Rosemary Kirstein

I’ve successfully accomplished Readercon, or at least my part of it. The panel discussion on the phenomenon of the book size inflation was seriously excellent, with me,the lovely and talented Walter H. Hunt; the always-edifying Tom Easton; the multiply-skilled teacher/writer/reviewer Leigh Grossman; and the ever-remarkable and estimable Howard Waldrop.

Upshot? It’s caused by:

a) the fact that overworked editors rarely have the time to do much real editing these days, and do not always encourage authors to choose the one right word when a paragraph or two will accomplish the same thing
b) the phenomenon of the author who is so successful that whatever they write will sell, so why edit it at all?
c) changes in technology that make it easier and cheaper to print big fat books, so there’s little pressure not to do so
e) other changes in technology that make it easier for the author to get the words on the page quickly and painlessly (I’m talking word processors, here), so there’s more impulse to just keep on writing
f) still other changes in technology (talking E-books here), that make it just as easy to lug around a 1,000 page tome as it is to carry around a magazine,

And my personal favorite:

g) the desire or the reader to immerse in the imagined world, and stay there as long as possible, and return in subsequent volumes as often as possible, because it’s fun there and we like it.

All of these things operating simultaneously, see.

Other highlights:

My signing, where actual persons actually asked for my autograph, with entertaining conversation during the slow times with Alex Jablokov and the perennial Walter H Hunt, who were sharing the autograph table with me.

My Kaffeeklatsch, where two small klatsches were merged into one reasonable sized one, and I ended up sharing space, fans, and quips with some guy named — what was it again? Oh, yeah, Walter Hunt

After Readercon, it was off to my usual post-con gathering with Ann Tonsor Zeddies and Geary Gravel, where we discuss and examine art, life, humanity, technology, science, truth, beauty, fate, love, longing, literature, dogs, two-sided sticky tape, champagne, local restaurants, and the heat death of the universe. Plus: arts and crafts

Usually, we do collages. Like this one:

From last time

This time Ann had the brilliant idea of doing masks instead! After much struggling with the materials (we now know how to do it so it’ll be better next time) we came up with these:

click to embiggen

Here they are closer, but not as clear as I hoped they’d come out. The titles (in hovertext) are my own, and if Ann & Geary disagree, they are free to correct me. If They Dare!

Ann’s:

No, I said in the hovertext.

and

These are Geary’s:

and

And my two:

and

It was fun. Messy, but fun — I mean: Messy PLUS fun.

Many thanks to Geary (and Berry) for hosting the event.

That's a lot of green

No time, ZERO! Working overtime at the DayJob so as to pre-catch up for being away all next week. Strained my back a bit, as sometimes happens when I forget to take breaks, so I now move more slowly exactly when I need to be moving faster.

Trying to prepare for a trip that includes: attending a convention where I must dress not like a slob, and be able to speak intelligently on a writerly subject; hanging out with writer pals, where I can wear any ol’ thing, but must read stuff out loud, provide beverages, and prepare to do arts & crafts; and day-hiking in the White Mountains, where I must somehow also appear with at least 3 cakes in hand.

I am NOT baking those cakes. I will buy pre-baked.

I managed to squeeze in some good writing time on Monday, plus the gym — then it was bye-bye to all that, and hello prep-chaos.

Although, on Monday I did drive all the way to the Funky Monkey and only remembered when I got there that it’s closed on Mondays. Had to do Panera’s instead.

Where I wanted to be vs. where I was

Time’s up! Hit the ground running!

Young Gabriel Gill, son of my pal and fellow author Geary Gravel, has started up a blog, festooned with his remarkable illustrations.

I’m hoping he’ll add some of his prose work as well.

But I must admit to being jealous that he has recently been to both Animation Camp and Graphic Novel Camp.  They did not have any such things when I was 13!

Of course, if they had, I doubt my parents would have understood the extreme importance of my attending them.

Come to think of it…. there were no graphic novels when I was 13.  Only comics. Yes, I’m that old.

In other news: Go see Inception.  I won’t post any spoilers (yet).  But I will say that it was brilliantly written, brilliantly executed.   I’ll say more at a slightly later date.

Sigh.  Must turn in soon, to be awake for the DayJob tomorrow.

But I will play some guitar first, so as not to forget that I’m capable of doing so.

Too busy to post much of anything at the moment. Trying to write books, here!

But I include, for your viewing pleasure and possible puzzlement, 3 collages.

When Ann Zeddies, Geary Gravel, and I get together for a weekend, as we did a couple of weeks ago, it is traditional for us to create collages. Usually starting late at night, and proceeding until the wee hours of the morning. Fueled by creative frenzy, coffee, and champagne. In previous years, also chocolate, but we cut that out this year.

Method:

1. grab some magazines
2. rip out any image or phrase that appeals to you, even if you don’t know why. In fact, especially if you don’t know why.
3. Assemble into a single image.

The point is to not begin with any particular design in mind — don’t pick elements in order to make a statement; pick elements you like, and find out what statement is implied. The result can sometimes be lovely, sometimes disturbing, but often illuminating.

Voila!:

And they did say it was okay to post these (I asked to make certain), from:

Mr. Gravel:

and Ann:

Okay, I’ve spent too much time on this post — back to writing!

I just got here, and look what Ann Zeddies already did:

I like this picture. I should use it as my avatar!

Drawn on her iPad. Yes, she has an iPad.

I didn’t want one, until I held it. Now: tech lust!

[added later: if you don’t generally check the hovertext on the images I post here (and you should, you know!), you will have missed that “Chrysalis” is a short story by Gabriel Gill, the son of my pal and fellow author Geary Gravel]