21 Things I Learned At WHC 2011

If you're standing in a hole, stop digging. This applies for waiters as well as writers.If you're offering around shots of whisky, make sure it's a whisky that doesn't need a splash. Beverage logistics are the last thing you want to be dealing with at that point, with "that point" defined as "2 AM after you've already emptied a significant portion of the bottle".Zombies aren't going away any time soon.The utter gorgeousness of a book you want to buy (especially from, say, Centipede Press) is inversely proportional to the likelihood of you getting it home without either TSA, baggage handlers, or your own damn clumsy self having bludgeoned it into something roughly circular.Every party's better if you can find someone to discuss Troll 2 and Rare Exports with.There is in fact a sports bar chain (called The Bikini Bar, natch) that took a look at Hooters and went, "Naah. Too classy." The fact that I would point out #6 means I am getting old. My first reaction to the entire waitstaff was "Can I buy you girls a sandwich?"And the worst part is, the burger was lousy.There is nothing quite like the moment of awkward silence when two writers who like each other and like each other's writing come face to face and admit that they haven't had time to read the other's latest book...or two or three.The guys in the dealers' room, on the other hand, love this, as guilt-driven purchases are just as valid as any other.Offering a shot of scotch with each book sold gets more laughs than customers. You can add "punk" to anything. That doesn't necessarily mean you should.Bats are temperamental divas, and cannot be expected to perform on cue.Nothing is more annoying than someone's cell phone going off during a reading, Nothing is funnier than someone's cell phone going off right after the author has read the word "silence". Ominously.In a building full of horror writers, a Rush concert t-shirt is always a good conversation starter. Even Google Maps cannot untangle the non-Euclidean horror that is the Austin highway grid.If you put Bigfoot on a book cover, I am 74% more likely to buy it.Calculating the number of books you have room for in your luggage as a function of how many books you unload over the weekend is about as effective as making career decisions based on readings of animal entrails.There's much to be said for sitting down with an author whose work you enjoy and spending a couple of hours debating regional accents and Lovecraft.In a six story hotel, getting on an elevator headed in the "wrong" direction is not actually going to cost you much time, and as such is unworthy of Hamlet-level angst over the decision to step on board.The first thing you do when seeing someone you know at a con is try to remember the last con you saw them at.