RavenCon

My first time to RavenCon, and lightning struck the building.
That's what I heard, anyway. A fire alarm went off as I was in the gaming room between seminars, and we all reluctantly ambled toward the exits. While it was pouring rain. Fortunately not too many people (ie, not me) got into the rain before Con Security started herding people back in, telling us that it had been a lightning strike. The gaming room has no exterior walls so we didn't hear a thunderclap ourselves.

My schedule:
Friday: Writing Believable Villains (panel); Agile Writer (Greg Smith) ; Historical Airships (Iver Cooper)

Saturday: Creating Believable Magic (panel); Working with an Editor; Writing the Other (panel); Baen Traveling Road Show (Jim Minz moderating, with authors Michael Z Williamson, Sarah Hoyt, Chris Weuve, Iver Cooper, Patrick Vanner, Steve White, Joelle Presby and non-innocent-bystander Tedd Roberts); Game mechanics.

The most informative session was the one on airships; Iver Cooper had slide after slide of detailed information and obviously knew the details of what he was talking about. I thought, in fact, that he might be an aeronautical engineer, but in fact he's a patent lawyer. The session with the most fun was the Baen show, in which Jim Minz told us which books were on the production schedule, talked about some of the art on the covers and some of the new authors, and got (and gave) some good-humored heckling from the authors. The most useful one, from a "writing insights" standpoint, was probably the Believable Villains one, although when I go back through the notes for Agile Writing I may change my mind. 

Good quotes: 

Kate Paulk: "I'm actually disappointed that I haven't gotten a fatwa over Impaler."

Eric Bakutis: "There's always the sequel. It's important to have goals!"

Sarah Hoyt: "Your well-rounded character can be deflated by something sharp and pointy."

Sarah Hoyt, speaking of one of Tom Kratman's characters: "He is seriously lacking in ruth."

Met Michael Z Williamson, Sarah Hoyt, Chris Weuve (who I'd met at Trafalgar Day 2005, although he was towards the rear of the Franco-Spanish fleet, while I was close to the van in Heros, so "met" might be an overstatement), Iver Cooper, Greg Smith.

Bought Cthulhu Fluxx (as a gift), Pirate Fluxx, four of the Flashman books, an autographed hardback of Freehold, a draft edition of Agile Writer, and a couple of miniatures, and added a few more books to the wish list (Paulk, Bova, Tony Daniel, Hoyt).