OASIS-21: Where Having One Eyeball Wasn't Strange At All

Eye update: Stitches came out but the "abrasion" isn't healed, so I still find blinking a strange experience, as if one eye blinks a mili-sec slower than the other. On closer examination, the eye DOES look a tad smaller than the other eye, but the doctor said it's only been a week, give it time, so fingers-crossed for me, okay? I really don't want to smell that awful smell of eyelid burning again, yuk.
Anyway, I was very obedient and stayed off the computer as much as I could so I wouldn't strain the eyes, limiting my email and net fun to just an hour a day. Can't you tell? My blogging has suffered ;-).

Let me catch you up with a quick report of my first experience of a science fiction/fantasy convention. This one is held by OASIS-21, an Orlando area science fiction society. I went because I knew John Scalzi was a guest of honor and also, I was curious about the convention itself. So many of my writing friends are now in the fantasy/paranormal sub-genre and they tell me about the really huge conventions they've attended.

To my delight, the first author I bumped into was C.L. Wilson! You know how much I enjoyed her first two books of her fantasy-romance series, so I got to gush to tell her about my love. She was very gracious and talked to me about the possibility of joining her and a group of authors at an upcoming SF/F convention in Atlanta. They have a booth there, she said, and it would be a good mix of fantasy, supernatural, and techno ;-). It does sound tempting, even though I'll have to face the Limbo That Is Atlanta Hub.

I was leaving the signing/trade room when someone called my name. I turned, and yes, it was the great John Scalzi, internet blogging god ;-) and a pretty dang good SF writer too. After gushing (again) because after all, he is a god, he and I spent some time just chatting. He's a clown at heart, so you know that just warms the little cockles of my clownish heart. Of course, I was the first in line for his newest paperback, The Android's Dream.

By the way, if you're thinking, "Gennita, I thought you said you had only one working eyeball," you're right. One of my eyes was fuzzing up and the eyelid had tiny blue stitches on it. You just can't see it in the photo. I'll let you guess which eyeball was the misbehaving one.

After the signing, I walked around the trade room and talked to the vendors. I'm convinced a few of them would fit in nicely at the RT fair, especially the one that sold hand-made medieval tiaras. I bought one that had a teardrop that hung over the forehead. It'll be a cool piece for one of the ball costumes. Then, I just had to have the teeshirt that depicted a crazed werewolf and the slogan "Don't mind me, it's just that time of the month again." Perfect!

I wandered into the art room to see the fantasy art pieces being auctioned off. Wow, they were EXPENSIVE! Attendees get to vote for their favorite piece and I simply loved the one by Paul Vincenti, titled Spring. Spring was a beautiful maiden with two ribbons of waterfalls flowing out of her hands. I was just enthralled. Wish I had $7500 so I could buy it! You can see this piece here:

http://www.paulvincenti.com/Spring.htm

Isn't it gorgeous?

Walking around, I found that in a SF/F convention, there were what were called game rooms, where fans of the genre gathered to play fantasy games, like Dungeons and Dragons. They were really (and I mean REALLY) into it. One of the participants was later in tears because her character didn't make it. I watched as her husband comforted her. There were no real rowdiness because it was a pretty small convention, compared to the bigger romance conventions I usually attend, but everyone was really friendly and helpful.

At the trade fair, I was playing with these funny creatures on sale. They were the famous Star Trek "tribbles." If you clap your hands, they start to shiver and shake like those creatures on TV. I was laughing about it with the seller, joking about Star Trek stuff, which I was a fan of, but not really hard-core about. I found out fifteen minutes later that the vendor was...ahem...David Gerrold, the guy who wrote that very episode about tribbles and A LEGEND among Star Trek fans. Sigh. I hope I didn't say anything too stupid. I probably did.

Later that evening, after dinner, I showed up at a live Internet radio show, with John Scalzi as one of the guests. I was just helping the host with the I-Phone, which he was using as a microphone for the guest, and then, somehow, I ended up getting interviewed live, LOL. John Scalzi came in and told the host that I was a published author too, so at the end of the 90 minute-long program, I was given almost ten minutes to talk about myself and my book. It was totally unexpected and so kind of JS to share the limelight. You can hear a recording of this interview (and how horrible my accent sounds on radio!) if you click below:

SYFY RADIO

I came on at the beginning but you can hear my pseudo-interview around the 80:25 mark. Not quite as scintillating as John Scalzi's interview, which came on at around the first half hour mark. If you're clicking, tell me whether you have any problems getting the radio link to work.

The last workshop was at 10pm! Man, these SF/F folks are some hardworking people! The topic was sex and the writing thereof, so I just had to stay to catch this one, even though that meant I would be driving home really, really late at night. I was interested to hear three male science fiction authors tackle this topic.

You guessed it. Somehow or other, John Scalzi managed to get me to sit on the panel because yeah...that's it...I write romance and sex scenes ;-). First of all, it was really quite a different experience talking about this topic when there were male writers on board. They were more shy than I'd thought! And quite cerebral about this thang called sexuality. Except for John's and my initial bantering about working on a scene together that covered, ahem, tentacle sex, the discussion was definitely for those who were familiar with the big names of the fifties and sixties and how sexuality was inserted as a theme in science fiction worlds. Very cool, but almost made me feel like I'm back in college ;-).

On a romance panel, authors tend to talk about the different lines within the genre and how sex/love scenes are depicted in them, for example, in extreme juxtaposition, an inspirational romance vs an erotica. I have the feeling that many of the readers attending that latenight chat wouldn't have guessed how many varieties there were when it came to the craft of writing a sex/love scene. I did hope that the little bits of contribution I gave opened a few minds that had been so vocally against romance crossing into fantasy and science-fiction. Because hey, underneath it all, we all want to tell a strong story about characters in search of meaning. We just focus on different ice-cream flavors, that's all.

Anyway, I really had a great time and will definitely go to another SF/F convention in the future. Actually, if I could afford it, I'd like to be at the Atlanta one, where there will be many of our favorite authors mixing with the SF/F TV shows and movie peeps!

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