ConBust 2010

So this year was really fun!! We had a much better time at the Hotel than last year. In other words I wasn’t woken up because of snoring.

I got to spend almost an entire day with Trisha (@Novelfriend on Twitter) on Saturday. That was GREAT. I got to see Anette Curtis Klause again, and she told me where I could find Silver Kiss. I am so excited to read that book. It looks amazing.
Saturday also marked a very important first for me. I read aloud in public! Now, I have done small poetry readings, but this was incredibly different. This time, I was reading one of my own stories, “The IntraCity Double Dutch Challenge”. This was the original story I submitted to Bad-Ass Faeries 3 and didn’t get in. But that’s okay.
After a near nervous breakdown, I managed to read not once, but twice. I was really freaked out the first time. And I had a bit of a good reason. Beside me was Phoebe Wray, who is the Chairwoman of Broad Universe! Thankfully, I realized that AFTER the fact. By the way, she is a really nice woman.
The reading went well the second time around. I can’t wait to get into that story again, and fix it up a little bit more. Trish really wants to see me keep trying to submit it somewhere. I want that too, but I am really freaked out about re-submitting it. Trish will probably read this, and go, “Oh don’t be freaked out! You already did the hardest submission!” No, really, I Can see her saying that to me. LOL.
So in the next couple of weeks, I will take a fresh look at it again, and attempt to edit it some more. I think she can give me a few more tips on what can be worked on. I wish I could pay her more than I am for the manuscript job. I feel bad that I’m paying so little. My MS WAS a mess. I feel like I really should pay her extra.
Next time around, IF she wants to keep working with me, I will definitely pay her 200.00. Hopefully upfront. That’s what I’d be prepared to offer her. But we’ll have to see if she has the time, or energy to deal with me. LOL.
Goodness. Lost track of  the original topic!
My favorite panels at ConBust this year were the Scenes from A Hat. Basically, Anette Curtis Klause and Jane Yolen and us, the audience, picked characters and obscure settings to work with. The BEST one came up with the”Cereal Murders”. It was about dead authors killing the Cereal Aisle…symbolic of ending all the Serial novels. LOL. IT came out wonderful!
The other panel I went to that I really liked was one that dealt with Steampunk. It’s strange that I went to a Steampunk panel, because I first heard about steampunk AT ConBust last year, but meeting Holly Black, and things like that sort of trumped Steampunk. I continued to hear a LOT about through the year, and now I feel like I’ve come full circle.
There was one other panel, aside from the reading that I did, that I really liked. I enjoyed the panel that Trisha did on Tarot cards, and writing. It was great to get a story out of ht e Two of Swords. I met a girl named Calyx there. We had been to several panels together last year, so we finally met! It was great. She’s fourteen, but she acts so much older than she is. Reminds me a lot of two people, but mostly, she reminds me of <lj user=”Yamsteapot”>.
ConBust was wonderful for one other reason. Away from messaging, and Twitter, I managed to get 20k done. Maybe I should shut down my Internet access more often when I want to do serious novel writing. I got some great words down.