Actually, it wasn't my appearance at
Bent-con that delayed the blog. I had planned on talking about the
momentous things that had happened the week prior. But then, I
discovered that I needed to send a story out by Sunday night. I still
had a panel to do at Bent-con, and I had to input the corrections my proofreaders sent. Beyond
that, I had to figure out how to use the five or six hundred words
left of the ten thousand to create a deeper intimacy for my
characters that felt realistic and not rushed. [See my blog from last
week about how I look at word counts]. It didn't help that I was
starting off wiped out from an exhilarating afternoon hob nobbing
with some amazing talent. (more on that later). By the time I
finished tinkering with it, my brain was fried. I was in the 'fire
bad..tree pretty...' state [that is Buffy the Vampire Slayer speak
for I was one brain weary chick]. Under normal circumstances, I would
have put the blog up on Monday, but I had other creative
obligations. There is a Sybpress title we're trying to get out as
soon as we can. And I have about six weeks of work on my new gig as a
Manga editor. I had to split my time between the two. I also had a
half parody/half promo cooking video to put out for my yaoi page. You
can check it out
HERE. It's part of covering all possible social networks to promote the
new title. And I'm learning how to shoot and edit video content on my
own. That's aimed at assisting me in many of my filmmaking projects,
not the least of which is the cancer documentary. It was a unusually
busy week. I'm getting an early run at this one by starting on
Friday.
The Week That Was 11/27 – 12/3
I get reflective at this time of year
as a matter of course. As one gets more mature – aged if you will –
this time of year comes with more and more baggage both good and bad.
Since the whole rare cancer thing happening, the holidays have had
quite a spin to them. I'm not maudlin or anything like that. I look
back at the last year now in terms of what have I done with the time
given to me. Last year, I was looking back at the time since December
2009 and how far I had come from the initial diagnosis. From that
holiday through to December 2010, I had had two lengthy hospital
stays, two dangerous surgical procedures [for those who haven't seen
this, CBS did a story on my cancer surgery that is notable in that
the subject had my cancer and it was a positive story. Click on the
LINK
to find out why it is called Shake and bake and MOAS – Mother Of
All surgeries] followed by ten rounds of chemo. Wow, I'd almost
forgotten what fun that was. Last year my efforts had been focused
almost solely on getting well. I think I did pretty well with that
without being a cranky patient toward the medical team or driving the
hubs completely crazy (or crazier than he already is). This year
began with another hospital stay caused by a high and persistent
fever. However, the year on the whole was far better than 2010. [Note
– this is not the official year end introspection. A whole lot of
that is coming in a few weeks. By then I'll know if I have reached an
important milestone].
I was cancer free throughout 2011 and
able to finally start looking at my creative career. Though I have
the usual frustrations with things not moving quickly enough or
sometimes, not at all, I have been really happy with what has
transpired during 2011. Something we had tried to do almost 15 years
ago has morphed into a source of incredible contacts. Projects that
we'd shelved as untenable have roared to life. I don't have to do
very much aside from find the occasional odd file (some of them were
very odd files). That is very exciting, but it is also something that
is going on in the background for me. The big deals for me creatively
were to have stories accepted in two different anthologies and to be
hired as an editor for
Digital Manga. I've always been very proud of my work as an independent publisher,
but I had no idea until the past few weeks of the following I have
and how well thought of that work is elsewhere. My gentle readers
sure are a quiet bunch. Pipe up now and then, will ya! My work during
this time off during what I call a medial and writing sabbatical has
not been a waste. Nor was all that time reading comics and manga and
watching anime. That feels really good. I'm now juggling my editing
for Sybpress with the Manga editing and my own writing, but I'm
really jazzed about it.
Beware Rob Petrie
Craig took me for my latest blood
scans. Though we've talked by phone often – Craig is still looking
for a nemesis – I haven't seen him in quite some time. It was
interesting as always. He serenaded the courtyard with The Pina
Colada Song for a few verses before I could get out the door and
drag him to the car. Life is fairly normal for Craig. The squirrel is
still spying on him, and his father's dog, Hamish, is trying to steal
his girlfriend. Ray Liotta has been scarce, but Craig has had a few
encounters with Dick Van Dyke recently. Apparently, they have had
many encounters before over the years, especially while Craig worked
in an independent bookstore in Malibu. Van Dyke is universally known
as being a very nice man, and Craig does not dispute. It's that the
very tall, gangly man has the ability to appear beside you seemingly
from nowhere. Craig doesn't like to be startled – even from the
very happy and friendly. This seems to be happening a lot lately.
