Mountain Con 2007

Hello,

Mountain Con was great. www.mountaincon.org

The organizers did a fabulous job. Carl Stark, Rex Rouvierre, Paul Roesberry, George, Julie and lots of others did an excellent job. It was a gathering of science-fiction and fantasy fans, plus a bunch of stars from Star Trek, Star Wars and various science-fiction TV shows—plus a gathering of authors. We had a good time and I loved getting to know some of the other local authors: Ken Rand, Eric James Stone, Dan Willis, Karen Webb, JoSelle Vanderhooft, Howard Tayler http://www.schlockmercenary.com/
, Julie Frost, and the author guest of honor from Montana: Diana Pharaoh Francis. She’s fabulous and a really fun person. We had dinner on Saturday and I thoroughly enjoyed myself.

I spent most of my time on panels about writing. Friday was my slowest day, as I just had a reading. I read three scenes from The Golden Cord. I read some tense and scary scenes. Then my mentor, Ken Rand read a couple of scenes, one from his upcoming book Pax Dakota. Very cool alternate history that supposes that the Dakota Indians won and established their own country in the Dakotas. The book takes place in the 1800’s and is a very original fantasy with an excellent twist.

Here’s my crazy schedule with a few comments:


Paul’s Saturday Mountain Con Schedule

9:00-10:00 Dune Book Discussion—we discussed the bestselling sci-fi book of all time. It was a lot of fun, but kind of early . . .

12:00-1:00 Universe Building Panel—we discussed how to create a world from the ground up. I have a handout on this one that covers geography. Check my site under Writers’ Resources.

1:00-2:00 I listened to Diana Francis, the author guest of honor speak. She was great.

3:00-4:00 Edit Yourself Panel—we discussed how to make that mediocre first draft into sellable work.

4:00-7:00 Dinner Break. I went out with Di and her family, plus Patrick Tracy, and Liz—a new friend I met at my signing last week. Life was good. I had a steak salad. Mmmm, it was naughty and perfect.

5:00 Creating Characters. This was a good panel, but I couldn’t make it, as I was having dinner with Di. I did provide a nice handout, which you can find on my website in Writers’ Resources. It lists six ways to create characters from scratch.

7:00-8:00 The Writing Life Panel—this turned out to be a great panel and we all had an excellent time.

8:00 Masquerade—costumes, skits and filking. (Filking is singing. Filkers sing about all things related to fandom. My favorite was the Star Trek Red Shirt Song, lamenting the fact that the Red Shirt on Star Trek always got killed!! It was hilarious!!


Paul’s Sunday Mountain Con Schedule


10:00-11:00 How to Get Published Panel—we were tired, but lots of good information came out of this one.

11:00-12:00 Writing Science Fiction & Fantasy Panel—this one dovetailed from the last one and was fun.

12:00-1:00 Create A World Contest (Panel)—I helped create a shared world that will be used for the short story contest that Mountain Con and CONduit are having. It was quite fun. I’ll have write more on this one later.

1:00-2:00 Universe Building: Anthropology of Fantasy Panel—I’m posting a handout on my website soon. Very good stuff from a friend, Sara Klein.

2:00-3:00 Lunch Break (After four straight hours of panels I was so hungry and tired.)

3:00 Historical Representation of Dragons Panel (Patrick Tracy was on this one with me and we discussed one of our favorite subject: Dragons!)

4:00-5:00 Blogs for Business Panel (Yep, blogs really help business).

I said my goodbye and we (Tam & I) dragged our butts home. It was a really fun and enjoyable weekend. Tammy helped out a lot and was there on Friday and Sunday.

When I wasn’t on panels I was at my table handing out free promo stuff for my novel and stories. I met tons of cool people and made a lot of new friends. I just love meeting new people.

Now I must crash, but sleep is elusive . . .

Paul Genesse

www.paulgenesse.com

Author of The Golden Cord
Book One of the Iron Dragon Series
Five Star Books, April 2008