Tag Archives: Constellation

Conventions, SCA, Weekly Update

Rob’s Update: The Windshield A Movie Screen

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Weeks of 15 October – 4 November

I have finally unburied myself enough from the trip to get an update to you. Sorry for the missed weeks, but what a journey it was. It went something like this:

Council Bluffs, IA to Wichita, KS (304 miles / 304 miles total)
Wichita to Elk Falls, KS (84 / 388 )
Elk Falls to Memphis, TN (468 / 856 )
Memphis to Huntsville, AL (215 / 1071)
Huntsville to Maryville, TN (216 / 1287)
Maryville to Flat Rock, NC (138 / 1425)
Flat Rock to Columbus, NC then Tryon, NC and back (29 / 1454)
Columbus to Whitakers, NC (301 / 1755)
Whitakers to Booneville, NC (190 / 1945)
Booneville to Whitakers (190 / 2135)
Whitakers to Wilmington, NC (154 / 2289 )
Wilmington, NC to Charleston, SC (172 / 2461)
Charleston to Whitakers (318 / 2779)
Whitakers to Raleigh (55 / 2834)
Raleigh to Whitakers (55 / 2889)
Whitakers to Louisville, KY (620 / 3509)
Louisville to Wichita (697 / 4206)
Wichita to Council Bluffs (304 / 4510)

There you have it. Over 4500 miles, plus driving around cities. I went to two conventions, ConStellation and HonorCon and had a great time at both. My after action reports are at https://robhowell.org/blog/?p=856 and https://robhowell.org/blog/?p=862. I went to a big SCA event, War of the Wings. My report is at: https://robhowell.org/blog/?p=858.

I saw lots of relatives, some of whom I’d never even known existed. I also met my cousins. I haven’t seen them since the 1970s. I need to make visits to the Carolinas more common so I can keep in touch. Neither ConStellation nor HonorCon are continuing as such, but I’ll go back to War of the Wings.

I also toured the USS North Carolina in Wilmington, the USS Yorktown and USS Laffey in Charleston, and took the cruise to Fort Sumter. The North Carolina is the best battleship museum I’ve been to, and I’ve been on the Alabama (her sister ship), the Iowa, the Wisconsin, and the Texas. One specific extra cool thing on her is that you can actually go inside two of her 16in turrets. Tight quarters, but really neat to see. The Laffey was especially interesting, as I’d never been on a Sumner-class destroyer before. Also, I got fantastic pictures of the Yorktown as the cruise ship goes around her to get to Fort Sumter.

Fort Sumter is a place everyone should go. It’s part of a series of forts that guarded Charleston harbor and it’s fascinating to think how one would try and attack the harbor. You see fairly quickly why Fort Wagner had to be taken, and this why the 54th Massachusetts was thrown against its walls as shown in the movie Glory.

We had planned to take a more leisurely trip home, but by the end of HonorCon I was ready to get home. We drove the quick route back and did not visit Cape Girardeau on this trip as we had planned. The drive was generally smooth, though the really high winds and light snow on I-77 through the mountains north of Greensboro added a bit of difficulty factor.

Overall, it was a fantastic trip. Mom and I had a great time, though it was exhausting. From a professional standpoint, I thought it went really well, even though I barely had a chance to write anything. I’m feeling the lack, because writing is like working out, if you do it consistently it feels better.

But that’s what I’m ramping back up on since I got home. I’ve gotten a few thousand words in Brief Is My Flame, but I’m not yet back into form. That’s coming though, as I recover.

Fortunately, there’s not much travel between now and January, so I can get back into the rhythm.

Quote of the Week

Whenever I’m on a long trip, I can’t help but think of William Least-Heat Moon and Blue Highways. If you haven’t read this book, go do so. It’s a fantastic read, with all sorts of philosophical thought, history, and a sample of 1970s America.
“A car whipped past, the driver eating and a passenger clicking a camera. Moving without going anywhere, taking a trip instead of making one. I laughed at the absurdity of the photographs and then realized I, too, was rolling effortlessly along, turning the windshield into a movie screen in which I, the viewer, did the moving while the subject held still. That was the temptation of the American highway, of the American vacation (from the Latin vacare, “to be empty”).”
― William Least Heat-Moon, Blue Highways

News and Works in Progress

  • Brief Is My Flame

Recent Blog Posts and Wiki Additions

Upcoming Events

Spotlight

I met another of my fellow contributors to For a Few Credits More at HonorCon, Ian J. Malone. You can find him on Amazon at: https://www.amazon.com/Ian-J.-Malone/e/B00BJ5QO50/

Let me know if you have any suggestions on the website, this email, or cool story ideas at rob@robhowell.org. Especially let me know of suggestions you have for the Spotlight section.

Have a great week, everyone.

