How to find me at Wiscon

1. My badge name is either Sigrid, or Sigrid Ellis. I will add Aka resolute on the badge, for those who know me by that handle.

2. I will for certain be at:

QUILTBAG TARDIS Party, Friday 9 pm to whenever, Room 623.

Queers Dig Time Lords panel, Saturday, 10-11:15, Senate B

Queers Dig Time Lords reading, Saturday, 1-2:15, Michaelangelo’s

No Longer a Maiden, Not Yet a Crone: Queens, Evil or Otherwise, Saturday, 2:30-3:45, Capitol A

3. I tweet relentlessly. I will probably be tweeting whatever I’m doing.

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Wiscon, and Not Doing the Homework

I’m on a kick of reading a lot of fanfiction.

This is perhaps ill-timed of me. It’s a week until Wiscon, and I always feel that I ought to be reading Wiscon-y books before the convention. You know — works by the hot new writers, works of serious importance, feminist classics I haven’t yet gotten around to reading. Yet, every single year, the thing I am reading in May is about as far removed from Serious Works of SF/F as it is possible to get. This year it’s fanfic. In previous years I’ve been reading the Phryne Fisher mysteries, or Agatha Christie novels, or the history of the Boxer Rebellion, or ANYTHING IN THE WORLD that is not Serious Works of SF/F.

I’m actually beginning to think that my brain is smarter than I am. There’s a piece of writing advice that is very common, which is that to write you must be well-read. A better and more complex version of that is that to write you must be widely read. If you want to write YA paranormal romance, you must read things besides YA paranormal romance — else you work won’t have anything new or different to the genre. You would, in essence, be writing fanfic of a genre. To write, the idea is, you have to read lots of different sorts of things. That those things sit in your brain and percolate, dissolving and recombining in new and interesting ways. And then the things you’ve learned show up, transformed, in your work.

I think this is rather what my brain does before Wiscon.

I always feel, going in, that I don’t know and haven’t read ANY of the things other people are talking about. I listen, and I learn. And, being me, I talk about the things that I have engaged with recently. I bring something to the conversation that other people have not heard or read, in the same way they do for me.

Do I still feel a sense of shame, of Not Having Done The Homework, every year? Yes. Yes, I do. But no matter my intentions, I don’t think I’ve completed my self-assigned Wiscon Reading List in any year, ever.

What about you, my fellow Wiscon attendees? What are you reading prior to the con? Do you feel you have homework? Do you do it? How does this work for you?

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January 23 2013

1. I’m registered for Wiscon! And have a hotel room! This makes me excited for the con.

2. I’m planning on CONvergence this year. I won’t be at Heroes Con or C2E2, due to scheduling conflicts. I’m pondering trying to get to Geek Girl Con.

3. Comics today include Stumptown #5, and Young Avengers #1. I have already bought them on Comixology.

4. A lot of work-related projects are sitting in my email inbox today. Not quite sure when I will get to read these new comics.

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Wiscon panel: Baba Yaga

There was a panel at Wiscon, about Baba Yaga and hidden goddesses.

I saw half the panel and had to leave due to a schedule conflict. I wish I could have stayed!.

My notes are … not very coherent. I was trying to write everything down and my handwriting suffered.

Here, though, is the gist I got from the panel.

Baba Yaga is neither good nor evil. She helps or hinders people who cross her path according to a metric that … that runs sideways to fairy tale good and bad.

Baba Yaga is the figure who tells you the truth, even when she’s lying. She doesn’t help you out, she offers you opportunities to educate yourself about the world.

Life is hard, and unfair.
Don’t whine or blame others.
You will be given choices.
You will be given challenges.
What you do will make you into what you will be.
If you fail — if you are stupid, or deceitful, or self-aggrandizing, or rude, or careless — Baba Yaga will probably suck the marrow from your bones.
If you succeed — if you learn and grow — Baba Yaga will tell you something that makes no sense, give you something you don’t need. In time the person she knows you will become will understand and appreciate her gift.

I kinda want to be Baba Yaga when I grow up.

The Pokemon visit Wiscon

My kids sent two stuffed plushie Pokemon with me to Wiscon. I documented the adventures of said Pokemon and Tweeted the photos so my kids could follow along. Here, then, follows the adventures of Munchlax and Snorelax at Wiscon!

