Readercon and an announcement of sorts
I’ll be at Readercon this coming weekend!
Saturday, 10:00 AM: Intellectually Rigorous Fictional Data: Making Up Facts That Are True. Debra Doyle, Alex Dally MacFarlane, Margaret Ronald, Ken Schneyer, Harold Vedeler, Henry Wessells (leader).
How do you make up convincing fictional primary sources? No, not for purposes of seeking political office, but because you need to know the facts and how they underpin the world of your fiction and the lives of your characters. Imaginary books and letters are just the beginning, even if they never appear in the narrative. Which fictional data sources matter? How much is enough to make a narrative feel resilient and whole?
I’ve used a few of these in-narrative, and I certainly use them in creating the plot/world/characters. And I’ve got some pretty clear ideas on how they can work or flop. Of course, what really gets me interested is coming up with secondary and tertiary fictional sources…
Sunday, 1:30 PM: Reading: Margaret Ronald.
Margaret Ronald reads a new short story.
I’ve got a short story coming out in Apex later this summer, and it’s one of the shortest things I’ve written. I’ll probably go with that…although I have sold a very goofy short lately, so I might give a taste of that as well, time permitting.
I don’t know how present I’ll be for much of the con beyond this, since 1) the siren song of giant robots fighting kaiju calls me for Saturday afternoon and 2) I’m having to take it a bit easy just now, on account of being eight months pregnant.
Um. Yeah. I kind of forgot to mention that.
I’m currently burning through this novel draft so I can turn it in before Tiny Human makes an appearance. With any luck, I can have the draft done in about a week. (Last polish! Half done! Oh heaven.) And then…maybe I’ll get this short story turned around too before the sleep deprivation hits.
Or maybe I’ll just have to see what sleep deprivation does to my plotting.
Margaret Ronald 