I didn't give a talk this year, though I was supposed to.
kitty_poker1 asked me if was going to, and I said yes, just let me think on what subject I want to tackle, and then family stuff happened and I completely forgot until the participant list went up. Ah well, there's always next year.Getting there was half the fun this time, as I arranged to meet up with
booster17 for the second half of the train journey. At some point in our comics chatter, I confessed to never having set foot in an authentic comic shop. He was appalled, and said he knew of a comic shop not far from Birmingham New Street Station, where we planned to change trains.£40 later, I dragged myself away. My haul consisted of one graphic novel (Identity Crisis), one comic (Secret Six #24), one mug for the con's raffle (Heroes: Save the Cheerleader, Save the World), and two tee-shirts: a classic Batman - yellow bat logo on black - and one bearing a very smart Dr Who venn diagram.
Outside the shop, Booster presented me with another comic, featuring two teams he'd mentioned on the train as ones I should take a look at: Suicide Squad vs Justice League International (May '88). Thanks again! I've now added them to my 'gotta catch up with these guys' list. It's getting longer every day. *g*
I shared a room with the wonderful
mirasol, with whom I had many geeky and Gleeful conversations. She's definitely a first class roomie. :DFriday night was Thai food night, and 22 of us had the waiter doing a merry dance trying to remember who ordered what. The food was delicious, the company was hilarious and the bathrooms were spotless. What more could you ask for?
Most of the rest of Friday night was spent in the amazing chairs set up in the public lounge area outside our convention room, drinking, chatting, reading J2 and watching Kitty lure unsuspecting innocents into the world of
Saturday was a day of presentations:
speakr2customrs's Writing Original Characters readers don't hatekazzy_cee's Art - Composition, Theme and MoodRefreshments
hils's Planning vs Pantsing - a discussion on how we create/produce our fanworks.Lunch
ningloreth's things to think about when writing (no link yet, she's still polishing. *g*)sueworld2003's 'Making Manips'. Not a PSP how-to guide but a talk on composition, arrangement, getting across the desired emotion. Very graphics heavy and droolworthy. Refreshments
wildecate's Writer's Block, or How I Learned to Stop Procrastinating and Love My Work. This was very edutaining and I ended up writing 10 (small) pages of a ficlet for one of the teenyfic prompts (along with the 7 pages for another prompt that was written on the train on the way there). Also, I wrote for two minutes on 'Angel Delight": 46 words, including 'lube', 'sex', and 'wrestling in a pit'. (There is no hope for me. *g*) mirasol's 'Cosplay: Interactive Workshop', which started out with a short talk on being careful when putting together cosplay outfits - a lot of online suppliers are quite happy to charge you hundreds of pounds for an outfit you can put together for under £50 with a bit of forethought. And then we got to play with all her craft stuff and I made two shrink plastic (Shrinky Dink?) keyrings - one of the Bagpuss logo, and one that reads 'darkhavens WriterConUK 2010'. And now I want my own heat gun. :DUnfortunately, I went wibbly not long into
kazzy_cee's presentation, and ended up curled up on my bed for an hour, shaking with chills. And then I apparently got warm enough to conk out and woke up halfway through lunch, which meant I completely missed Hils's talk. Sorry, ladies!Saturday evening, the hotel catered for us with a lovely buffet. I can't remember everything that was up for grabs, but the beef, steamed veg, moussaka, roast potatoes and rice were all delicious. The lemon meringue pie was lovely too, once I'd managed to wrestle it onto my plate. It was almost in one piece when I'd finished, which was a minor miracle. Soft base + teeny tongs = many broken pie wedges.
After we were all full and happy, we retired to the public lounge area again, and
wildecate conducted us in a rousing interpretation of the musical Buffy episode 'Once More With Feeling', which left several other guests and more than one staff member looking slightly traumatised.Then I once again spent too many hours curled in one of the wonderful lounge chairs, writing, drinking, chatting and reading J2 before retiring to bed - where
mirasol and I spent another couple of hours discussing Glee and other fannish things. (Sleep? What's that then?)After breakfast on Sunday,
curiouswombat gave a short presentation on Pictures as Inspiration, or why it would be good to have a photo-challenge as well as a banner grab…, wherein she showed us some of her beautiful and inspiring photos and we got to suggest story ideas and traumatise con members by destroying their childhoods. (This year, it was wildecate's turn - Wind in the Willows: Mole/Ratty.)Then it was time for the AGM, at which time the reins were passed to new volunteers and thanks were given to Sue, Maz and Kitty for plotting and planning and running such a wonderful con these past years. ♥
Other write-ups can be found here: kazzy-cee, hils, shapinglight, brutti-ma-buoni, lilachigh, thismaz, and the comm you need to join and watch if you're interested in joining us next year (and why wouldn't you be?!) is
writerconuk.WriterConUK now has a Twitter and a Facebook Page, though they're still in the 'what do we do with them now we have them?' stage. But keep an eye on them, because eventually we'll figure it out!