Rob Howell
Author of the Shijuren-series of novels

Currently Available Works

If you think you received this email incorrectly or wish to be unsubscribed, please send an email to shijuren-owner@robhowell.org

Conventions, Four Horsemen Universe

HonorCon AAR

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Greetings all

I’m finally back in Council Bluffs at my own desk with enough energy after the drive to be coherent. Go me! It’s time for an HonorCon AAR and later on today, after I actually do some writing, I’ll do my weekly update.

This was my second HonorCon. The first, I met some guy named Chris Kennedy in the bar. The second, he helped make this a fantastic con. And that’s not even counting how we all made his wife blush while, you guessed it, drinking at a bar.

I went to HonorCon only being on one panel as far as I knew, my Martin Koszta Affair panel. However, the way they structured panels there was to allow people to create panels, and then staff them themselves. Chris, being the go-getter he is, had created a bunch of panels and he invited me to join him on a bunch of others so I was kept pretty busy.

The first panel we did on Friday covered Indie Publishing: Getting Known as an Author. I wish I could tell you just what all we did in this panel, but honestly, I was a bit frazzled and I really don’t remember the details. After this panel, I spent a goodly amount of the rest of the day hanging in the con suite, and had a beer or two, but I ended up going back to my hotel room early and watching baseball.

Saturday, first thing in the morning, was a panel entitled, But I Liked That Guy! In this panel, Chris, Mark Wandrey, Ian Malone, and I discussed the value and challenges of killing off characters. Most of you know that I will kill off characters in the flow of the story, but I don’t simply kill them off constantly, as in Game of Thrones. I believe characters have to die periodically, or there’s no suspense when characters get into life-threatening situations. In swords and sorcery fiction, they have to be put in such situations and the can’t always survive. So they don’t. On the other hand, I’m not playing fair with my readers if I simply kill them off for no good reason.

My next panel was several hours later, so I lounged in the con suite for a while. This was a very good con suite, and there were some good conversations. I met an airplane mechanic who had worked on P-38s, P-51s, and F4Us in his spare time. I was fascinated to hear some of the very specific details of each type, which gave me some story ideas.

At 3pm on Saturday was basically Chris’s version of the Baen Road Show: Theogony Books: A Big Year in 2018? I was a part of this panel both because of my story “Where Enemies Sit” in For a Few Credits More, but also because I’ve taken on the project to design and build a wiki in the Four Horsemen Universe. I’ll be starting on that today, as a matter of fact. The upshot, is that Chris will be publishing, either as author or publisher, a dozen books in 2018. And maybe more. Big doings, indeed.

After that was my Martin Koszta Affair panel. I designed this panel as a tool to discuss the ways I use history to world-build and create stories. It’s easy to say that history is a wonderful place to mine for ideas, but this panel goes into nuts and bolts and has been very well-received. However, about 15 minutes into it, I realized it wasn’t meshing as well with the audience as normal. It turns out they wanted simply to hear the history, and not about using it as a writing prompt. I adjusted, and we went farther into the possible ramifications, had things played out only slightly differently.

You may see alternate history novels about the First World War, which started in 1853. Just sayin…

We spent Saturday evening having dinner at the Bahama Breeze right next to the hotel. We being Chris, Sheellah (his wife), Mark and Joy Wandrey, Chris and Christine Maddox, Beth Agejew and J.R. Handley. We had a blast, and also talked about a variety of business things, which resulted in more work for me that I’ll talk more about when the time comes.

Sunday was another early morning, with a panel at 9am on Genre Blending: Scifi, Fantasy and More. Unlike the same panel we did at ConStellation, Chris was prepared to moderate and this wasn’t quite the train wreck of whimsy and confusion.

Immediately following was a panel discussing The Economics of Self-Publishing. This panel was just Chris and I. I don’t know that I helped the audience much, but I learned a ton.

Normally, I like to stay for closing ceremonies, but this panel was done at 11, and after a series of goodbyes, I got on the road. I wanted to get west of Louisville by Sunday night, and it was well we left as quickly as we did, given the snow and high winds in along I-77 in the mountains.

For a number of reasons, HonorCon was not terribly smooth for me. I forgot to get reservations and pre-register for example, and I had a number of other issues that are now irrelevant. I only had one panel initially scheduled, so I wondered how valuable the con would be. However, thanks to Chris, Mark, and a bunch of people I met, it turned out to be a fantastic con despite the hassles.

Conventions

Constellation AAR

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I’m a little late posting this because I’ve been so busy over the past week, but better late than never.

This was the last Constellation, which is a shame because it was such a nice little con. There weren’t a ton of people there, but the quality of those that were there was impressive. The guests, including Mary Robinette Kowal, Orson Scott Card, David Drake, and Toni Weisskopf were great. The fans at the panels were generally interested and engaged, with some excellent questions. Also, since there weren’t so many people, we were able to interact with most of them multiple times. I love it when I can actually get to know some of the others there.

Most of my programming happened on Saturday, where I basically worked from 11am to 6pm. I love those kinds of schedules, even if they’re tiring.