(Image-heavy post behind the cut.)

Panel report: Antiheroism Defined

This Wiscon panel was held at 4:00 on Friday, early in the con. I personally felt fresh and rested, and also totally unprepared, both at the same time.

The room, when I got there, wasn’t set up yet for panels. Me being me, I started setting up all the chairs.

The Mod was Victoria Janssen, with panelists Rosemary, Lesley Hall, Chris Hill, and Kelly Sue DeConnick. (I didn’t always attribute remarks in my notes.)

From the outset, I disputed some of the assumptions of the discussion. Heroes were labelled unflawed, antiheroes flawed. Antiheroes were described as easier to identify with, heroes more difficult or distant. Antiheroes were described as the ones who get to be snarky and witty, heroes not so much.

As the panel progressed it became clear that these were a, a gloss, not the actually deeply-held premises of the panel. Whew.

Antiheroes, it was discussed, break the social compact. They are transgressive. Think Anya of Buffy the Vampire Slayer — she doesn’t know the social rules, and largely has no interest whatosever in following them. She’s not breaking them to make some sort of point, she just can’t be bothered.

This led into a line of thought that I like — antiheroes are largely orthogonal to heroes and villains. Antiheroes are the characters who simply have different goals than heroes.

The example used for a great deal of this part of the discussion was Rick from Casablanca. Rick is selfish. That is his motivation — Rick looks out for Rick and Rick’s Stuff. He performs action in the films that might be mistaken for heroism. But they are not in service of justice, or right, or good. They are in service of being left alone to continue on as he wants. Towards the end, when he gets involved with larger issues, it’s for entirely personal reasons. He never supports the cause.

The Sliding Scale of Anti-Heroes from TV Tropes was brought up. If one is looking to define individual characters on a Villain-Antihero-Hero scale, TV Tropes really has that entire conversation wrapped up. There’s not much to add to it, unless you want to go join TV Tropes and fall down the rabbit hole. The panel discussion, therefore, didn’t much go in that direction. (I highly recommend the TV Tropes conversation. But give yourself a few hours to explore it all.)

At some point it became clear that the panel was using two very different definitions of antiheroism at the same time. The first was the orthogonal antihero — the self-interested or selfish character who does good as a side effect of what they actually want. The second was the character who has good in mind as the end goal all along, but commits bad acts to get there. I pointed this out, everyone kinda nodded and agreed that, yes, those are two valid definitions.

I think writers and editors should be aware of this in their antiheroes, and know what sort they intend to be using when they are contemplating a work.

I asked what the difference was between an antihero and a hero on a redemption arc. When we meet Malcolm Reynolds in Firefly, he once was a hero. By the end of the extant stories, he’s a hero again. But at the time we meet him? Not so much. This, to me, is very different from a true antihero. Mal is pretending to be an antihero, or even a villain, because he’s so hurt and angry about what happened the first time. No-one had a really strong answer, but the intial thought was that the difference is in how they develop as a character.

A final note, near the end of the time, was that the Heist Genre is populated almost solely by antiheroes. If they are your cup of tea, that’s where to look.

Back from Wiscon

I am home from the convention. Since returning I have unpacked half my things, done a load of dishes, and spent lots of time with my family. This morning we’re heading out to the Y.

My convention was great.

Each year I find that an unofficial theme coalesces out of the convention for me. Some years I share that theme with other people who feel the same way, some years it is strictly personal. This year’s theme was strictly personal, and is summarized by Randall’s Crazy Nastyass Honeybadger video. On a related note, I need to learn more about Baba Yaga.

I saw a number of amazing people and had great conversations. I won’t list all of those here, because I will forget someone and then we will both be sad. I did miss talking to some people I meant to get to, dangit. Saladin Ahmed? I really meant to tell you in person how amazing your book is, but I think we were cross-programmed on *everything*. Jed Hartman? I’m glad I got to say hello as I was literally walking out of the hotel, but I hope to chat more next year.

There were more. There were others I didn’t get a chance to talk to. But the truth of it is, I love the social at Wiscon but I love the panels about 3% more, and the panels win in scheduling conflicts.

