Westercon

Much fun was had at Westercon last weekend, in the pleasant, laid-back sort of way one would expect of Arizona in mid-summer. I focused as much on panels on non-writing subjects as on the writing ones: listened to costumers and musicians talk about creating stage presence, watched a flintknapping demonstration, wandered to the filk suite. Because you know, you can’t write if all you do is spend your time thinking and talking about writing.

Of the panels I was on, the Sense of Place on seemed to go best (thanks to a moderator who kept us on topic yet also kept things interesting), though the evening Shakepseare one was fun too.

And from the Writing for the Long Haul Panel (which I wasn’t on), I picked up this interesting notion: the reason that sometimes, without warning, our writing seems suddenly awful, when before it was fine, is this: just as our writing skill is increasing, our critical/editorial skills are increasing, too. So sometimes, we hit a point where we’re better at seeing what’s wrong than we are at doing anything about it. But eventually the writing catches up, and we feel like we can actually write again, at least until the next leap in critical skill.