Real World Adventures

That was the Eastercon that was…

…utterly brilliant.

Before I get into what happened in Bradford this weekend, I want to offer very public and very loud thanks to the Eightsquared con committee. You did an absolutely fantastic job and you deserve the sleep of the just I hope you’re enjoying now.

The convention was so well organised. There were no last minute panics (that I saw or experienced anyway), the panels were kept under excellent time control so there wasn’t any over-running. Everyone was friendly, helpful and knew exactly who to ask if they couldn’t answer a question personally. There was no drama, no controversy and the atmosphere was warm, inclusive and deliciously geeky. Also, the hotel staff were exemplary in their friendliness and lack of raised eyebrows.

There are two things that stand out in particular for me: the quiet room and the Zulu Tradition performance on Friday night.

Whoever thought of the quiet room deserves an award. It kept me sane on the Sunday afternoon when I was recovering from the adrenalin overload caused by the Ready, Steady Flash panel (more on that in a mo). Having a space in which the social rule was to be quiet and not be expected to engage in conversation was a godsend for introverts – especially ones not staying in the con hotel. Please can we have them at *all* conventions?

The performance by Zulu Tradition was spectacularly enjoyable and something so refreshing and unexpected at an SFF con. I enjoyed the music and dancing so much – if you get the chance to see them perform, do it!

Two other highlights

Having the very marvellous Gareth Powell ride shotgun with me and stopping me from going insane when the motorway we were on was closed so the journey took a total of 9 hours instead of 4.

Between Two Thorns sold out! And people came and asked me to sign my book throughout the weekend! All the exclamation marks! But seriously, what an extraordinarily wonderful feeling of complete bliss each and every time that happened.

What I got up to

I was on three panels, did a reading and played in Ready, Steady Flash. As people have been asking me for the stories, I’ll focus on the latter for now.

What is Ready, Steady Flash anyway?

There were four players and Lee Harris, who ran it all and entertains the audience whilst we wrote. He gave us a prompt then we had five minutes to write a flash story, then we had to read our work out to the audience. This happened four times and the winner of each round was determined by how loudly the audience clapped and cheered for each person after the stories for that round had been read out. I was competing against Paul Cornell, Roz Kaveney and Cory Doctorow.

No pressure!

I was so anxious in the fifteen minutes before it started that I had to go and stand by the window in the Green Room and pretend to look out at the snow so I didn’t vomit or just burst into hysterical tears. Then when we went up and I set up my tech, I couldn’t get the keyboard to work. It was just me, being a muppet, but my goodness, did I panic! By the time it all started I was shaking so much I often typed each letter twice. The stories are below, I cleaned up the typos but haven’t edited them in any other way.

Round 1
Prompt: “Murder at the Convention”

My story:
The only thing that was unconventional about it was the method. At first they thought it was a sword cane, judging by the wound, but the only man there with anything that could possibly be judged long and sharp enough was in the bar at the time. And his was made of latex.

The body lay in the centre of ballroom, a faint scent of absinthe in the air.

They searched through the ballroom, keeping the dancers inside, seeking the culprit under the sparkles of the glitter ball, removing possibilities until only one remained: it was He-Man or the baby dressed as the dragon.

The baby dragon had no teeth, and was judged innocent. As He-Man was dragged off, his best friend (dressed as Skeletor) laughing maniacally, the music resumed and the dancers pulled the policemen onto the dance floor. The murder victim got up, went to the bar and raised a glass. Police procedural urban fantasy, perhaps unconventional, but damn fun.

I didn’t have any idea what I was writing until I wrote the last line, which was a very strange experience. Much to my surprise – and huge relief – I won that round and got the single point I was desperate for so I could leave at the end with some dignity.

Round 2
Prompt: “TV 2050”

My story:

He wasn’t sure. It seemed like everyone else could see … more. The others stood around him, the strange bobble hanging over their left eye, the hush descended over the room. They were awestruck. He just wanted to go home and have a cup of tea.

