Posts Tagged ‘convention’
Mondayitis – Jen S.
A new regular feature here is Mondayitis, published every Tuesday, it features guests discussing a series of questions. People have their own view of the questions and some use them as a starting point while others actually answer them, in their own particular way.
What do you read?
I tend to read fantasy first, with a slight overlap into straight Science Fiction. I am also interested in Biographies (particularly of movie stars for some reason) and have recently been working my way through a whole bunch of novels about biblical women (can anyone recommend something about a Hebrew queen called ShlomTzion? She sounds fascinating enough to have had (a) novel(s) written about her, but I can’t find anything!) I also subscribe to and read lots of Dance magazines and Sewing magazines. Oh, and I also read (and collect) comic books and have done so since I was 14 or thereabouts.
Why do you read?
Can’t imagine NOT reading! Will almost read anything that will stand still long enough for me to do so, including the Corn Flakes box and even the F* Manual!
Do you read for work or pleasure?
Mostly for pleasure, but will work my way through instructions on stuff if the pictures aren’t clear enough.
Can you do the Safety Dance while reading?
Didn’t know what the Safety Dance WAS until you recently posted a link to it. Could probably do it, but why? I’m usually lying (or at least sitting) down when reading. Difficult (but not impossible) to dance in that position!
Are you a Discworld/Twilight/Harry Potter fan?
Haven’t read Discworld, have read and enjoyed Twilight (Team Jacob, cos he’s cute and his name is almost the same as my grandfather’s) and Harry Potter (but only read the 7th book once). Am waiting on daughter to finish re-reading Hunger Games before I sink my teeth into it.
Would you attend a flash mob dressed as your favourite character?
Would I? I did! See attached picture from Take 5 magazine, from the attempt to get the Guiness World Record for the most people in one place in Superhero costume. (That’s me on the right.) There are lots of photos out there on Facebook of me in various costumes, which I’ve made. The latest was me as Deanna Troi at SupaNova 2012. I think that about covers it!
Edited to add the photo.
You can look for me on Facebook as “Aunty Jenny” if you would like to see and/or comment on the costumes!
Jen
I knew where to go
I’b been there before and knew exactly where to go so please tell me why I didn’t go straight up the stairs as soon as I got through the doors.
As I was going up the stairs the adrenalin started as I recalled the last time I was at the Sebel. It was called the Carlton Crest and we abbreviated it to CC I tried to refrain from silly comments at the time. I recalled the last time I’d been in the foyer, wearing a witch’s hat and cape I entertained the queue of very excited people while we waited for the volunteers to finish assembling the paperwork, bags and badges.
Today we sat in the part we’d previously designated the breakout room. It had tables, chairs and we used it for the odd occasion that had missed the programming or didn’t need a designated room. It was the room Sir Terry Pratchett sat down in for a chat to a few people and ended up being surrounded by a large group totally disrupting the carefully planned programming.
Have you guessed yet? It’s the location of the First Australian Discworld Convention. Yes, my conference today is in some of the exact same rooms and it’s helping to make things that much better.
Discworld in Australia is moving into a new era. We’ve gone from a little convention in Melbourne to another convention in Melbourne, to another in Sydney and this year there’s a little something happening in Adelaide with another one planned in Melbourne next year. We’re also putting together groups for Discworld related events, tomorrow is one of these events and people will be meeting at Realm of Legends for a games tournament, search for Nullus Anxietas IV on Facebook for more details. I’m blogging on my iPad from the conference sitting only a couple of metres from where Sir Terry Pratchett sat in 2007 and can’t figure out how to put in links.
Mice and Men
One day I’ll actually read the book Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck and I look forward to finding out what it means. In my last update I predicted I’d be finished transferring listings from the old website to the new on Tuesday.
