The post-con post
May. 2nd, 2011 01:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
firefly124Aeternitas was awesome. Amanda and her HPMA crew did a great job, and the Margate Hotel staff were friendlier and more accommodating than I've experienced in the two other cons I've attended. Also, my roommates, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
laiksmarei, lariope, and mollyssister, were great. I wish them all much unbroken sleep to make up for my horrendous snoring. (I wish some remedy would actually work for this. I really feel I've tried abso-effing-lutely everything, and none of it works. Well, the CPAP works, but then I can't sleep because I'm fighting to exhale, so that's not particularly useful either.)
Pics are up on my fannish FB. I've only tagged people who I know don't mind linking their FB to their cosplay, but if you're in there and want to, please feel free to tag yourself.
An amusing thing happened at the tutoring center on Thursday. I was in mid-conversation to someone, and she interrupted me to point out I'd just said "hahdly" for "hardly." Apparently, rather than the usual situation in which I drop them off at the border upon driving up to MA, they had already deserted me in preparation. It was pointed out to me once or twice over the weekend that I was doing it again, which tells me that I wasn't consistently back in my MA accent. I'm not sure if that's weirder or that I slipped back into it at all, given that I didn't seem to do so at LeakyCon 2009, which was actually in Boston.
Anyway,laiksmarei was flying into Logan and asked whether it would be a sane thing for me to bring her to and from the airport. A couple of minutes on Google Maps showed that it wouldn't add much to the trip at all, so we went for it. I'm very glad of it, as that gave us some extra one-on-one catching up time.
We arrived fairly late Thursday evening, but we quickly caught up with those who had already been drinking. I got to share my version of the Avada Colada withsubvers, and to tell her that my mother-in-law is now hooked on them and has taught at least one bartender in Boston to make them. (Though she doesn't quite remember the name. What she came out with actually sounded closer to Azkaban. LOL) So there's me being the silly fangirl. *g*
I made the mistake, though, of having wine on top of liquor. The next day, I begged all and sundry to slap me upside the head if I seemed likely to make that mistake again, as I was worried for quite awhile that evening that I was going to puke. I have only gotten sick from drinking once before, and that was on really bad white wine that someone had dumped honey in and labeled "mead." I'd like to keep that a one-time-only experience.
Friday was programming time. I had two main agendas. First and foremost was to catch up with friends, and while there's never enough time for that and I know I missed at least one or two people I'd meant to at least finally meet, I'd say that was largely accomplished. Next was to get my HP writing mojo back, and I selected my programming choices largely toward that end.
For Friday, this meant starting with the "Brewing with the Potions Master" roundtable in which people compared their writing processes and philosophies. I got some very good insights there, particularly in somethingmachshefa said about the difficulties she had experienced writing her Snuna fic, in which she had to "lock Hermione in a closet with a margarita" and how she interpreted and worked with that. I'd hoped to find some time to corner her and discuss this at more length, but there just never is enough time for all the conversations you want to have at con.
[writerly navel-gazing]That may actually be a good thing in some ways, because as much as I wish we'd had that convo, it's forced me to ruminate on what that means in terms of my own writing. What I'm coming up with is that I really had to learn to suppress not only my inner Hermione (aka bushy-haired know-it-all, so possibly not all that inner) and even moreso my inner Snape to get through nursing school without completely alienating all my classmates and instructors. (Really, my inner Snape did get a few words in on the course evals, though I hope he at least did so constructively, because there were some REALLY dunderheaded things that direly need fixing. Some of which, I've heard, they have, and current students are probably cursing me and every other student who ever said they learned more from writing detailed med sheets than taking lame-ass open-book pharmacology tests.) There is probably also an ongoing sense that as I'm just starting out (or will be whenever I manage to Get A Job), I need to keep a lid on both my inner Hermione and my inner Snape (especially Snape). There's also the fact that Jack Harkness and Ianto Jones completely took over my brain for a reason. Some of that, I've dealt with. Some, I obviously haven't, since TFTWSD is still consuming a lot of my creative energies. (The fact that my response tosubvers' question about my mother's opinion of my spiritual path was, "She doesn't have one, because she doesn't know" probably points to part of it. There are still doors on both my closets, both broom and bog-standard, for all that they're hanging by very loose threads, and even as I type that, my inner Ianto is saying, "And do you really think that's going to work out well?" gesturing to the scene of his rather awkward conversation with Rhi in the middle of a near-apocalyptic event. *sigh* Of course, the sister's the easy part, and that conversation is supposed to happen in the next week or two. More on that later, as this digression is getting ridiculous anyway.) However, I do think the boys could let me out of the Hub to go play at Hogwarts for a bit now and then, and I need to figure out what's needed to allow that to happen. Because the fact that I was enthralled by the fic readings tells me I'm not, in fact, in any way "done" with HP. I just need to figure out how to regain some balance.[/writerly navel-gazing]
There were lots of other neat things discussed, about why particular characters do or don't speak to us, the range of a particular character we each find believable and how that varies, the differences in writing to someone else's prompt versus writing one's own idea, deadlines as helpful goad versus stifling pressure, and the very different ways people work with beta-readers. I can't even begin to remember all of it, but it was awesome, andbethbethbeth, dickgloucester, lariope, and machshefa did a great job of really getting everyone involved.
