short story cheque!

The flight home from Marcon was (thankfully) uneventful, and my guitar survived yet another trip in the hands of Air Canada's baggage handlers.

When I got home, I found a contract and cheque for the DAW anthology short story I co-wrote with Michelle Sagara West. Woohoo, my first sf/fantasy fiction sale! The story will appear in Fairy Tails, published by DAW in 2004. My very first fiction sale was a short story called "The Harmonica Man" that I sold to a magazine called Hobnob. I was so thrilled with my payment of US$10 (which is like $1000 in Canadian funds, of course) that I kept the cheque instead of cashing it. :-) I've made sales since but that first one will always be my favourite.

Anyway, it was nice to find the cheque waiting for me in the mail instead of more bureaucratic hassles from the Canadian government, though I'm sure more of the latter still lurks in the wings. I went out to celebrate by having dim sum at King's Garden, my favourite Chinese restaurant in Toronto. I ordered hot and sour soup, shrimp dumplings, and sticky rice in lotus leaves. Yummmm.

Speaking of food, don't forget to fill out my food survey. You know you want to.





I'll be including Marcon highlights as Blatherphoto blurbs over the next while. Be warned that Marcon was mostly a social con for me; I didn't attend much of the programming. Jodi and I were more in the mood to just listen to others perform, or hang out and chat with friends. I think we only performed two songs in open filk during the weekend (Library Boy and I Am Stardust). Playing I Am Stardust was much more difficult than I thought; my hands started shaking as soon as we launched into it. I hope Lloyd forgives me, wherever he is.

If you're interested in a real Marcon report, I'm sure others will start popping up in rec.music.filk and other online venues.

Today is Lyanne Quirt's birthday...happy birthday, Lyanne!

And those of you in relationships, or those wanting to avoid the same, might want to check out Things My Girlfriend And I Have Argued About. (Thanks to Andrew for the link!)

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Today's Blatherpics:

	One of the vendors in the Marcon dealers' room on the last day of the convention using a direct marketing technique.
	Jodi, Andrea and Rand at the hotel coffee shop, displaying the purchases they had just made in the dealers' room. Jodi: a Spiderman comic. Andrea: a Talis Kimberley album (Archetype Cafe, I think). Rand: Carla Ulbrich's and Joe Giacoio's newest CD. My own purchase: paperback version of Neil Gaiman's American Gods.
	Daniel and Melissa Glasser.

leaving columbus

Sorry, no photo today (Note at 4 pm: Home now, so posted some photos :-)). Found out yesterday that my brief long distance call yesterday cost about US$7!! I'll be posting Marcon photos in Blatherings over the next week or so, off and on. Jodi was kind enough to let me use her computer and local online access again today. We're meeting Rand for breakfast, then he's dropping us off at the airport before he goes to visit relatives.

It was strange being at the hotel after the convention ended and most people had left; I'm so used to having to be one of the first people to leave on Sunday. Rand, Jodi and I had some downtime in the late afternoon while Jodi did online stuff and read a book, I napped, and Rand watched the Harry Potter DVD on my laptop (he had never seen the movie before! Thanks again for the DVD, Scott).

Some more brief highlights from the convention (more in future Blatherings):

While checking out the massive dealer's room, I came across a table run by a glass-blower named Steve Scherer. His display case held many beautiful little glass miniatures, and he occasionally did glass-blowing demonstrations. I watched him for a while, then started asking a lot of questions about the process. Ever since seeing some gorgeous glass-blowing projects done by my friend Andrew, I've been highly intrigued by the whole concept of glassblowing.



After the zillionth question, Steve asked me if I wanted to try glassblowing myself. I said yes, of course! I sat beside him and he went through the basics; safety around the flame, how the glass reacted in the flame and as it's cooling, how to rotate the glass rods as they heated up, and the steps in creating a very simple mouse creature.

By the time we finally switched chairs so I could give it a go, I was hyped. Once I actually started, however, I felt incredibly clumsy, even with Steve sitting right beside me telling me what to do. His movements had been graceful, quick, easy. I felt like an elephant trying to tiptoe through a crowded glass shop.

Steve was super-patient, however, and I ended up with my own hand-blown glass mouse. The little guy is sort of lopsided and he looks a bit as if he's been beaten up by the other mice, but I MADE HIM!! I'll post a picture of him in a future Blathering.

If glass-blowing wasn't such an expensive hobby, I'd be sorely tempted to give it a try in Toronto. There's something magical about the whole process, turning a rather dull-looking piece of glass into a fairy tale creature. My friend Andrew also used different colours of glass to create gorgeous pieces.

Anyway, I'm grateful to Steve for his patience during the lesson, and for giving me the opportunity. He says he'll have a booth at Torcon (the World Science Fiction Convention in Toronto next year), yay!



Ended yesterday with what was another Marcon highlight for me; Jodi and Rand and I hung out with Erica Neely, Zander Nyrond, and Melissa and Daniel Glasser in Erica's room. There was a little bit of music (Daniel played Solar Flare, one of my favourite Sam Baardman songs, and I noodled on flute) but we mostly just hung out and talked until Erica kicked us out so she could go to bed. It was a wonderfully relaxing way to end the convention. :-)

jamming with Richard Hatch

Because I'm dialing via long-distance to upload my photos, so I'm going to hold off posting photos until later this week. Also short on time, so will post more Marcon highlights in the near future as well. Some quickies:

- Zander's concert. So great to see him and Janet again. :-) Jodi and Erica did a wonderful job helping him during his performance. He got a standing ovation and did a couple of encores, including Sam's Song.