The Chicks Dig Comics party was a riot, figuratively. Though it was as loud as one. A decibel meter was brandished at the height of events — average level, 87 Db, peaking every few minutes over 100. Riot-levels.

I must admit, I had expected people to drink the same amount of alcohol as they normally do at Wiscon, and was not anticipating that the form factor would alter the quantity. But apparently test tube shots encourage rapid and heavy consumption. Kudos to our bartenders, Elizabeth Bear and Scott Lynch, who started offering refills early on. Thus we did not run out of test tubes.

And my thanks to Brit Mandelo and the Beyond Binary party for taking all the left-over supplies off of our hands. I had sworn a mighty mickle oath to my partner that I would NOT store booze in our basement for another year, and Brit let me keep my promise.

I left Wiscon exhausted, my brain full of half-conceived plans, my head aching from not enough sleep, and the coming year full of promise. So, just like every other Wiscon year for me.

My thanks to all of you I saw and met and talked to and had dinner with. My thanks to all the panelists who made me think — perhaps especially to the ones who pissed me off and made me reconsider my position. My thanks to the concom and the volunteers who make this work so well each year.

Good con, y’all.

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Wiscon, y’all

It’s Monday morning of Wiscon as I write this. I have a few things left to do — the Sign-Out, packing up my stuff, packing the truck — and then I’m out of here.

I miss my kids so very much. I am looking forward to seeing them.

The people who I already knew to be amazing, articulate, smart, and wonderful were as I expected. I met some new-to-me folks this year who also impressed. That’s the neat thing about Wiscon — the smart and articulate just doesn’t stop.

I don’t know if I’ll have a ton to say about the panels this year. Many were pleasing to me, but I’m not sure how to convey that to others. And the one panel that made me ragey, well, I was talked down a bit by the extremely sensible point of view provided by a friend also at the panel.

Your mileage may vary, and I don’t really need to go around judging other people’s experiences. (Well, apparently I DO, but I don’t need to share that with you all.)

Off to go find tea and maybe food before the first panel of the morning. See you around.

Wiscon Friday morning

So it’s Friday morning and the convention has not actually started yet.

I suppose I could have started pre-convention socializing last night. There were certainly people available for same! But I had gotten up at 4:30 yesterday and by the time I finished dinner I was useless for civilized conversation. We went back to the hotel room, played on the internets, and watched Deathly Hallows part II on the hotel television. (HD tv is weird and unnatural, and I don’t really like it.)

This morning I woke up at 5:00.

This is not a spectacular omen for my rest and sleep the rest of the con. But I never sleep well in hotels, sadly. It’s a known thing.

At any rate, this allowed for a pre-con workout and a leisurely breakfast before most people got here.

Oh! My kids sent two stuffed Pokemon, Munchlax and Snorelax, with me on the trip. They (my kids, not the Pokemon) requested photos of their proxies here at the convention. Hence the posting to Twitter of numerous pictures of same.

Further updates as events warrant.

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My Wiscon Schedule

For those of you attending Wiscon (or those of you who follow me on Twitter and want to have some context for various tweets) here is my schedule for Wiscon, so far as I know it at this time.

Arrive Thursday late afternoon, early evening. I am staying at the Concourse.

Friday morning — errands and airport shuttling.
Friday afternoon loitering and saying hi to a kajillion people, possibly in the vicinity of The Gathering.
CHICKS DIG COMICS PANEL Friday, 9:00 pm, Assembly room.

Saturday morning — attending panels.
WHAT MAKES A GREAT TRANSFORMATIVE WORK, Saturday, 1:00 pm, Room 629.
Saturday evening — possibly a disco nap
MAD NORWEGIAN PRESS CHICKS DIG COMICS PARTY, Saturday, 9:00 pm, Room 634.

Sunday — going to panels, chatting with folks, napping, having great conversations.

Monday — THE SIGN-OUT, 11:30 a.m., Capitol/Wisconsin room.

I’ll be leaving after The Sign-Out.

If you want to reach me while we are at Wiscon, email, text message, or Twitter are likely the best. Signal coverage is not always great in all rooms, but I am a compulsive phone-checker.