I was utterly wiped out after lunch, and ended up sleeping through the afternoon programming. I do need a good 8-10 hrs of sleep to avoid triggering my fibro, though I have, in the past, been able to push it for 2-3 days to get through a con. Now, with the anemia on top of it, it's been more like 10-12 hours, and clearly I can't actually push it like that, so I turned into a pumpkin most nights around 12:30-1 and supplemented with naps where I could. Then crashed hard when I got home last night and almost got 12 hours.
Anyway, that means the next bit I managed to attend was the TPP fic readings, which were great. I found it hard to sustain interest in the one Dramione fic, as that's not my pairing, and the particular genre was one that I wouldn't be likely to go for even if it were, but the author actually had some interesting ideas about veelas and how their interactions with wizards work, particularly romantically, that I found intriguing in spite of my otherwise lack of interest. Hearing some old favorites and a new WiP, though, was a real treat.
Saturday was more programming, starting withravenna_c_tan's workshop on using the Tarot as an inspirational tool. She suggested several variations on the basic three-card spread specific to fiction and shared some fiction-specific spreads she's developed. I definitely want to try working with that a bit, as I've always loved writing with the Tarot, but have always felt like I wasn't utilizing it for that quite as well as I could be doing.
After lunch, there was Family Feud between the Death Eaters (dickgloucester, sbrande, qui_quae_quod, machshefa, and .... oh crap, I forget who the fifth was! dixiebell12. Thanks to sbrande for reminding me!) and the Knights of Walpurgis. The DEs won (there may have been a well-placed Cruciatus or two involved) and the whole thing was lots of fun.
Then it was off to hear whatjuniperus and amydmartin had to say about Unforgivables in the Potterverse. juniperus focused on Snape's Worst Memory and how his use of the epithet "mudblood" was essentially treated as unforgivable by Lily whilst amydmartin (shockingly) focused on the incredible inconsistencies of the Wizarding legal system and the implications of a generation of young readers absorbing some of this. Both were fascinating, though it was certainly the legal bit that really got us off and running with questions and comments.
Ran from there to the Common Room for the Drabble/Drawble Circle. It was very funny that we all just sort of jumped in and started, and introductions came later. So after 45 minutes, I learned I'd been drabbling alongside not onlyaverygoodun, gelsey, and laiksmarei but also r_grayjoy, ragdoll, and twilightsorcery. It was lots of fun, and I did actually produce three okay-ish drabbles, one of which looks like it might let me expand it into the fic I've been trying to write since January *crosses fingers* so I'd call that a very successful session indeed.
The ball was a blast! I gave up on cosplay (I'd been a miscellaneous Slytherin schoolgirl all day) and wore a dress that I've used for clubbing precisely once before, and I swear the neckline wasn't that low then. Then again, it may have been cooler weather, and I may have worn something under it. I really don't remember the slit going that high up the leg though. Oh well. It was far better for dancing than being all corsetted up in my usual garb, and I had a blast. Danced until I was sweat-soaked and out of breath, then went to listen to some of the fic readers re-do their readings as the recording hadn't worked on Friday, so I got to hear the third chappie of Dicky's WiP. I had, however, had way too much to drink, so as much as I loved it, I was nodding off by the end, and went back to the room immediately thereafter to crash.
Sunday morning we had the Leaving Feast, which was both lovely and tearful, as none of us really wanted to go. A particular bonus was getting to seechyara's little one in his new Wizarding robes. He's adorable! I was torn between hanging around a bit, as laiksmarei's flight wasn't until quite a bit later, but I was afraid if we did, we'd hit some sort of traffic mess and end up missing her flight. Turns out, the flight was delayed to the point she missed her connection anyway, so we might as well have stayed a bit. But there was no way to know this at that point, I don't think, so we headed back around 1pm and hit Boston about 2:30. Now definitely having some time to kill, I tried to figure out where to bring someone who's never been to Boston but only has time for one brief thing. Had I known their schedules, a Duck Tour might've worked, but I wasn't sure how long they are. So we went to Faneuil Hall and had a late lunch at Durgin Park, which had better service than I remembered and every bit as delicious of food. After that, it was back to Logan Airport to drop her off, which was sad.