The exec had that smile on his face. It said money, and tie in deals and fame and fortune and biscuits at every meeting. If they liked, it, if it took off, they’d be drinking champagne out of each other’s shoes.

Bastards.

It ended. The lights were switched back on. Everyone sighed, as if they’d been holding their breath. The only thing he’d been holding in was wind.

“So,” the exec oiled at him. “What do you think?”

The boss cooed and gushed. “Wonderful!” She looked at him. “Tim? What do you think?”

“I….”

“It’s only for a year. It won’t even hurt, you won’t know it’s there.”

“But my life isn’t -“

That’s sorted then. This it is people! TV 2050. We watch the books as they are written. Live!”

Bollocks, he thought. My brain doesn’t have a spellchecker.

The story became clear about three quarters of the way through – again, so strange to write without a sense of the story’s shape. Paul won that round, which made him very happy (and me for him) as he played last year and didn’t win a point.

Round 3
Prompt: “The Hidden Children”

My story:
The screaming was unbearable. They ran through the house, lifting anything not fixed down to look beneath it; the phone, chests of drawers, the dog.

“Where?” he shouted.

“I don’t know!” she wanted to punch him. If she knew, she’d have them, it would be over.

Then it came to her; the only place they could be. She ran into the kitchen and opened the washing machine. The boy was there, slightly damp, the girl was tucked under a pair of knickers.

“They’re here,” she said, almost weeping with relief. “Get in the car, put her in the seat.”

She retrieved the hidden children, wiped them, put the boy’s head on properly.

Locking the house, she could still hear her daughter’s tears. “It’s okay, I found them!”

It was a long drive. The children back in her daughter’s sticky hands. Silence. There was a god after all.

Urgh. That round, and the resulting story, was awful. My biggest fear before it started was that I would blank and that’s exactly what happened. I must have sat there for at least a minute, trying to come up with something, but when nothing really emerged – not even a first line – I just had to write the first drivel that came to mind. Roz and Cory both wrote very creepy flashes (Roz’s flash was the scariest thing I’ve ever heard, in fact) and the audience loved both equally, so they got a point each.

Drama! We each had a point by the final round, so whoever won the last round, won the game.

Round 4
Prompt: “The Sound of Snow Falling”
My story:
It was worth waiting for. He’d waited for six months! But the conditions were perfect, it was going to happen today.

He went outside at dawn and stood on the porch in his pyjamas. The sky was the perfect colour, something between battleship grey and the shade of regret.

It was silent. No birds sang, the wind was cold but not too cold. It was just warm enough.

Then he saw it. Looking like a grey dot against the clouds. Could it? Yes! Yes it was!

He watched it, on tiptoes – he’d waited so long!

The sound of snow falling was a whistling, then a whooshing, then a screaming and then a delicious thud. He’d calculated the trajectory perfectly. The Missile had hit the hero as she was flying back to her secret base.

He strode over to her broken form. “Snow?” he said, but there was only silence. He had won. And he hadn’t even had his breakfast yet.

This was the opposite experience to all previous rounds; fairly quickly I knew that snow was going to be a person, rather than the white stuff, and then the superhero thing emerged after I’d written the first few lines.

And, blow me down, it won!

Can you believe that? I won Ready, Steady Flash! [Snoopy dance]. Honestly, I never thought for a moment that I would – I just wanted to win my one dignity point and say that I survived.

It was a totally different experience to the other insanely terrifying thing I’ve done so far this year; Just a Minute at the Sci-Fi Weekender. I freaked out just as much before that one, but about ten minutes in I was enjoying it.

The stress just didn’t let up in the flash competition though. The only times I wasn’t on the brink of losing it was when I was reading my work aloud, as the audio book narrator bit of my brain took over then and I was focused on reading as well as I could.

But saying that, the feeling of winning was damn sweet! So I want to end with a huge thank you to the audience who cheered me on, gave me reassuring smiles and clapped loudest for my stories. You rock.