deborahb

Alas, over already. I kept opening the blog during the week only to shut it again from severe brain drain.

Some highlights:

* Firstly, this has been my favourite WFC so far.
* Wednesday: the Caltrain from San Francisco to San Jose is a straightforward commute, though it’s not designed to accommodate suitcases. I choose to travel at midday, & fortunately the train proves to be at least as empty as I hoped.
* Dinner Wednesday night with Team Oz & Team Locus. We eat grasshoppers & mole. They’re both rather tasty. As are the margaritas in chilli-rimmed glasses.
* The hotel is awesome, & odd (‘multitudinous caverns’, as Graham Joyce describes it). The function floor is in the shape of a ring, which means regardless of whether you turn left or right, the room you want is the furtherest point from where you exited the lift.
* The other floors are worse.
* Thursday: we meet to plan the Aussie Party, try on our t-shirts (custom designed by Cat Sparks), drink pink drinks (as is the custom) & catch up with friends. We check out the Presidential Suite (i.e. the party venue) & run into Tessa on the way back. The group splits for various errands, me to have tea with Tessa.
* I spy Jeff Vandermeer, who ignores me. Twice.
* I cannot for the life of me remember what I do for dinner Thursday night.
* We attend the Last Drink Bird Head party, where I accost Jeff while he’s cutting cake. I thank him for mentioning my book on his blog, & then hold my nametag up beside my face. *NOW* he remembers who I am!
* (He shouldn’t feel bad, though. I mean, Jeff Ford remembers me. Chris Roberson remembers me. But then, Jeff was kind enough to mention my book on his blog. So, it all evens out in the end.)
* The Aussie Party is AWESOME! Much Australian wine & beer is drunk. To relieve pressure on Garth, Sean, Jonathan & Justin behind the bar, Liz Argall begins to ferry bottles of white wine around the room while Jason Nahrung & I cover distribution of the red. Other Aussies wav the flag & generally impress the crowd with the mighty powers of Australia-dom: Kirstyn, Cat Jenny, Russell, Isobelle, Tessa, Anna. The Australian contingent is huge this year!
* Some of us are up until 3am, stealing the halloween decorations from some other party.
* Friday: tired. Very, very tired. Think I have a cold.
* Cat, Graham Joyce & I head out to find the Rosicrucian Temple. After an uninspiring visit in an Egyptian museum (with Graham playing the part of local guide, right down to the accent — & the begging for money), we discover the temple is actually around the corner. We arrive to find it locked, but after much persistence (& luck, really), the door opens & we’re ushered in for a Rosicrucian meditation ceremony. I find the whole thing wonderful & want to immediately sign up, but Graham spots a dark spirit sitting behind us. When I ask how a dark spirit could be in a place where the ceremonies are so joyous, Graham replies, ‘It’s the dark thing that hangs around on the edges of the light.’ … Which shuts me the hell up.
* Lunch with Graham & Jonathan (a burger that fills me up for about 24 hours), where we discuss writing & career, hurrah! Exactly the kinds of conversations I come to WFC for.
* More hanging out in the bar, then the Orbit party, then the mass signing where I sign my book! Twice! (Hey, that’s big news for this unknown Aussie.) I watch Sean & Garth’s queues with admiration.
* Then the Locus party, where at midnight we toast Charles Brown.
* Saturday: tired. Very, very tired.
* The 10am panel on Why Steampunk Now? (which I chair) turns out to be standing-room only. The panellists are all wonderful, thoughtful, smart people. Which makes my job a helluva lot easier. When it turns out Ann Vandermeer & Nisi Shawl were both in punk bands, the conversation drifts momentarily into 70s music (with Michael Swanwick waxing lyrical) & I drag it back on topic with the help of Liz Gorinsky. It really was wonderful. Thank-you to everyone who came & helped keep it lighthearted & fun — & who laughed at my jokes.
* Off for a quick trip to the Winchester Mystery House with Sean & Cat. The tour is kinda fun but leaves us all hungry to see more of the crazy house. Afterwards I chat extensively with Danel Olson about ‘the architecture of the mind’.
* Dinner with Garth & the gang, so many people I better not try naming ‘em all. Fabulous seafood platter in the hotel restaurant, makes me homesick.
* I miss the Weird Tales party because I’m so tired I’ve started to feel sick in all kinds of new ways.
* Sleep for 10 hours.
* Sunday: leisurely morning (& last trip to the dealer’s room) until the WFC banquet, where we get to cheer Margo Lanagan & Shaun Tan for their wins! Also cheers to the Nightshade crew for the best damn suits of the con (& maybe the decade).
* Two parties in the evening, followed by salad in the bar, followed by several drinks & planning for tomorrow’s long journey home.

I’m sure there was more.

