Nebula Weekend 2011, Day 2, Part 1

Today started earlier than yesterday. I had the crazy notion to attend the 10am SFWA Business Meeting, simply because I’d never attended one before and I wanted to see what they are like. I’m glad I did. In addition to getting to hear all kinds of promising updates about the organization, I got to meet John Scalzi in person finally. John is recently a New York Times bestseller, and when I introduced myself to him, he said, “Oh yeah, I’ve seen your blog.” Well, that was pretty cool! I sat just in front of Joe and Gay Haldeman and chatted briefly with both of them.

After the SFWA meeting (for which there was some yummy food), I stuck around for the Reading Aloud 101 presentation by the talented writer, puppeteer, voice actor, and vice president of SFWA, Mary Robinette Kowal. This was a terrific presentation. I learned a lot, took a lot of notes, and the little “activities” she had us do were excellent illustrations of how you can change your voice. There was a lot of good information in this presentation and if you ever have the opportunity to attend one of Mary’s presentations on this subject, I highly recommend it.

I grabbed a quick lunch afterward and then headed to the workshop I’d signed up for, Improving Your Website. Others attending were folks like my friend, best-selling e-book author, and fellow Arlington Writer’s Group member, Michael J. Sullivan. Also, Lawrence Watt-Evans, John Kessel and Michael Whelan. It was scheduled for 3 hours, but to be honest, it wasn’t what I expected. I’d gotten the impression from the survey we had to fill out that they’d been looking at our sites and telling us how we could improve. But all of the advice they offered was stuff that I’ve already done. I ended up sneaking out early, right around 3pm. I decided to head back home and get some rest before the big reception, dinner, and award banquet this evening.

We have a babysitter and Kelly will be joining me for the dinner and award ceremony, so it’s also a kind of date-night. We should be back at the hotel around 6:30 or so, all dressed up and looking our best. I’m very excited about this evening. I’ll try to take lots of pictures and report later tonight on what went on. By then, of course, you’ll already know who the winners are.

More later. (ETA: And here’s more!)