NORWESCON 2015 - Thursday

I started the day with excersising in the Hilton Doubletree gym, working off last night's feast and a niggling cold i've been shaking off.

Then it was off to breakfast in the hotel with a friend. Halfway through George R.R. Martin, the writer guest of honour, came in and started drinking coffee. Is he stalking me? Har har. I went through my printoff of the NORWESCON schedule to firm up the panels I wanted to see today.

I greeted my wife, who arrived today just before noon, and we stood in line for registration. We chatted with some other people in line and it passed the fourty-five minutes quickly.

For lunch we ate at Seaport's in the hotel and met up with some congoers that we met in Bayeux France at a fantastic B&B. Small world! They intoduced us to some writer friends of thiers and passed the time in good company. The tomato and white bean soup I had was very delicious.

My first panel was Worldwide Dead, moderated by Nathan Crowder with Pat MacEwen, Jude-Marie Green, Arinn Dembo and Jeremy Zimmerman. It was a well done panel with all of the participants talking about different ghosts from around the world and how these little known stories in North America are entering into our entertainment. Also talked about was how when pre-existing culture/religion was pushed away for the conquering culture/religion there was a burst of ghost origins and stories about the supernatural. The treatment of the body after death and funeral rites in different cultures were discussed and how they became ghost stories was interesting.

Next was Writing the Other, moderated by G. Willow Wilson with Arinn Dembo, Luna Lindsey, Mir Plemmonds. This was a good writers panel on how to write from the viewpoint of people or cultures that are very different from ourselves without seeming forced. The key points were to be able to argue with yourself from the other viewpoint, project thier viewpoint so that you can feel thier motivation, listen to the directions the character you are writing about is taking you, and when getting someone to go over what you've written to get someone who is the other to review.

Then was supper at Mango Thai with my wife and some friends. See the post here.

I then went to attend a small concert by 9k1, Nerdcore music with Shubzilla, Lex Lingo and DJ Bill Beats, but I could not understand what they were singing/rapping so I left. There were many fun groups that performed last year and I find that I prefer the more humerous songs. Especially the more comprehensible ones.

I then wandered the convention gaming area and chatted with the game store owner who had some items for sale there about the Star Wars: Armada game and other game related things.