Apart from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like Wiscon?

I'm at the airport again (it seems that's the only time I have for sitting and blogging these days), heading back to Milwaukee for my mother's funeral. I'm still pretty much okay. I didn't really cry hard until I heard the opening of "What a Good Boy" by Barenaked Ladies.

Grief is a funny thing. It sneaks up on you sometimes.

Apart from the whole business with my mother, I had a great trip. Three weeks and five cities, or 13 cities if you count every one we stopped at on our various airplanes. I've spent much of the intervening week digging out from under the stuff that wasn't done during that time, including resubmitting a bunch of stories that were rejected. I also logged in some publications: the audio version of of "The Last McDougal's" appeared in podcast Escape Pod 240, "A Passion for Art" appeared in magazine Interzone 228, and "Second Chance" appeared in anthology Alembical 2. Photos and videos of the Nebula Awards Weekend have also been posted, including a video of my keynote address.

Wiscon continues to be one of my favorite conventions, with some of my favorite people. I participated in the Writers' Workshop, I was on two hilarious panels: "Let's Build a World," in which we wound up with a Klein-bottle world inhabited by solipsistic LoLcats who reproduce through music and fetishize prime numbers, and then sketched out the plot of "I Can Haz Musical! The Musical" set on that world (see coraa's panel notes for more details); and "Pshaw! Psst! Argh!," in which we discussed sound effects in writing and I managed to make one of the audience members literally fall over laughing by positing the torturer Severian in Book of the New Sun grimly lopping off someone's head, which then bounces down the steps with a "doink, doink, doink." Amy Thomson's proposal of a fantasy language consisting of nothing but apostrophes was also memorable.

I also gave my Mars talk to a small but packed room. Later in the convention I overheard someone praising it to someone else in the elevator. People really seem to like it, and at the Mid-Career Writers' Gathering I got some great advice about how to parlay this brush with near-fame into writing success. It will mean selling myself much harder than I'm usually comfortable with, but you know what they say about the turtle, which makes progress only when it sticks its neck out.

Apart from that I spent most of the time hanging out with friends old and new, starting with the guests-of-honor reading at A Room Of One's Own bookstore ("AROOO!") and ending with shooting pool at the Great Dane. In between there were show tunes, readings, many fine dinners, and hallway conversations galore. I didn't spend any money on books but I still came home with three more than I'd started with. I also received a couple of cool invitations which I will discuss more in due course.

Wiscon is too short. That's all there is to it.