WonderCon: My First Comic Book Convention
April 9, 2013 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as It's Worth It, Kitty Bucholtz, WonderCon
I’ve been wanting to go to a comic book convention for a long time, probably since I first starting writing my own superhero novel. Last month, I finally got to go! My husband John took me to WonderCon in Anaheim. It was so much fun!
Of course, the first thing you notice (after trying to stay in a good mood for the hour it took to park in Anaheim) is all the people in costume. There were so many different kinds of characters with costumes that went from homemade to super-wow! My geek factor isn’t deep enough for me to be able to recognize who everyone was, but there were a lot of Doctor Who characters, lots of manga-like girls, lots of superheroes (of course!), and a quite a few steampunk costumes. And lots of other things that I couldn’t figure out.
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| Tom King, author of A ONCE CROWDED SKY, and me |
John told me I should walk around the booths at the Expo and talk to authors who had tables there, find out if it was worth the time and expense. I had about half a dozen business cards in my wallet; I figured that would cover meeting the other writers. Boy, was I wrong. There were a lot of writers there! Some who wrote mostly novels, some who wrote mostly comic books, and some who wrote both. I ran out of business cards long before I ran out of writers to talk to.
I’ve been to enough RWA conferences, both regional and national, to know the rhythm and to fit myself into the flow. There are lots of reasons why that is a good thing, but you no longer walk around with saucer eyes. At WonderCon, I was definitely Saucer-Eyed Girl! It was a totally new experience. Everything I saw made me think differently about stories, writers, and readers.
If you’ve been in your usual groove for a while, it’s time to go see the world differently. Go to a different kind of conference or expo for a day. See who’s out there buying comic books, buying boats, doing brain surgery. If nothing else, watch YouTube videos on something you know nothing about. (I just watched one about how the length of your chromosomes may determine how much life expectancy you have left.)
New experiences literally change how your brain makes connections. I’ve been reading a lot of books on brain science in the last year. Want to change your brain? Improve its function? Even read something way outside your known world. All these things improve your ability to see the world differently. That’s not only fun, it’s good for your writing.
Kitty Bucholtz decided to combine her undergraduate degree in business, her years of experience in accounting and finance, and her graduate degree in creative writing to become a writer-turned-independent-publisher. Her first novel, Little Miss Lovesick, is now available in print and ebook format. Her next novel, Unexpected Superhero, will be released soon, followed by Love at the Fluff and Fold this summer. Her short stories can be found in the anthologies Romancing the Pages and Moonlit Encounters, available in both print and ebook formats.
The Writing Bond
April 3, 2013 by A Slice of Orange in category Writing tagged as April 2013, Louisa Bacio
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| Louisa Bacio |
It’s either me or her.
OCC RWA April Online Class
March 26, 2013 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives
Understanding Men
Placebo: it’s all in your mind….
March 24, 2013 by A Slice of Orange in category ArchivesI was surprised when I examined the literature that came with my first prescription migraine drugs. There, in minuscule print on tissue thin paper folded about 20 times, was the FDA approved statement of drug effectiveness (along with a host of other information) and a visual–a graph charting the drugs efficacy Vs a placebo, two lines heading up, one ever so slightly above the other.
In order to be endorsed as a valid medication, a drug must deliver some tiny percent greater effectiveness than a sugar pill. This didn’t seem like a very high bar to clear! But one look at the chart showed the unexpected, but irrefutable fact that the placebo had significantly positive impact. The bar was in fact quite high indeed!
Did this feed into the physician’s dismissive “its all in your head” “hysteria” “maladie imaginaire” ? For me, it was incontrovertible evidence of what we all know, but can have difficulty acknowledging: the incredible power of our own mind.
In many–though not all–cases, we can will things to happen. And while the power of belief is accepted in many areas, it can be scoffed at or dismissed in others. Though mankind, whose ever-present default position of being the center of the universe (!), all knowing and all controlling, can take this too far.
It’s why snake-oil salesman are able to succeed, along with faith healers, talismans, the power of positive thinking, and mind-over-matter. Change may not have a physical reason for happening, but sometimes, if there is a spiritual/emotional reason, that in itself may create an opportunity, a pathway, to open your mind and allow your body to follow.
Believing is seeing, and if we can allow ourselves to accept new things/beliefs, we will likely see new things, even as we look at the familiar.
Believing is also tasting–I remember being at a high-end conference and heading for the dessert table, where there was a large bowl of unlabelled pale yellow pudding. I thoughts…lemon something? Took a sample. No, just light and blandly sweet tasting. Our table speculated as it what it was. Vanilla Pudding? Seemed too plebeian for our exalted venue. Then it clicked: white chocolate mousse. Everyone dashed off to have some. It’s blandness had been transformed to an elegant delicacy.
This insight has lead me to strive to ignore all warnings about the relative merit–or negatives–about all digestibles. My understanding of what is “good” or “bad” for me has become crystal clear and easy:
- Whatever I like is good for me
- Whatever I don’t like is bad for me.
And you know, I can tell the instant I put something in my mouth whether it is good or bad for me.
This insight, of course, is coupled with the overarching truth of moderation in everything. To which I also add the key ingredient of appreciation…
Enjoy!
Isabel Swift
0 0 Read moreRanting About Units of Measure and Lazy Writing
March 19, 2013 by A Slice of Orange in category Archives tagged as grammar, romance writing, writingMonica Stoner w/a Mona Karel
When did ‘ton’ evolve into a generalized unit of measure? At one time, a ton was 2,000 pounds. Yes, there was metric ton and no doubt some other scientific variations but it all came back to a method of stating the weight of an item. Simple, exact, precise.
Suddenly we have a “ton†of ideas, a “tonâ€of fun, a “ton†of jobs to do. I might expect to see this sort of casual expression among middle school students and young people but it has become pervasive in the work of what I thought were professional writers. Which leads me to wonder if this has become standard usage. Whatever happened to such wonderful words as ‘plethora?’ ([n.] excess) Granted we might not encounter the word in common usage but should that mean we choose an inappropriate word instead?
Will we encounter the same spreading misuse as we did when a well known author applied ‘laconic’ ([adj.] brief statement, concise explanation) to her hero’s raised eyebrow. Granted eyebrows aren’t capable of extensive speech but this usage is far beyond the definition. Sadly I find she has established a trend of lazy writing when a quick perusal of the thesaurus might suggest, well, a plethora of more correct adjectives.
To exacerbate the situation, I just received a message about a FREE GIVEAWAY book. Is this phrasing supposed to make me want the book more? To be honest, I figure if the promotional notices show such disrespect for our language I’m not likely to check out the book itself. Free is too expensive when I waste time on poorly written books.
Then you have the brilliant new idea that word usage isn’t as important as story telling and content. According to this theory if a writer can’t remember the difference between your and you’re it doesn’t matter as long as their characters have appeal. And here I wondered how we devolved to using ‘ton’ to identify something other than a large unit of weight.
Maybe I’m just in a crabby mode. Words do have an exact meaning and we write for the joy of sharing those words with others. Unless of course we’re writing to silence the voices in our heads.
Is there anything that rubs your writerly self the wrong way?
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