This was the last day of the workshop and the start of the whirlwind.
We had a critique session of the 24 hour stories, and then Tim and KD gave us some "final advice."
Now we could relax, for a bit.
Kevin J Anderson and Rebbecca Moesta gave a presentation on "What I wished some pro had told me." Basically, it was "How to be a professional" and a few "dirty secrets."
Next up was Charles Brown of Locus magazine, who talked about the art of writing and the business of writing. Some bad news -- I'm too old to be a writer! I'll just have to act young.
Sean Williams gave a talk on the 10 and a half commandments of writing. The entire talk is contained in episode 62 from the pod-cast Adventures in SciFi Publishing, available here.
Eric Kotani started his talk off with an 11th commandment (if you break a commandment, don't get caught). We then had a talk from Steve Savile and Eric James Stone.
Now came the unveiling of the illustrations. Each of the winners of the Illustrators of the Future contest received a story to illustrate for the book. This would be used to determine the Gold award winner, so each and every one of them did an outstanding job. All the writers loitered outside the hospitality suite until everything was ready (they had to move some of the artwork inside because it had started raining) and then we went in and had to find the illustration for our story. I found mine quickly, because I had already met Robert. I was very impressed with his illustration, and the large enlargement looks fantastic.
Robert Castillo, Joel, and me.
When I wrote the story, I had a very definite image of what the narrator looked like. But when Robert did his illustration, he drew it from Gina's point of view, so we see what she sees. Something I had not thought about at all, and I love his interpretation. The industrious technician is sitting at his workstation, coffee cup nearby, while fighters prep for launch in the background. Amazingly, the original illustration is way smaller than this enlargement, yet it is filled with details.
Next up was a talk from John Goodwin, the publisher of Galaxy Press. He gave tips for book signings, interviews and publicity in general. Great practical advice, which I haven't had a chance to use just yet.
Then it was back to the workshop, where Robert J Sawyer gave us a quiz on point of view. To close out the day, we had Larry Niven, followed by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle.
For dinner we had a banquet at the hotel with all the judges. I was faced with the very difficult choice of sitting next to Larry Niven, Fred Pohl or Jerry Pournelle. I wound up sitting next to Jerry, and we talked about old PC hardware, Inferno (which has just come out in a new addition), and his column from BYTE magazine. After dinner I ran back to my room and got my copies of Inferno and Ringworld and had them autographed.
That night, Charles Brown had had a party in his suite. A lot of fun, good company and great conversations.
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