pbray

- Hang out with friends
- Check the dealer's room for all the new releases that I've missed
- Eat
- Drink
- Repeat

I'm attending Boskone this year, but because I was unsure of my schedule, I declined to be on any programming. And now I'm looking forward to a convention where I don't have commitments, and can just do the good parts-- go to panels that look interesting, and talk with friends about our shared passions.

Plus, of course, harassing partner-in-crime jpsorrow, who I haven't seen since he stopped by New Hampshire on his way to Arisia last month. With only a few weeks before THE MODERN FAE'S GUIDE TO SURVIVING HUMANITY hits the shelves, we must synch up our plans for world domination.

Here's my current Boskone schedule. If you're there, please stop by and say "Hi!" When not on panels, I'll likely be haunting the Higgins Armory demonstrations, or propping up a stool in the recently opened Irish pub.

Friday 9pm. What do you read for Pleasure?
Patricia Bray (M), Mary Kay Kare, Juliet E. McKenna, Lawrence M. Schoen, Paul G. Tremblay, Ann Tonsor Zeddies. Cheap romances. Yaoi manga. Archeology journals. Sword and sorcery. Cookbooks. What's your secret pleasure? Why? Does it affect your writing? (How?)

Friday 10pm. Keeping Your Series Fresh
Patricia Bray, Michael F. Flynn, Juliet E. McKenna, Steve Miller, Joel Shepherd. If you are lucky enough to create a long-running series, how do you stave off staleness? Have your protagonist take a new case, trip, job, or lover with every installment? Preplan a mega-story arc, building in new expansion joints, trapdoors, and maguffins as you go? Or just keep killing off everybody s favorite characters....?

Saturday 5PM. Literary Beer!
Patricia Bray. Sign up in advance--the one hour I'll be a guaranteed captive audience. There will be free books and chocolate.

Sunday 10am. Cool Britannia: Why We Love British TV SF
Patricia Bray, Yvonne Carts-Powell, Vince Docherty, Jim Mann, Jennifer Pelland. Dr. Who. Primeval. Torchwood. Etc. Just what *is* it about (modern?) British SF on TV?

Had a great time at Boskone this weekend. I made new friends, and had a chance to catch up with friends that I haven't seen in a while. Other folks were there but I only got a chance to wave at them while passing on escalators, or never saw them at all, such as matociquala who was rumored to be at the con on Saturday, but as I did not see her, I can't confirm her alibi.

One of the highlights was the panel on "Mining Your Obsessions." All of us admitted to obsessions that members of the general public might have found a tad unusual, but as genre writers at a sci-fi con, you really have to go pretty far to stand out on that bell curve. After revealing a minor obsession with lake monsters, to the point where I'd killed off Nessie in one of my books (DEVLIN'S LUCK), Tamora Pierce turned to me in horror. "You killed Nessie!" she exclaimed, with a truly awesome pout. "Yes, and it was fun!" I answered.

Tammy kept muttering about sharing a panel with a Nessie-murderer, and I bounced enthusiastically as I described how much fun it had been, giving my best impression of a cheerfully deranged killer (or a hyperactive squirrel on speed, it's really hard to tell the difference.) If I'd had copies of DEVLIN'S LUCK with me, I could have sold a dozen on the spot.

At Friday night's DEATH TO PEEPS event, my "Death of a Peep" murder book was received quite enthusiastically. If I get time I'll post excerpts up on the web.

Being wiped out from a grueling week at the day job, I hit only a few parties, but I was glad I could stop by rolanni and kinzel's celebration for the twentieth anniversary of the release of AGENT OF CHANGE, the first published novel in the Liaden universe. In an odd fit of synchronicity, I was living in Boston in February 1988, and still remember my reaction to seeing the book cover in the store--I just knew it would be something fun and different, and indeed it was.

And that's all for now!

Day job has swallowed me whole, but with Boskone looming on the horizon, I've managed to get the bare minimum of preparations done.

One of the special events for Boskone is the DEATH TO PEEPS funfest being held in the con suite on Friday night. I'll miss the first part of it due to a panel, but hope to join in the fun long enough to document one of the Peep deaths a la CSI. Just need to figure out where I put my nitrile gloves....

In this morning's news I also managed to create and order postcards for THE FINAL SACRIFICE without requiring jennifer_dunne's assistance. Frankly my entire marketing routine has been disrupted since she is no longer able to eat pizza and thus less amenable to bribes, and therefore rather than her creating nifty Adobe files I had to muddle through with my own JPGs. But in the end the proof looked good, so crossing my fingers that they arrive in time for the weekend.

And here's my Boskone schedule:

Friday 8PM Tracking History. Patricia Bray, Rosemary Kirstein, Sharon Lee, Timothy Liebe, David Weber
Any large multi-volume work (like the Honorverse) gradually builds up an internal history of its own which the writer will probably want to keep consistent. How is this done? Is it worth doing? Is it worth agonizing over? Does consistency with previous stories impede the writing of new ones? Compare and contrast the Honorverse with other complex future histories such as H. Beam Piper's or Poul Anderson's.

Saturday 12Noon Mining Your Obsessions. Beth Bernobich, Patricia Bray, Gregory Frost, Joshua Palmatier, Tamora Pierce
"Write what you know," they say. If you re writing about a poet who lives on a space station, how does it help that you re nuts about cycling, cryptology, forensics, mathematics, or blade weapons? Our panelists will explore this and other questions related to finding unlikely connections between what you're writing and what you care about.

Saturday 1PM Autographing
Stop by! I'll sign anything put in front of me, and will be handing out cool lizard bottle openers/keychains.

Saturday 3PM Spear Carriers Are People, Too. Patricia Bray, Bruce Coville, Don D'Ammassa, Sharon Lee, Paul Park
How do you make a walk-on character rounded and memorable? Can a supporting player ever be so striking that he, she, or it draws too much attention from the main cast members? What minor portaits from SF, fantasy, or horror books or movies do we still recall with fondness (or other strong emotion)?

Saturday 4:30PM Reading (0.5 hrs)
The first public reading from THE FINAL SACRIFICE. And chocolate. And lizards.

Sunday 1PM
Literary Beer. This is your chance to pick my brain (metaphorically, no zombies invited), or just come hang out. There will be sign-up sheets at the con.