Conflux 7–Day 3

Day three began early, with the Sara Douglass retrospective. There were a dozen or so of us in the room and we talked about the impact that Sara had on our lives. I read a bit of Battleaxe and now I'm all fired up to read the trilogy again. It was particularly nice to hear from her publisher Stephanie Smith and Jack Dann about Sara the person as well as the writer I so admired.

Then I went and had coffee with Stephanie, who is also MY publisher (I feel quite honoured to be part of the legacy that Sara started). We discussed where my books are at the moment and where to go next and my options. We're very lucky, us Australian Voyager authors, to have such a wonderfully open and interested editor like Stephanie that we can talk so openly with.

At midday, we did the launch for Mary Victoria and Simon Haynes. Thanks to Dymocks Tuggeranong for coming to sell Mary's books. Mary and Simon were both absent, so I printed out photos of them, stuck them on boxes and they sat on the table to watch over proceedings. I'll try to get some pics later. It went wonderfully well – Gillian did a sterling job of reading when her voice was giving way and Dev showed why Simon is one of the best humour writers around.

Then it was my turn to sit on the CSFG table. I got to catch up with some folks that came by the table, and some folks that manned it with me. Nice chat with Leife, one of the newer members of the CSFG, and also Elizabeth who I hadn't really seen since we launched Winds of Change, which she edited.

That reminds me – need to take another box of Winds of Change to the con today. Has been selling very nicely.

Late afternoon brought my last two panels of the convention – first was the What path to take panel? I was quite open and honest about the pros and cons of being published by a major publisher – it's not all sunshine and roses as some people would like to think. On the other hand, at the moment if what you want is a career as a writer that supports your lifestyle, then traditional publishing (particularly in the US) is still the most viable option.

Was interesting to hear Alan talk about how he self-published, but he wouldn't recommend it to others. Cat was quite opposed to self-publishing. A shame we didn't have Patty Jansen on the panel, because she would have offered another POV on that, but she had another panel to do at the time.

This was immediately followed by the Paranormal Romance panel, and it was fabulous that we didn't have to spend an extended amount of time on 'what is PR?'. Instead, we had some really interesting discussions first on what led us to write PR, then into the moral compass of PR and why it resonates with readers. Crisetta had an interesting perspective that in the case particularly of YA PR, the otherness of the character allowed the reader to explore relationships and what they involved more objectively and that's why it's so popular. That had a lot of us thinking for some time.

Then it was the Voyager dinner. I forgot to mention in my list of pros of being published by a big company the occasional opportunities to be wined and dined on the corporate credit card. We ate at the Italian restaurant across the street (I had a dish that was actually baked pasta – that is, the pasta was wrapped around the filling and then baked so the outside was like pastry but the inside like pasta – very nice). It was a fabulous meal of lots of chatter and laughter and catching up with people. I got to have a wonderful chat with Janeen Webb and again with Stephanie, as well as laugh with a whole lot of others.

Went back to the con, stayed for a bit longer, back home and in bed a little after midnight. I've woken this morning a little coughy and congested – I really don't want to get to con crud after finally getting well again. I'll be back home by dinner tonight and I'll have a quiet night and spend tomorrow on the couch and hopefully that will tide my body and mind over so on Wednesday, I can start to resume some sort of normality.

Today – AGM for Conflux Inc at 12pm and at the closing ceremony, the official launch of Conflux 9, the 2013 Natcon. Including guest reveal. Going to be exciting!