek" and got it before the first gesture. I can name that song in no notes.

There was some kind of bug going around. I caught it, but never had any symptoms worse than sniffles and a slight sore throat. I'm almost completely better already.

Bottom line: Radcon is not very organized, but really knows how to show its guests a good time.