Still have 12 hours left...

Sessions back to back...and loads to tell! You'll have to settle for a few pictures until later:




Myself and author Allen Steele




Author Jim Morrow hams up his short story reading




Panel on New England's unique place in horror literature

More later!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Burlington Woods,Burlington,United States

Midday check in - day one

Three sessions done...I'm rapidly realizing blogging between or during events isn't going to happen. A daily summary will do this experience more justice.

However, tweeting commentary and the occasional cheeky fashion observation will continue.

More tonight, but feel free to follow the Twitter cynical me: rbwood




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Location:Bedford St,Burlington,United States

ReaderCON pregame

Registered a little early as the bloody line was out the door. Scoped out the rooms for the lectures and classes today and distributed business cards already. First up is 'Writing Realistic Speech'

On a side note I'm using the blogger app for my iPhone. This may cause a few typos during the day.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Cambridge St,Burlington,United States

ReaderCON 21 - Day One

So almost off to day one of ReaderCON.

As seems to be my lot in life, a few work-related minor explosions happened late yesterday. Nothing that can't be handled, however the gods are making my quest to be a published writer a very interesting exercise to say the least.

I wonder if Perseus felt a little frustrated before whacking off Medusa's head? And was that a rumble of thunder I just heard?

Anyway- I'll post thoughts observations etc. today and for the next few days of ReaderCON. I'm both nervous and excited to finally experience a writing convention first-hand with completed projects. Should be fun!

But first to put out a few fires.

The things you find on the Internet

Writing became such a process of discovery that I couldn't wait to get to work in the morning: I wanted to know what I was going to say. ~Sharon O'Brien

I'm actually not going to mention ReaderCON today. Well except to say that I won't mention ReaderCON.

Yesterday, I made some new, really talented contacts/friends. I blame Twitter and the Internet.

In the morning I checked my Twitter account and saw a ReTweet (RT to us twit-diots) from a writer named Leah Petersen.

It was about a writing competition she runs every Tuesday called 'Five Minute Fiction.' The rules are simple. At 1:30 PM Eastern, she posts a subject/word on her blog. People then write for five minutes on the subject. A guest judge (this week it was the lovely and talented Shianan Fae) selects five finalists and these 'final five' are voted on by Leah's readers.

Brilliant, really. Fun competition, online marketing, drives traffic and general 'awareness' for the host, judge and participants alike.

Well, I figured I'd give it a go this week.

I booked a conference room at work and setup 1:30 as my lunch time. After all, it sounded fun, right?

Exactly at 1:30, Leah posted 'Prescription' as the subject.

I froze. "Okay," I said. "You can do this."

1:31

What's the main character's name....Um...

1:32

"Abe! I'll call him Abe. And he's....in Chicago. But there's been a global plague, so he scrapes by...how?"

1:33

"Got it! He's in a poker game with fellow survivors! And...YES. He'll have some rube who runs scams for him tell him that his prescription is ready! Abe's fellow players will assume he has the plague, fold and Abe will collect the pot!"

1:34

I write...but how to end it? Oh of course! Abe, pockets filled with his scammed winnings, coughs up blood! He really DOES have the Plague! Irony!

1:35

Post! I made it. Typos and all.

Well, I sat back in my chair and was grossed out because my back was wet. I'd broken out into a sweat. When I tell you it was the most exciting 5 minutes of the day, I mean it.

Heart racing, and synapses firing, all I needed to do was to get picked for the final five.

Ms. Fae picked my story as a finalist. Along with entries by Rebecca Hamilton, Noelle Pierce, Robert James Russell, and Sessha Batto.

It was (and still is) pretty flattering.

I read the other entries...and that little candle that was my excitement at having been chosen a finalist dimmed a bit. See, all the finalist entries were pretty good.

Actually, for five minutes of panic writing, they were not just pretty good. They were really, really good.

And voters would decide the winner.

I watched the tallies go up through out the day. I made it all the way to second place before the voting deadline passed. So close.

But I'm ok with second. First, because Becca's story WAS better. Second, well...

I got to play with other writers.

But you can bet your sweet bottom I'll be hanging around Leah's blog again.

After all (and with apologies to Sharon O'Brien), I can't wait to see what I'll write next Tuesday.

READERCON 21 - This week

*Deep Breath*

Ok.

First writing convention starting in a few days. I literally have no idea what to expect. I'll post the pocket guide to the seminars/lectures etc later today with my choice of panels. You can have a look and see what I'm getting myself into!

No word from Sean if he was able to get a hold of Jim (Morrow). I see he's still on the attendee list, so I'l try and track him down on Saturday.

I'll be bringing copies of chapter one from "The Prodigal's Foole" as well as copies of two short stories I've been working on. Both need a bit more polish, so that'll be the work for the next few evenings.

Friday night a 'meet and greet' night for the conference attendees, lecturers and people in 'the biz.' I must remember to SIP my Jack...

Look for that mini-guide posting later, and with any luck a couple of short stories soon thereafter.

I plan on blogging from the convention floor all three days (July 09, 10, 11). Stay tuned!

UPDATE (06JUL10 - 10:00 AM EDT) Here is the Pocket guide to ReaderCON 21 panels

Second UPDATE: Here's where you'll find me: Marked-up Guide

Sometimes, the best writing isn't about wizards or maniacal robots...

There a loads of books, and series of books about the underdog rebelling against a tyrannical establishment. Loads of movies and TV shows as well.

On this, the 234th anniversary of such a story, I give to you in it's entirety, the best (by far) of all the Rebellious Writings, written primarily by a philosophy major from the College of William and Mary.

A guy by the name of Jefferson.

Enjoy, and Happy 4th:

When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. --Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his assent to laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.

He has forbidden his governors to pass laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.

He has refused to pass other laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of representation in the legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.

He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.

He has dissolved representative houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.

He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining in the meantime exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.

He has endeavored to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migration hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands.

He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers.

He has made judges dependent on his will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies without the consent of our legislature.

He has affected to render the military independent of and superior to civil power.

He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation:

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states:

For cutting off our trade with all parts of the world:

For imposing taxes on us without our consent:

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury:

For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offenses:

For abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighboring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule in these colonies:

For taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments:

For suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.

He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection and waging war against us.

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow citizens taken captive on the high seas to bear arms against their country, to become the executioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, enemies in war, in peace friends.

We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the name, and by the authority of the good people of these colonies, solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to levy war, conclude peace, contract alliances, establish commerce, and to do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do. And for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor.