Mid Worldcon Post
Saturday morning, toward the end of the con, I’m sitting in my hotel room drinking the stuff-that-is-almost-coffee, which one can make with the hotel room’s percolator. So far the week has been the culmination of a “literary summer” after my first “medical year”. The con is wonderful fun–I’ll describe the highlights below–but it often gives me a sharper sense of my internal division. Last autumn, a surgeon pulled me aside quoted something that has haunted me ever since: “Chase two hares and both will get away.”
There are a hundred reasons why this pearl of wisdom is cracked. Mostly, I’m convinced that blending disparate disciplines–bring art to science, science to art, emptying what’s full, filling what’s empty, scratching where it itches–is the only life to live.
But over the past few days, I’ve feel a keen pang of envy for my friends who have devoted themselves fully to prose or medicine. The interdisciplinary life is a wonderful one, but it comes at a great price. As I mature into the life I have chosen, I hope to move closer to accepting that price, paying it without rancor, and feeling gratitude for all that it provides me. So enough moody ruminations; the past few days has given me so much about which to be grateful.
Wednesday A flight to Denver while reading Daniel Abraham’s latest, “An Autumn War”. It is a treat to read anything Daniel writes, but this third book in his series blows all the doors down. I’m about halfway through, and hope to post a more through review when I get through it. After a bit of a run around getting to the hotel and into a room, I spent a wonderful evening at the hotel bar with old friends like the Writer’s of the Future Princess Erin Cashier, Liz Gorinsky of tor.com fame, Art Goddess Irene Gallo, and short fiction virtuoso Paolo Bacigalupi. Also got to rub elbows with Paul Cornell, who writes for Dr. Who, and the incandescent John Scalzi.
Thursday After meeting up with my roommate —fellow member of “Team Shiny” and master of apocalyptic zombies—John Joseph Adams, we left for a Sci-fi Field Trip to NORAD–a military base built under a mountain during the Cold War to withstand bombing. I could write about this for pages and pages and not get the essence of it down. So rather, I’ll refer to the wonderful io9 post by Annalee Newitz.
Friday Down to business, a meeting with my editor at Tor as we polish the manuscript of book one. Then a lunch with the other Worldcon attending authors published in SEEDS OF CHANGE: Ted Kosmatka, Jay Lake, and Jeremiah Tolbert. Then followed the launch party for SEEDS and the Tor party, where I got to catch up with my old friend (and member of “Team Scruffy”) Pat Rothfuss.
Saturday is looking great, a chance to catch up with a few other friends and attend the Hugo awards in the evening.
Comments
One Response to “Mid Worldcon Post”
Kei
6:12 pm Aug-9-2008
Sounds like a grand time~ NORAD~ Very cool! I can only imagine the stories the visit there stirs in the creative minds of authors!
As for ‘the pearl of wisdom’ you were given~ I have no doubt that there are people (you and Mariko both come to mind), the polymaths, that have the ability to successfully achieve their goals, no matter how many hares they chase. Think da Vinci, Isaac Newton, Albert Schweitzer…