Are you there Fun With Rope panel? It's me, Margaret.

So I have returned from Arisia with many things undone, a brain on fire and a body that needs another 19 hours of sleep, at least two hot showers and a mix of caffeine, exercise and heaven knows what else to be right.  At some point, soon, I will try mightily to fix some of the things I got in my head over the weekend, perhaps organize some of them, maybe even turn something into a Real Writing Project, but for now, snippets.

Parameters for the epic fantasy I want
1) No prophecies.  At all.  The protagonist isn't the only one who could do the thing, but one of the only ones (or one of the first, or just one) who did do the thing.
2) Where action doesn't have to be violent, but violence has to be emotionally processed, at some point.
3) Where the dead get mourned and are missed.
4) Aside from the stuff that should be obvious and that I've talked about before.


Things to pitch for Readercon (So I remember)
When Poets write Prose and Vice Versa - the actual panel was a blast, but from the point of view of the con, and the point of view of my plans, it did kind of wither on the vine (scheduled opposite the masquerade, the end of the dinner time block, on Sunday = no audience).  I think Readercon is a better place for that discussion than Arisia, but I am glad I got a chance to be part of it here.

Interactivity in Fiction - this was an unqualified success, I thought, and I was almost sad I wasn't in the audience for it, because there was more to learn than I could note down.  I think, at Readercon, we could do the other side of that one and get the more literary focus, perhaps have a person or two who know more about fanfic.  That said, being able to talk with a lot of smart people from the text-game side of things was excellent, and thank you so much shadesong , for putting that group together.

Plot Bunny Swap Meet - "Tell Me a Story I Couldn't Tell Myself" was a bit of an experiment, and if it gets a story about the Drowning of the Doves out of sovay , or any of the other challenges thrown at her or nineweaving , then it's going to have succeeded beyond my wildest dreams.  Asking afterward about interest in the possibility to just meet and swap plot bunnies met with a really positive response, too, which was what I had originally in mind for the panel (later self-censored to what it was because I thought that just swapping plot bunnies was kind of self-indulgent and that everyone else would think so).  I think I might pitch this as a boardroom activity.  I wouldn't call it a workshop, since I don't really have any value to add (other than being awesome, clearly, but y'know).  On the other hand, there might be more to this than I thought. I just thought about the activity where they take a bunch of art supplies and a group and make a game in a set time.  Plot bunny chocobo breeding?  Hm...

Why horror poetry isn't that scary.
At least for me; I think I figured this one out.  I go to poetry expecting to feel changed, to get messed with.  I want to feel the itch and prick of feathers as the push through my skin in all the wrong directions.  I come to poetry like a cenobite to hell.  Also, I noticed that in setting out to write a scary poem (based on something teenybuffalo said), that the result (still in very first draft) isn't any scarier than my other work.  That's a thing.  Hopefully a draft will be available to show to people soon.