Monday, June 24th 2002 - Mockingbird Mars-ipan
This was a very busy and very exciting weekend. Friday was the prep time for me and Tim, as we did laundry and grocery shopping (Friday night being an excellent time to do both around here, as it's actually NOT BUSY!). The fun began on Saturday, as we BARTed into the City with Susan to see Ellen Datlow speak about her new anthology The Green Man, along with authors Michael Cadnum and Katherine Vaz. At the bookstore we got to see Sam Ling and Sean Klein, Avi Bar-Zeev, Cory Doctorow -- all the cool writing kids you run into at events like this out here. Pretty interesting, as expected. I'm glad I went, too, becuase even though we saw Ellen at two more events that weekend, that signing was the only time I got up the nerve to speak to her. Because Tim works for A Certain Magazine we got to attend Charles Brown's 65th birthday celebrations for the rest of the weekend. We came early to the restaurant on Saturday night to help decorate (Hawaiian themed). I got to meet Michaela Roessner and chat with her about Spain a bit (which is something I just love to do). She is one of the nicest people I've ever met, asking me if I wrote too and seeming interested in my answer (she even wanted to know if I was "just writing, or are you submitting too?" to which I could answer (a bit proudly, I admit) that I currently had 11 stories in circulation). I also got to chat with Eileen Gunn and John Berry, both very interesting people in their own right. Tim and I learned that you can't go wrong with a Zinfandel from 2000, which is about all the wine info we can keep straight right now. Bah, I'm not doing justice to the weekend here. Please forgive me. I'm a bit bleary and headachy today, after all the fun. So, on Sunday we got to hang out up at Charles's beautiful home, which is where the party was. Glass windows on two sides on the living room (plus sky lights above and a sloping ceiling that gives a real sense of space) that look out into lush green trees (and scampering squirrels). I wish I worked somewhere so pretty! The food was yummy and the company was friendly and variously famous. I sat next to Ellen Datlow on the hearth for awhile, but never managed to figure out how to join her conversation without seeming rude or too eager. I said hi to Karen Joy Fowler and Pat Murphy (both of whom I've met before), but didn't get a chance to chat too much. It's not like a con, where you can read a nametag and know who you're talking to, so there were probably many more people there whom I would've have wanted to meet, had I just known their names. I got up the nerve to meet Kim Stanley Robinson whlie we were both digging in the drink coolers. I told him how much I admired his Mars series and that Tim and I just bought "The Years of Rice and Salt" and were looking forward to reading it. He warned us to savor it, as "I don't think I'll be doing anything like that again." He wants to write more near future stuff. Very cool feeling, listening to a famous author tell you what he wants to write about next. We chatted for a bit about alternate histories, and I managed to bring a few things to the conversation. He was very nice and looked exactly like I thought he would - a neat, clean-cut scientist. It took me longer to join the group around Sean Stewart, but once I did I clicked with him better than anyone else I'd been wanting to meet that weekend (this might have been helped by the fact that he's only about 6 years older than me). I told *him* I'm loved "Mockingbird" (which is true) and a couple of times he referred to things in the book directly to me, ("You remember the scene where . . . .") which was cool, even if at least once I didn't remember the scene at all and had to nod and smile as if I did; it's been at least 6 months since I read the book, and my memory just ain't what it used to be. The group of people around Sean consisted of other folks I'd wanted to meet (including Lisa Goldstein and Lori Ann White), and I wanted to hang out there for the rest of the party, it was so fun talking with all of them. Our conversation was the first time all weekend that I got to mention my day job, which is always fun to do (it also lead me to mentioning the couple of things I have published, which made me feel like less of a groupie and more of a fellow writer). Anyway, we had to go soon after that, which made me very sad. It takes me awhile to warm up to parties (especially daytime ones where I can't drink for fear of falling asleep), and I was just hitting my stride when it was time to go. I managed to embarass Tim a few times over the weekend, though I didn't mean to. I would sometimes introduce us both as writers, but say "Tim's farther along in his career than I am". Which is true. But, I guess he doesn't feel like he is compared to these people with books. But, well, I'm proud of him, and I want everyone to remember our names and remember them when they run across them in the by line of a story somewhere. And, it's just more likely they'll run across Tim's name than mine right now. Anyway. It was fun. Lovely. I didn't network as much as someone like, say, Mary Anne, would have, but I managed to meet several writers and editors I admire and enjoy myself and not come across as a groupie. All in all, a successful weekend, I'd say.	Exercise Log: Let's see. Did stretching - LOTS of stretching - and cardio last Thursday. My neck and back and shoulders are killing me lately, so I'm either going to have to stop weight lifting, or really, really cut down on the weight I lift. Sigh. It's hard to watch yourself regress. Writing log: Hm, been too busy, but I'll revise the witch story soon and finish typing in what I have of the princess story. Need to revise a couple of poems and send them off to Asimov's, too. Got two rejections in the past 4 days. I've sent out stories a total of 25 times this year already (that's not counting poetry or any non-fiction). Woot! Oh, forgot to mention that I wrote an article called "A Girl Named Charles" for Punk Planet last week (it's a short piece about Charles Anders that I was requested to write last week at Writers With Drinks). Current Publications: The Ever Book Shoppe (a collaboration with Tim Pratt in Slow Trains Literary Journal In the Shade of You nominated in the long poem category for the Rhysling and will be reprinted in the 2002 Rhysling Anthology! "How to Suck" reprinted in From Porn to Poetry: Clean Sheets Celebrates the Erotic Mind I've been reading: Currently Reading: The Mount by Carol Emshwiller Reading the Vampire Slayer: An Unofficial Critical Companion to Buffy and Angel edited by Roz Kaveney These are for work: Harmful to Minors: The Perils of Protecting Children from Sex by Judith Levine
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