Dr. Phil's Dreamwidth Journal

October Already?

September ended cold and rainy and gusty. October dawned with blue skies and sunshine and cold. Sweater and jacket weather.

Sabbatical 1.33 Report -- September 2011

In the last month since I reported on my sabbatical progress, I've made 22 submissions -- 56 since I officially started Sabbatical 1.3. Currently I have 25 stories out to market. For a brief time I had an insane 28 -- a new record of sorts. One new story shipped. At least two stories are in the second round.

My plan is to spend a bunch of October-November working on a new novel. I've had several projects lying around, both new ideas and taking some novellas to novels. Well, Monday I attended a nice colloquium on the Crab Nebula -- funny how most semesters I'm teaching or have to leave at colloquium time -- and now I have started my new novel. And it's definitely a novel, because the complexity doesn't easily lend itself to pull an episode out for a short story or write it in 20,000 words. Ex-cellent.

And future planning for Chicago. Registered for WindyCon in November. And caught next year's Chicago WorldCon attending registration before it went up. Should be a couple of really great events.

Spring 2012

Also this week I received my contract letter for next semester. And a new course for me: PHYS-1000 How Things Work. Yay.

This was also the first time I made it down to my office since August. I'd planned on missing the first week of class, because the students always count on not getting ticketed for filling up the faculty spaces for the first week. Then we had the flu, then I had an allergy to an antibiotic... Thank goodness I wasn't teaching! (grin)

Dr. Phil

Anticipation Over

All the cool kids have been reporting from, and getting back from, Anticipation -- the 67th WorldCon held in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Alas, I once again did not go to a WorldCon, even though the thought of running off to Montreal for a weekend sounds great. Missed Montreal. Missed Denver. Missed Yokohama. Missed L.A. Missed Edinburgh (dammit).

Hopefully I will eventually fix this problem of WorldCon attendance as I continue advancing my SF writing career. Of course, WorldCon 68 will be in Melbourne, Australia, for 2-6 September 2010. That might stretch the budget quite a bit unless things happen on the novel front in the next six months (grin), though in theory even if I were teaching in Fall 2010, since one is traveling EAST against the International Date Line, I could travel through on Labor Day and still make the first day of class.

In Montreal the 69th WorldCon was awarded to Renovation in Reno, Nevada, for 17-21 August 2011. Frequently there are very competitive air fares from Michigan to Reno, so this one might be a possibility.

Go South Young Man?

Of course, with 2010 in Australia, I realized that there should be a NASFiC in 2010. In years when WorldCon is away from North American, there is a North American Science Fiction Convention. My second publication, "The Pulse of the Sea", was written for Northwest Passages -- an anthology for the 2005 NASFiC in Seattle, the year WorldCon was in Scotland.

I hadn't heard about a NASFiC for 2010, since Melbourne pretty much is NOT located in North America, so I Googled "nasfic" and found there is/was one bid for Raleigh, North Carolina. Hey, I could do North Carolina. Hell, I might even drive there, and then spend some time with my folks in Greensboro.

Finding out if the bid was accepted, well, both the official WorldCon and NASFiC websites are woefully out of date. A Tip of the Clue Bat to Y'all -- This is 2009. Get with the program and at least keep your websites up to date within the last month. Having them one or more YEARS out of date is not going to impress people. Or get information out. Or help attendance. Just sayin'. *** I am much more willing to be generous to the Raleigh people, seeing as they updated a week before Montreal -- and whether their bid was accepted or not, I bet they're exhausted and need sleep.

Finally, drilling down through Google I found a report from File 770:

Raleigh Wins 2010 NASFiC

Raleigh won the site selection vote for the 2010 North American Science Fiction Convention, withstanding late-arising opposition from a Southern California based bid for Pasadena.

ReConStruction will take place in Raleigh, North Carolina, August 5-8 2010. GoH: Eric Flint. Artist GoH: Brad Foster. Fan GoH: Juanita Coulson. Toastmaster: Toni Weisskopf. Warren Buff and Michael D. Pederson are Co-Chairs.

[Thanks to Voyageur for the story.]

And they link to the Actual 2010 NASFiC webpage:

August 10, 2009

ReConStruction
The 10th NASFiC
August 5-8, 2010
Raleigh, NC

Welcome! We're pleased to announce that the 10th Occasional North American Science Fiction Convention will be ReConStruction, in Raleigh, North Carolina. Come join us August 5-8, 2010, at the new Raleigh Convention Center. We'd like to bring together Southern hospitality with Fandom from all over for a NASFiC you won't soon forget. We're got a lot of exciting ideas for the convention, and we'll be detailing them here as the months go by, so stop back in and learn what's new. We've got some great deals worked out with our hotels, and we'll be letting you know soon how the booking for those will work. Also check back in for details on getting involved in our programming, art show, and dealers room. In the meantime, you can find information on our facilities, guests, and registration, go ahead and check us out! We hope to see you in August!

- Warren Buff & Michael D. Pederson, Co-Chairs

Well that's a pleasant addition to the day. Now maybe they'll think about doing an anthology for NASFiC. (grin)

Dr. Phil

*** - In the interest of fairness, as I poked around, I should point out that the WorldCon BIDS webpage is somewhat more up to date. But that doesn't address the two organization's homepages mentioned above, both of which are embarrassingly linked to the Bids page.