So that's it! It was a wonderful time, and I can't wait to go back in 2013.
laiksmarei, lariope, and mollyssister, were great. I wish them all much unbroken sleep to make up for my horrendous snoring. (I wish some remedy would actually work for this. I really feel I've tried abso-effing-lutely everything, and none of it works. Well, the CPAP works, but then I can't sleep because I'm fighting to exhale, so that's not particularly useful either.)Pics are up on my fannish FB. I've only tagged people who I know don't mind linking their FB to their cosplay, but if you're in there and want to, please feel free to tag yourself.
An amusing thing happened at the tutoring center on Thursday. I was in mid-conversation to someone, and she interrupted me to point out I'd just said "hahdly" for "hardly." Apparently, rather than the usual situation in which I drop them off at the border upon driving up to MA, they had already deserted me in preparation. It was pointed out to me once or twice over the weekend that I was doing it again, which tells me that I wasn't consistently back in my MA accent. I'm not sure if that's weirder or that I slipped back into it at all, given that I didn't seem to do so at LeakyCon 2009, which was actually in Boston.
Anyway,
laiksmarei was flying into Logan and asked whether it would be a sane thing for me to bring her to and from the airport. A couple of minutes on Google Maps showed that it wouldn't add much to the trip at all, so we went for it. I'm very glad of it, as that gave us some extra one-on-one catching up time.We arrived fairly late Thursday evening, but we quickly caught up with those who had already been drinking. I got to share my version of the Avada Colada with
subvers, and to tell her that my mother-in-law is now hooked on them and has taught at least one bartender in Boston to make them. (Though she doesn't quite remember the name. What she came out with actually sounded closer to Azkaban. LOL) So there's me being the silly fangirl. *g*I made the mistake, though, of having wine on top of liquor. The next day, I begged all and sundry to slap me upside the head if I seemed likely to make that mistake again, as I was worried for quite awhile that evening that I was going to puke. I have only gotten sick from drinking once before, and that was on really bad white wine that someone had dumped honey in and labeled "mead." I'd like to keep that a one-time-only experience.
Friday was programming time. I had two main agendas. First and foremost was to catch up with friends, and while there's never enough time for that and I know I missed at least one or two people I'd meant to at least finally meet, I'd say that was largely accomplished. Next was to get my HP writing mojo back, and I selected my programming choices largely toward that end.
For Friday, this meant starting with the "Brewing with the Potions Master" roundtable in which people compared their writing processes and philosophies. I got some very good insights there, particularly in something
machshefa said about the difficulties she had experienced writing her Snuna fic, in which she had to "lock Hermione in a closet with a margarita" and how she interpreted and worked with that. I'd hoped to find some time to corner her and discuss this at more length, but there just never is enough time for all the conversations you want to have at con. [writerly navel-gazing]That may actually be a good thing in some ways, because as much as I wish we'd had that convo, it's forced me to ruminate on what that means in terms of my own writing. What I'm coming up with is that I really had to learn to suppress not only my inner Hermione (aka bushy-haired know-it-all, so possibly not all that inner) and even moreso my inner Snape to get through nursing school without completely alienating all my classmates and instructors. (Really, my inner Snape did get a few words in on the course evals, though I hope he at least did so constructively, because there were some REALLY dunderheaded things that direly need fixing. Some of which, I've heard, they have, and current students are probably cursing me and every other student who ever said they learned more from writing detailed med sheets than taking lame-ass open-book pharmacology tests.) There is probably also an ongoing sense that as I'm just starting out (or will be whenever I manage to Get A Job), I need to keep a lid on both my inner Hermione and my inner Snape (especially Snape). There's also the fact that Jack Harkness and Ianto Jones completely took over my brain for a reason. Some of that, I've dealt with. Some, I obviously haven't, since TFTWSD is still consuming a lot of my creative energies. (The fact that my response to
subvers' question about my mother's opinion of my spiritual path was, "She doesn't have one, because she doesn't know" probably points to part of it. There are still doors on both my closets, both broom and bog-standard, for all that they're hanging by very loose threads, and even as I type that, my inner Ianto is saying, "And do you really think that's going to work out well?" gesturing to the scene of his rather awkward conversation with Rhi in the middle of a near-apocalyptic event. *sigh* Of course, the sister's the easy part, and that conversation is supposed to happen in the next week or two. More on that later, as this digression is getting ridiculous anyway.) However, I do think the boys could let me out of the Hub to go play at Hogwarts for a bit now and then, and I need to figure out what's needed to allow that to happen. Because the fact that I was enthralled by the fic readings tells me I'm not, in fact, in any way "done" with HP. I just need to figure out how to regain some balance.[/writerly navel-gazing]There were lots of other neat things discussed, about why particular characters do or don't speak to us, the range of a particular character we each find believable and how that varies, the differences in writing to someone else's prompt versus writing one's own idea, deadlines as helpful goad versus stifling pressure, and the very different ways people work with beta-readers. I can't even begin to remember all of it, but it was awesome, and
bethbethbeth, dickgloucester, lariope, and machshefa did a great job of really getting everyone involved.I was utterly wiped out after lunch, and ended up sleeping through the afternoon programming. I do need a good 8-10 hrs of sleep to avoid triggering my fibro, though I have, in the past, been able to push it for 2-3 days to get through a con. Now, with the anemia on top of it, it's been more like 10-12 hours, and clearly I can't actually push it like that, so I turned into a pumpkin most nights around 12:30-1 and supplemented with naps where I could. Then crashed hard when I got home last night and almost got 12 hours.