My first panel was Combat in Science Fiction – Weapons and Strategy. I enjoyed this panel, though it was a little terrifying. To my right was Card. To my left was Drake. Uhhhhh…. Those two, of course, have a lot of great things to say. I managed to get a few good things in myself. One of the things that I think will be true in warfare, no matter in a fantasy universe, the real world, or in a science fiction future, is that logistics will shape how and where battles are fought. Only after I figure out what is scarce or what is required to fight, can I write combat.

After that panel, I had three straight hours at a table to sell my books. I sold a ew, but the better part of this time was spent chatting with Michael Allen, Rich Groller, and Stephanie Osborn. These are all really good authors and I like looking at their solutions to the things we all deal with, like for example the logistics of moving books around. Michael had a neat arrangement that let him move a tall bookcase around. I think, once I get my next woodshop, I can do something like what he did, only purpose built instead of adapting various things.

At 4pm I was in a panel about History in Science Fiction. Obviously, this is a perfect panel for me and I had a great time. We had a lot of great things to say, so much so that we went over.

This wouldn’t have been a problem except that my last panel of the day was immediately following. This panel covered blending genres and it was rough but fun. There were two of us on the panel, Allen and I. As I say, the history panel went long and he was also on that panel so we got started late. Plus, neither of us had planned to moderate so it took a bit to get rolling. However, this was probably the most fun of my panels. We played a game where I went around the room asking for favorite books, movies, things and then I would riff on a blended genre. Lots of improvisational fun.

I thought about going to bed early because I was tired, but ended up heading to the Moon Princess Party. I had a fantastic time and got to chat with a bunch of people. Really glad I went.

I was only involved in one panel on Sunday, and that was a roundtable discussion about endings. I learned a ton, but the most surreal moment was hearing Drake talk about listening to Manly Wade Wellman’s stories as Wellman was on his deathbed. The surreal part is that I had heard one of the stories before, related to Wellman’s time in Wichita and Kansas as a newspaperman, but I had never heard who it was that was involved. Weird how close we all are sometimes.

Constellation was also notable for being my mom’s first SF/F convention. She thought she’d be kind of bored, but ended up going to more panels than I did. Overall, take my mom to work day went very well.

It is a shame Constellation is ending. It was a great con, well run, with good guests and fans. Plus, the sequence of events on this trip are excellent, and I would have liked to have the option to do all three events again.

 

Conventions, Four Horsemen Universe, SCA, Shijuren, Weekly Update

Rob’s Update: Near Tannhauser Gate

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Weeks of 1-14 October

Greetings all. It’s been a busy couple of weeks, and there’s some good news to report. Though I don’t have news on a house, we’ve managed to carve out enough space for me to have a cubicle I can work in from home. I haven’t had such a thing in months.

I’ve been working on a series of small things, including some short stories in Shijuren. Also, I’ve made major progress on the website upgrade. I expect that to go live soon.

That hasn’t left much time for Brief Is My Flame, but there have been bits and pieces here and there. Scenes, mostly, or snippets of conversation. I don’t actually know how many words, because they’re in a variety of places right now, but when I get back I’ll piece them together.

Get back? Where is Rob going?

Well, let me tell you. My mom wanted to see relatives in North Carolina, so we scheduled a trip in conjunction with cons and events. We leave tomorrow and wind our way to Huntsville, AL where I’ll be at Constellation.

Then, we see a variety of relatives as we make our way across eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina. On Wednesday of next week, I’ll drop my mom off with relatives and end up in Boonville, where I’ll be selling books at War of the Wings. This will be a good chance for me to get my name out to a part of the SCA I’ve not spent much time at.

Following that, we spend more time with relatives concluded by attending HonorCon in Raleigh.

Whew. I’m gonna be tired in early November, I tell you what. But I’m really excited.

Quote of the Week

I don’t know when I’ll get to see it, but I’m really excited about Blade Runner 2049. So, there seems only one quote that’s appropriate.

“I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate. All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain…” – Roy Batty, Blade Runner

News and Works in Progress

  • Short stories
  • Brief Is My Flame

Recent Blog Posts and Wiki Additions

  • Nothing new to add, but more will be coming during the trip.

Upcoming Events

Spotlight

My story in For a Few Credits More involves a Peacemaker, but Peacemakers in the Four Horsemen Universe have their noses in all sorts of places. Kevin Ikenberry, who assisted me to make sure we were consistent, put out a full length Peacemaker novel. Here’s his author page on Amazon for the rest of his stuff: https://www.amazon.com/Kevin-Ikenberry/e/B00ASFBXT4/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1.

Let me know if you have any suggestions on the website, this email, or cool story ideas at rob@robhowell.org. Especially let me know of suggestions you have for the Spotlight section.

Have a great week, everyone.

Rob Howell
Author of the Shijuren-series of novels

Currently Available Works

If you think you received this email incorrectly or wish to be unsubscribed, please send an email to shijuren-owner@robhowell.org