Well, it didn’t happen. Firefox did it’s usual upgrade stuff and all of a sudden it wouldn’t let me into the back end of the website. Zip, nada, nothing…totally useless. I was forced to go to plan B which was to access it Chrome, not too bad except when I look at each individual listing it shows me the html coding. Fabulous, I love learning html but not when I want to transfer everything quickly. Copying from this into the new website creates problems and each listing suddenly took twice as long. I did what I could but had to leave some to Wednesday when so many things went wrong, in small ways only, but they mount up and I’m now left with less than 40 listings to transfer and not a lot of time. I’ll do what I can today but tomorrow is Problogger event day and I’ll be lucky to have any time other than travelling time and then Saturday I’ll be at Armaggedon.
If you’re a blogger you won’t get a ticket to this Problogger event day as they’re all sold out. Last time they sold out three times, this time they’ve only managed to add an extra 100 tickets. I suggest you keep an eye his website for future events. This is a conference specifically for people who blog, you don’t need to blog for a living, just so long as you write a blog or are planning to write a blog you’re eligible to attend. The price has gone up since the last one but not too far, I do hope he manages to keep the price down for future events to make them affordable for everyone.
Saturday and Sunday are Armageddon. This is going to be fantastic. It’s for all those people who love Doctor Who, Star Gate, DC Comics and so much more. It’s described as a pop culture expo. I’m only going on Saturday and I’ve been talked into dressing up for a part of it, there will be photos. I know I’m going to regret this but there will be photos.
With all of that going on I won’t have a lot of time to finish those listings until Sunday and I’m going to be trying to get some family time in there. It will get done!
Flash Mob!
Yesterday I was part of a flash mob. It wasn’t a large mob but it was fun and I’m exhausted. We were advertising the Fourth Australian Discworld Convention, we had our first batch of flyers and were off to advertise!
You can find some details of the organising of the flash mob here and more information will be forthcoming about future flash mobs both there and also on the Facebook page. I’d like to share photos with you but they’re top secret. The video is so top secret we didn’t take one, it might be because I was singing and that’s a sound you don’t want to hear.
Anyway, we gathered at Federation Square, sat down for our cups of cocoa (AKA hot chocolate or coffee) and flexed our lungs for our first rendition of “A Cup of Tea is Just as Good”. I didn’t ask where the words came from and I’m not sure I want to know. It has been set down in The Black Ribboner Songbook which will be auctioned off at Nullus Anxietas IV in 2013. If you want to look at it you’ll have to attend the convention.
We dressed up as incognito Black Ribboner’s, some were less incognito than others, pinned on black ribbons with our motto of Not 1 Drop and besieged various shops, trying to act as humans. Some of the shop assistants were more puzzled than others and others were quite happy to be involved, although none of them joined our singing. We still didn’t do a video though, be grateful, my singing truly is challenging…one day I’ll write about my Dad and his singing…I have his skills.
Discworld Rules!!!
It’s been a while since I updated people on Nullus Anxietas 4, the fourth Australian Discworld Convention. I think the last update included me having delusions of grandeur and totally forgetting the fact that we needed to have elections before we could have a new committee. Me and my memory, I was so excited by the prospect of bringing Nullus back to Melbourne I just forgot the elections. Anyway, I didn’t get into the Executive and there’s good reason for that which I’ll leave to another occasion. I’ve been elected as Co-Chair of the PR sub-committee. I can’t reveal any plans for the convention as yet but they will come. I will say we have an awesome committee, lots of new talent and lots of enthusiasm
There’s lots happening besides the Committee. We’re starting up one or more groups in Melbourne, which for want of a better name we’re calling Klatches. All we need is to find a time and place to get everyone together. There’s already one in Sydney called The Broken Drummers Downunder, one in Adelaide called City of Small Gods Terry Pratchett Fan Club, one in Brisbane Brisbane Broken Drummers and one in Perth which is still unnamed. Basically, we’re taking over Australia and making it Discworld!
Discworld Klatch
Yesterday was lovely. We met in Federation Square, I had my Moist von Lipwig hat on and for the first time felt really silly wearing it. A number of others had their Nullus Anxietas 3 tshirts on and we ended up being 14 adults and 1 child. We found a table in a nearby cafe and sat and talked. We didn’t talk much about Discworld as we had so much to cover with the structure we’d been planning for Discworld in Victoria.
