Previous entry: "#112: Off To Potlatch"
Next entry: "#114: Opening Up Shop"

03/04/2008: "#113: Viva Potatch!"

Music: Alison Moyet
Mood: pleased

So how was Potlatch 17? It was great! It was everything that I wanted it to be and more. I wanted to meet some fellow Seattle-based sci-fi writers (check!), talk with older writers and learn from them (check!), go to some fasinating panels including the one about Octavia Butler (check!), and maybe pick up one or two awesome books at the dealers tables (check!).

It was so awesome to be around so many like-minded people for once. I do love writing, but sometimes, when you are deep into it, it seems that all I do is get up, write, go to work, come home, go to bed, wash, rinse, repeat. Trying to translate the images into my head into nerve impulses that make my fingers type letters that make words that somewhat approximate what I am seeing is not the most social of enterprises. While I do get out of the house occasionally, I rarely get to do so with people who are into writing, so Potlatch was very affirming in so many ways. The deadline for Clarion West passed during the middle of the convention, and there were so many people there who had attended (Potlatch and Clarion West are two facets of the same community after all), I began to regret my decision to not at least throw my hat into the ring and see if I could get in.

On the other hand, I attended Potlatch as a rookie writer. I wanted to sit in and listen and see where to go next. While I've always been writing, I have only recently decided to follow my calling as a writer. Among the many amazing things I learned this weekend, I realized that in addition to sending the book out and seeing what happens, I need to keep writing, join up some writers groups and keep myself up on what's going on in the SF and larger literary world.

I am in the midst of developing two short stories that I will send out to the SF mags. I'll let you know how they are coming...