Anyway, that means the next bit I managed to attend was the TPP fic readings, which were great. I found it hard to sustain interest in the one Dramione fic, as that's not my pairing, and the particular genre was one that I wouldn't be likely to go for even if it were, but the author actually had some interesting ideas about veelas and how their interactions with wizards work, particularly romantically, that I found intriguing in spite of my otherwise lack of interest. Hearing some old favorites and a new WiP, though, was a real treat.
Saturday was more programming, starting with
ravenna_c_tan's workshop on using the Tarot as an inspirational tool. She suggested several variations on the basic three-card spread specific to fiction and shared some fiction-specific spreads she's developed. I definitely want to try working with that a bit, as I've always loved writing with the Tarot, but have always felt like I wasn't utilizing it for that quite as well as I could be doing.After lunch, there was Family Feud between the Death Eaters (
dickgloucester, sbrande, qui_quae_quod, machshefa, and dixiebell12. Thanks to sbrande for reminding me!) and the Knights of Walpurgis. The DEs won (there may have been a well-placed Cruciatus or two involved) and the whole thing was lots of fun. Then it was off to hear what
juniperus and amydmartin had to say about Unforgivables in the Potterverse. juniperus focused on Snape's Worst Memory and how his use of the epithet "mudblood" was essentially treated as unforgivable by Lily whilst amydmartin (shockingly) focused on the incredible inconsistencies of the Wizarding legal system and the implications of a generation of young readers absorbing some of this. Both were fascinating, though it was certainly the legal bit that really got us off and running with questions and comments.Ran from there to the Common Room for the Drabble/Drawble Circle. It was very funny that we all just sort of jumped in and started, and introductions came later. So after 45 minutes, I learned I'd been drabbling alongside not only
averygoodun, gelsey, and laiksmarei but also r_grayjoy, ragdoll, and twilightsorcery. It was lots of fun, and I did actually produce three okay-ish drabbles, one of which looks like it might let me expand it into the fic I've been trying to write since January *crosses fingers* so I'd call that a very successful session indeed.The ball was a blast! I gave up on cosplay (I'd been a miscellaneous Slytherin schoolgirl all day) and wore a dress that I've used for clubbing precisely once before, and I swear the neckline wasn't that low then. Then again, it may have been cooler weather, and I may have worn something under it. I really don't remember the slit going that high up the leg though. Oh well. It was far better for dancing than being all corsetted up in my usual garb, and I had a blast. Danced until I was sweat-soaked and out of breath, then went to listen to some of the fic readers re-do their readings as the recording hadn't worked on Friday, so I got to hear the third chappie of Dicky's WiP. I had, however, had way too much to drink, so as much as I loved it, I was nodding off by the end, and went back to the room immediately thereafter to crash.
Sunday morning we had the Leaving Feast, which was both lovely and tearful, as none of us really wanted to go. A particular bonus was getting to see
chyara's little one in his new Wizarding robes. He's adorable! I was torn between hanging around a bit, as laiksmarei's flight wasn't until quite a bit later, but I was afraid if we did, we'd hit some sort of traffic mess and end up missing her flight. Turns out, the flight was delayed to the point she missed her connection anyway, so we might as well have stayed a bit. But there was no way to know this at that point, I don't think, so we headed back around 1pm and hit Boston about 2:30. Now definitely having some time to kill, I tried to figure out where to bring someone who's never been to Boston but only has time for one brief thing. Had I known their schedules, a Duck Tour might've worked, but I wasn't sure how long they are. So we went to Faneuil Hall and had a late lunch at Durgin Park, which had better service than I remembered and every bit as delicious of food. After that, it was back to Logan Airport to drop her off, which was sad. So that's it! It was a wonderful time, and I can't wait to go back in 2013.
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Date: 2011-05-02 08:37 pm (UTC)