Body didn’t know, last night, if it was sleepy or awake. So alternated between the two states at random, testing them out. Asleep at 11pm, awake at 1am, 2am, 3am, 4… asleep at 9am, 10am…

You see the pattern. Spent the night going to the window, burningly alert, staring out at the city. ‘Can’t wait to get into it!’ Then sleeping like the dead. Missing, ultimately, my half-made plans to see Alcatraz first thing. Next time I’m in San Francisco, I’m determined to do the Alcatraz sunset tour.

Got up, confirmed with the man on the hotel desk that my method of getting from San Francisco to San Jose (researched during the awake hours in the middle of the night) was the best available, wandered through a day just as bright but much colder than yesterday. Had Mexican again! Hurrah! This time with Jason, Kirstyn & Sir Tessa (blog links to be inserted as I remember ‘em). Wandered with the crew to Union Square where Jason & Kirstyn left to find the Golden Gate Park or the Tutankhamen exhibition (or both) & Tess & I decided to take advantage of the unreasonably strong Australian dollar & try some shopping. Victoria’s Secret, which has always fascinated me, turned out to be not quite as appealing as Peter Alexander, but the one chosen department store of all the pickings — Macy’s — offered up several delights. Some of which Sir T. is still suffering amidst a room full of Toucans. Too-much-cheesecake-not-enough-red-velvet um, cake at the Cheesecake Factory atop Macy’s got the better of me, but the hot caramel apple cider was deLISH! And tea! Mmmm, tea made properly hot. I love you, San Francisco.

More wandering, off to the Golden Gate Bridge, which is beautiful, really beautiful in the same way art deco is beautiful, classical sculpture is beautiful, mist on mountains is beautiful. Also, in the gift store you can buy canned fog. But careful opening the can, as fog dissipates on exposure to air (says so right there on the can).

Cable car rides up & down the 50-degree+ inclines of your regular SF streets (it was exhilarating, exactly like a roller coaster), us clinging to the rails for our lives because if we started rolling down the hill we’d end up in the bay within 90 seconds. It’d be just like a sheer drop off a cliff, I’m pretty sure. Dinner on Geary St — wagyu burger, yum! — and then cable cars back up Nob Hill to my beautifully posh hotel. Ahhhhh, hotel. How I’ll miss you.

Now catching up on reading via Twitter. So far:

Forget everything you’ve heard about publishing, Adam Penenberg.

42 Essential Third-Act Twists, erm, Dresden Codak?

Worthwhile Culture, Jeremy Fisher, ASA President

A brilliant day!

Seriously, San Francisco is in good shape. The weather is perfect (I thought I was being optimistic packing t-shirts, but no. Turns out I was being pessimistic packing jeans). The Mexican is superb, especially from Hair of the Dog Cantina. The wander through Columbus Avenue, into City Lights Bookstore & that place that lets you taste the salt water taffy free, sipping the world’s grandest Chai Grande, wandering past all those wonderful weatherboard houses with the quirky windows. Then up, up, UP the damn hill towards the hotel (I knew I was in trouble when I read the Nob Hill address, but the discount on the regular room rate was so huge I figured I’d deal with it later).

A fabulous afternoon. I feel relaxed, a world away from the frustrations of the everyday. (Well, not EXACTLY a world away. I’m planning a new project or two on my return home.) Perhaps I’ll nip down to the piano lounge for half an hour (& a scotch) before bed.

And then Wednesday, on to San Jose for the beginnings of the World Fantasy Convention.

See? Aren’t these happy posts boring?

Toothbrush, check, passport, check, notes for panel, check, copies of A Book of Endings to use as beercoasters give-aways, check, list of MEXICAN places to eat in San Francisco, check, US dollars (now over AUD$0.90, keep ‘em coming), check. What HAVE I forgotten?!

While I shut down my browser for the first time in weeks, here are some pretty things:

* Via Ellen Datlow, Vivian Maier‘s street photography of Chicago in the 50s-70s. Awesome.
* Livia Marin‘s wonderful sculptures of Broken Things. I would like for one of these to be cover art on my novel, which was called Broken Places, but which I might rename in honour of Marin’s work. I love it.

Possibly a few more distracted posts like this before I fly out tomorrow. Ahhh, Air NZ, how I love your comfy seats, supreme little TVs & excellent New Zealand reds with my meals.

On Saturday, 10am, I’ll be chairing this panel at the World Fantasy Convention:

Why Steampunk Now?
Steampunk is not only hugely popular right now but it is also a bit of an oddity in that it is simultaneously a literary sub-genre, a style of fashion, and a social movement. What interests and cultural concerns is Steampunk addressing and why has it become popular so many years after its original invention?

With fellow panellists Liz Gorinsky, Michael Swanwick and Ann VanderMeer.

I think this’ll be a hoot, picking the brains of my learned comrades to find out why steampunk, why now? (I got to pick the brains of my steampunk friends & fans last night, & I now have a full arsenal of questions and ideas — much obliged, teamsters.)

Apart from that, I’ll probably be in the bar.

See y’all next weekend!