Potlatch, Day 2

[nonionay]

Today was the day we rounded up the members of our workshop and did a take 2. I'm grateful everyone was willing to do this, and I never cease to be amazed at how helpful pros can be. They're not required to help anyone, but they do. I got a lot of great feedback from jaylake and L. Timmel Duchamp and all the others in our group. Their advice combined gave me ideas that might help me solve some of my worldbuilding problems.

Specifically, Jay started to get too many references in the first paragraphs of my secondary world story -- was it a Celtic analogue, a Norse one, a Mayan one? It was suggested that if I started with a detail that has no real-world equivalent -- in my case, the poly family structure right in the beginning, then people would start out knowing that they can't compare my world to anything in ours, and anything goes. Which is as it should be.

It was also suggested I whack oxen with something bigger than a little felt ball.

Then, Fate dropped upon me a free birthday present for Keffy. And possibly something a little less free for Chelsea...

I had my first embarrassing cell phone moment when my dad (the only person who ever calls) called when I was watching a panel. I went into the lobby to talk. As it turns out, the panel was about bio and cybernetic enhancements, and Dad told me that now that he's had cataract surgery, he doesn't have to wear glasses anymore. (Tangent. My dad looks pretty much exactly the same now as he did when I was born. He's a little paunchier, a lot greyer, but dude. It's creepy. So now he's gone and grown a beard and rid himself of glasses. Farewell, innocent image of my eternal father. End tangent.)
He also told me

***KEFFY DON'T READ THIS LINE!!!*** He was awake for the surgery.

I had a conversation about trans characters in sf/f, and it sounds like Juri may be a first. There's plenty of gender-switching characters, but none who have that neurosis of being in the wrong body. Here's to seeing if I can pull it off.

The most exciting thing of the day, though, was playing Betrayal at House on the Hill, which is an insane game where you explore a haunted house until one of the players goes crazy and starts throwing monsters at everyone else. There are fifty different scenarios which could be played out. The betrayal isn't supposed to happen for a while, but for us... it happened literally on the first turn. Everyone died almost immediately, and things looked grim. But it came down to me, and I single-handedly killed the Demon Lord.

And now I'm pooped, having had several long, drawn out final showdowns with that Demon Lord.

Comments

[kaerfel.livejournal.com]

Then, Fate dropped upon me a free birthday present for Keffy. And possibly something a little less free for Chelsea...

I'm picturing you following around jaylake and gathering up bits of his hair off the ground and going, "Hmm, Keffy would like this." I don't even want to know what "a little less free" means. O_o

[criada.livejournal.com]

Welllll.... Actually....

[kehrli.livejournal.com]

I'm still not convinced that the copy of Trial of Flowers ISN'T going to magically morph into the terrifying hobo tie you were telling me about.

Mind you, if it does, I'm just going to steal your book heh heh.