Speculation, Fact and Fiction

That's the cycle of gloomy news on the book publishing and retailing side being countered by the positives of actually working as a writer.

For the latest not-good-news, you should probably check out these articles in The Guardian and The Telegraph about Waterstone's restructuring plans.

Then you should read this piece in The Independent.

In the meantime, I'm going to write up a report on my time at the Phoenix Convention in Dublin this past weekend, as a major entry in the plus column to balance out all the depressing stuff.

Ok, I'll post my con report as soon as someone can explain how to do an LJ Cut to hide the excess verbiage behind. Because I have followed the instructions on the FAQ, or at least, I think I have, to no avail thus far.

As well as being work for writers, SF&Fantasy conventions are great fun, which is possibly why a lot of us go wondering slightly guiltily if we can justify the expenditure in time and money when we do have plenty of work we could be getting on with back at home. So it’s always good to start a trip, as I did, by encountering a fellow author, in this case Paul Cornell. In fact, I couldn’t have avoided him since it turned out we had seats next to each other on the plane by some remarkable booking coincidence. So we were able to justify our trips to each other as we blithely chatted all the way from Heathrow to Dublin airport. As it turned out, Debbie Miller (aka gaspode_girl) and Ken MacLeod had met up by chance at Edinburgh Airport too, so as far as the writers were concerned, the convention was already getting underway.

Paul decided to head into Dublin on the bus while I waited for gaspode_girl in the always excellent company of ephiriel and then Mary, ephiriel's mum gave us all a lift to Wynn’s Hotel where the convention-goers were gathering in the bar. As you can find out from assorted other posts, most notably this comprehensive one by mizkit there was a solid LiveJournal presence throughout the weekend (and lack of a mention for everyone here should not be taken as any kind of slight, just a reflection of the time it takes to add everyone's names to what's already an insanely long post).

It was a lively two and a bit days of unexpected interesting things, good humour, good food, good company and the pleasures of discussing genre and writerly issues with fellow fans and authors. If you want to, you can click through to read more about
( The Park Inn Hotel, the National Deaf Women's Association AGM and Dublin's trams )

The first order of the day was the opening ceremony hosted by xnamkrad as this was his first year as Chair of the Convention, having taken over from slovobooks, which was always going to be a hard act to follow. Happily, by the close of proceedings on Sunday, everyone agreed it had been a splendid weekend, and with xnamkrad and his team at the helm, the prospects for P-Con V next year look rosy. For a fuller report, click through to read about ( Just a Minute, my panels and Pictionary )

After the closing ceremonies, thanks and farewells , I was, as is increasingly the case, leaving a convention with a whole clutch of cards and email addresses for new friends, as well as realising just which established pals I had meant to sit and chat to, but somehow there had never been time. Ah well, we have email for that kind of thing nowadays.

Then I had a thoroughly enjoyable dinner with my Dad, gaspode_girl, the bellinghman and the bellinghwoman. I headed off to the airport promptly on Monday morning to get my flight back to London, alone this time as Paul had gone back on Sunday night. Which was not a problem, since by that stage of a convention trip, I am pretty much ready to sit quietly on my own with a good book, just decompressing after spending so much time with so many people.

Back at Heathrow I had to negotiate getting a bus back to business parking and fathom the intricacies of the perimeter road leading back to the M4, M25 and M40. This isn’t something I’ve done before, as I normally take the train to the airport. I’m happy to say it all went well, which augurs well for my trip to Croatia at the end of next week, when the timing of my flights means using the car is a far better option.

With very light traffic, I was home in time to welcome the lads home from school and then to take younger son up to the secondary school to take part in his year-group’s concert along with children from the other local primaries. Which is all part of life as a writing mother.

And now I had better address myself to the To Do list, which encompasses stuff for this weekend’s Forbidden Planet event in Bristol, some bits of accounts and more entertainingly, thinking about a short story for an anthology I’ve just been invited to contribute to.

[Edit: after staring bemusedly at the source text, wondering why feorag isn't showing up in the bit about Pictionary, when she's definitely listed in the original composition, I have identified the lack of a crucial bracket responsible!]