- Jamming with David (sorry, don't know his last name) and Richard Hatch (played Captain Apollo in Battlestar Galactica) on the staircase near the coffeeshop. David played recorders, Richard played drums, I played flute. I had SO much fun; it's been ages since I've been able to just do improvisational stuff with other musicians purely for pleasure. I only found out the second guy was Richard Hatch when David mentioned his name when I was putting away the flute. I felt like such the fangirl; it took every once of willpower not to gush, "Oh WOW, like my brother and sister and I used to watch your show ALL THE TIME and Ruth and Jim had a lot of the movie dialogue memorized..."

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Today's Blatherpics:

Last night, these Harry Potter theme costumers made an appearance in the open filk room. Gary Ehrlich sang Dave Weingart's "A Boy Named Harry" at them, of course. :-) They deservedly won Best in Show at the convention Masquerade.

Marcon

I'm typing this on Jodi's laptop, and will add some Marcon photos later today (or perhaps when I get back). Andrea's still asleep, so I don't want to make a lot of noise getting out my laptop and booting it up.

Jodi and I got to Columbus, OH via Air Canada with little problem. Many thanks again to Scott Murray for getting me the Harry Potter DVD! I watched the Special Features section during the flight, loved the interviews with the various crew members, especially the bits about the next Harry Potter movie.

Just as I got off the plane, however, my guitar was being unloaded from the cargo bay. In a matter speaking, that is. Translation: I looked in the direction of the cargo bay just in time to see my guitar in mid-flight, landing with a loud BANG on the asphalt beside the luggage cart. I have no idea if it was thrown out or accidentally fell out; I was in too much shock. Jodi got me away before I could strangle the Air Canada employees unloading the baggage.

I fretted and fumed all the way to the baggage claim area until I was able to retrieve my poor guitar and check that it was okay. Grrr.

Anyway, our Marcon's been pleasantly low-key so far. We've run into a ton of filkers (many of whom have asked where Allison is; I've added a note to the bottom of my name badge to let people know that no, Allison's not here, sadly). Checked out the fun children's concert given by Shelby, Diana, Judith and Zander. Little Gustavo is even more adorable than last time I saw him. :-)

Andrea, Jodi and I had dinner at Max & Erma's (using the discount coupons provided in our hotel package) and were highly entertained by our enthusiastic server, Jose. We hooked up with Rand afterwards (he has a Palm now! and a digital camera!), chatted with Scott Edersheim and Ed Wright, have also run into Erica, Andy, Jinny & Pat, Daniel & Melissa, Mary Bertke, Judith & Dave, Diana, Shelby, Gary, Trace, and others. We never did get to open filk last night, but spent most of the time just catching up with friends.

Getting hungry and Andrea's woken up, so we're off to breakfast. Andrea was at open filk and says she had a lot of fun.

leaving for columbus

Got together with Jodi for a practice last night (Allison couldn't make it because of a hectic schedule yesterday). We had dinner at the Pickle Barrel, and the waitress there asked where Allison was. :-)

Jodi and I are going to Marcon in Columbus, OH today. Sadly, Allison wasn't able to make this trip; we'll miss her. :-( We're going to be rooming with Andrea.

Going through our music last night looking for songs that Jodi and I could do without Allison was a challenge (because there weren't many) but also educational. When Allison, Jodi and I first began working together as Urban Tapestry, most of the songs we did worked just fine as one-person solos. Allison and Jodi each had songs that were almost entirely theirs, with me sometimes adding a bit of flute, and the other singer adding the occasional backup harmony.

Now our musical arrangements tend to be much more complex, and with all three of us being a much more integral part of many of the arrangements. The songs are difficult to arrange, but much more satisfying to perform.

Still, we've also realized that (like a healthy couple relationship), it's good for each of us to have independent interests so each of us isn't too dependent on the group. Allison and Jodi sometimes attend weekend filks that I can't, for example, and not all three of us can always attend conventions as a group. A. and J. still each have their own solo repertoire and when I'm on my own at a filk convention, I revert back to my old habits of improvising on my flute with other people.

But we have the most fun when all three of us are together. :-)

I'm mainly going to Marcon for the social aspect. I'm not involved in any programming; Zander Nyrond invited me to be part of his concert, but I told him (after thanking him, of course!) that I'd prefer to be in the audience enjoying the show. I'm after a very low-key, low-stress weekend. Jodi will be doing some singing in Zander's concert.

I might even go running with Andrea (who is a hardcore runner like Dave Weingart; don't know if she realizes exactly what a newbie I am at this sport!), depending on the weather and what scheduling's like. And face it, how late I'm up the previous night. :-)

The responses to my recent Weird Food survey were intriguing, so I've decided to ask some extra Important Food Questions on SurveyMonkey.com. Click here to take the survey. I'll post the results next week.

Many thanks to ScottM, who called last night to ask if I wanted the Harry Potter DVD! Apparently he was in a store that was releasing it extra-early. Jodi and I are going to watch it on my laptop during our flight to Columbus.

I'm hoping to post photos and reports from Marcon during the weekend, but it's possible I may not be able to catch up until I get back on Monday. If that's the case, I hope you all have a great weekend, and I'll talk to you next week!

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Today's Blatherpics:

	My dad recently came home from a two-week visit in Japan. This is a photo of a Grade 2 class he helped with in one of the schools.
	Dad stayed with our friend Ryo during his visit. When Jeff and I visited Ryo in Japan, I noticed that Ryo had a weakness for stray cats, and fed a cute orange one that came by his apartment window every day. Apparently the cat had kittens, and now they're loyal fans of Ryo as well. :-)