Among other things which are too soon to go public on my blog, we’re looking at creating a monthly function to enjoy all things Discworld. They might include Significant Quest if Ben can be there, or Werewolf, Thud or even just a discussion about Discworld in general. The plans are still fairly fluid but we’re having another meeting in four weeks time to bring together some research and have more discussion.
We have some interesting experience in the group. Some people have been attending conventions for years and have volunteered a lot of time to help out while others have only ever attended one convention. They’re a nice bunch of people and I’m going to enjoy spending some time with them.
Nullus Anxietas 3
What an exhausting and fantastic weekend. The Australian Discworld Convention first opened it’s doors in Melbourne in 2007 with a very successful first convention. We had 330 very happy attendees and a happy author. After this event Terry Pratchett was diagnosed with Alzheimers and was unable to attend the second convention in 2009. We moved the convention up to Sydney for number three and that was a fantastic decision. Steve Lewis headed an all star committee to produce a truly wonderful convention. I don’t know how we’re going to produce a convention of equal stature, they’ve really set a very high standard in every way possible.
I was campaigning to bring Nullus Anxietas back to Melbourne for number four. The original idea when we sent it up to Sydney was for it to alternate cities and I realised a month ago that someone would have to step forward to chair the committee if it was to move back to Melbourne. I’m sure you can guess who forgot to step backwards.
Molokov has written a succinct account of his adventures at Nullus 3 and one I couldn’t possibly write. As I said, I went with the idea of talking to a few people between sessions to see if I could drum up a committee. Somehow the conversations were so good I got to very few sessions. I did see a bit of Martin Pearson singing some of Bolkein and The Hedgehog Song, I managed to sit in on some of Toni’s thesis, the Galah Dinner was very enjoyable and not much more.
There were so many fabulous costumes. There were several Moist von Lipwigs, one of whom was me, numerous Gods, Feegles, a vampire (very good looking one) and so many others, you’re really best off looking at the photos.
The set up and layout of the whole convention was just superb. Their attention to detail was incredible. I noticed very few things that were not entirely right and that’s only because I was looking with a very critical eye. I can’t give enough kudos to Steve and his team.
Anyway, my campaigning worked and a number of people are trusting me to lead them through to 2013. It’s going to be an interesting ride and I’m hoping to be able to maintain the standard set by 2011. There are moves afoot to start Discworld Klatches in places other than Melbourne and Sydney. If you’re interested in joining in as a committee member, a sub-committee member or just as a participant then keep an eye out on the Nullus Anxietas website.
AussieCon 4: Spoiler Alert
One of the panels I attended at AussieCon 4 was called Spoiler Alert: reviewing plot-driven fiction without giving the story away. The panel had some awesome people on it: they were Ian Mond, Helen Venn, Jenny Blackford and Crisetta Macleod. I wasn’t fast enough to write down what they did but there’s a fair amount of literature in there, reviewing books and also writing books.
I learnt so many things from them and hope to try and put some of them into practice but I’m fallible so that may not happen. The biggest thing I learnt is that a review is not the same as a critical essay. When writing an essay at school you’d assume the teacher had read the book and was looking to see how thoroughly you’d read it as well as your understanding of the book some of which may include putting the book into context in history. A review is nothing like that. A review is for those people who haven’t read the book and so you have to tread a fine line between giving enough of the details so the reader knows whether if this book is for them and revealing the plot. They suggested you talk about how it fits into the genre (this is a fun thought as some books cross genres and could be categorised in two or three genres), and mention the plot from the first three chapters only. They also suggested you outline the protagonist and main characters. I like to talk about the writing style and also to give any warnings as I try to have a ‘G’ rated blog.
If you’re reviewing a book that is part way through the series and you haven’t read the previous ones you could say “I haven’t read the previous books but this is my take on this book”. Some people also talk about how it is a stand-alone book or if it needs to be read as a part of the series.
Some do’s and don’ts
Don’t reveal if there’s a twist.
Don’t say nasty things as sooner or later you will meet that person and feel really bad.
Do accentuate the positives and play down the negatives.