It's making him real nervous like as he runs through his errands. I
still plan on visiting him at the library there. Maybe he'll turn up
next to me! At any rate, the trip was without incident. I had brought
along cookies to keep Craig occupied in the parking lot. I couldn't
risk him getting too bored and doing things like rummaging through
patrol cars that tend to park in that lot.
Fan Girl Freak Out
Bent-con,
like
Yaoicon, was an event I really wanted to attend last year but
could not because of chemotherapy. I've been posting my nerdier blogs
on Doorq.com for a few years, and the founder of that site, Jody
Wheeler, has been a buddy online all that time. There is something
very exciting about young conventions [this was Bent-con's second
year]. Connections with fans and with dealers and even with guest
speakers can happen when the attendance is smaller than the huge
conventions where there are throngs of people all divided up into
their own cliques of interest. There were a couple of thousand
people spread over the convention area at the
Westin Bonaventure,
the iconic Downtown LA hotel. In that regard, I was not disappointed.
I talked to many of the dealers and signed up for a few mailing lists
and one fan club. I discovered during one of the smallest panels I've
ever spoken on that I have fans that still await my fanfiction and
met another fan that was so thrilled to meet me that I was humbled
beyond words – a rare feat for this big mouth.
 |
| Just a little Fan Girly! |
But it was the lengthy encounters with
three of the guest for which I will be grateful that Bent-con invited
me to be a panel moderator. Everyone who reads my blogs knows how
much I adore Jane Espenson's work. She blazed a trail on Buffy the
Vampire Slayer that dragged me from being only mildly interested in
the series to a rabid fan. And I'm still not sure how she did it, but
she brought a new depth, sexiness and humor to Battlestar Galactica
without taking away from the hard space opera edge. I loved her blogs
on the trails and the foods she encountered while writing a TV
series. And I now follow her witty observations on Twitter. I've also
benefited from her Twitter writing sprints where she encourages
followers to take some time and work creatively for 30 minutes to an
hour.
 |
| Brady(left) and Cheeks (right) |
|
Jane was there to talk about the
incredibly funny and touching web series,
Husbands. It's premise is that on the day after gay marriage becomes legal in
the US, a famous actor (Cheeks) and a Major League Baseball player
(Brady) wake up from a drunken celebration to find themselves
married. Unwilling to undermine the cause by divorcing, they decide
to stick it out for the cause and each other. Comedy and drama ensue.
It is amazing how much complexity is packed into those brief
episodes. It has one of the best lines about the nature of marriage I
have ever heard. It was fascinating for an independent filmmaker who
has worn many hats (most often that of a plumber on set) to hear
about such similar struggles to mine in producing Husbands. Somehow,
I thought that if you've had studio resources for the day job, they
would be available for a producer when they did something
independent. I'm a silly billy. I could certainly relate to the
fatigue I saw in some of the behind the scenes photos. It all looked
very familiar. As expected, Jane was a fascinating speaker. It was a
thrill to have that kind of insight into the nuts and bolts of the
business from her. And luckily, none of what went on in her personal
panel or the Husbands panel would be repeated territory in my panel.
Please, click on the
Husbands LINK and watch the episodes. They are
brilliant!
The second of the three people I really
wanted to meet that day was Cheeks. He is not just a character. He's
also a person who acts, writes and sings. I discovered his youtube
videos via a tweet from Jane. They were about his life, the news and
pop culture. I saw the first one when I was between major surgeries
and had a zipper of staples up my abdomen. It hurt to laugh, but
laugh I did until endorphins kicked in my brain. It was an uplifting
experience that I repeated every time he posted. Those videos have
been pulled in favor of Husbands. I hope he puts some of them up
again for all to enjoy. He was an important part of my recovery from
the first surgery and I was pleased to tell him that – and give him
cookies.
The third person I wanted very much to
meet was
Wendy Pini. She was already a legend in fandom for
Elfquest
which she created with her husband, Richard. I had long admired their
work. But it was for her
Wendy Pini's Masque of the Red Death that I wanted very much to speak with her.
Masque had everything that
pushes my buttons – beautiful but flawed and potentially tragic
male characters who are drawn toward each other and inevitably bound.
Death threatens their love and their lives at almost every turn of
the page. I love writing about those kinds of characters. I will
digress here – because it's my blog – to expound just a bit. In
A Soldier's Choice and A Soldier's Fate there are only two options
for Rik and Vincent – love or death as they literally cannot live
without each other. But it's
Ensnared that shares a worship of
hedonism with
Masque. The relationship between Darius and Andreas
threatens to upend the social order and endangers them both. [experts
for all titles mentioned can be found on the left under Hot
Links]. There is tragedy in
Ensnared, and I punish Andreas for
his beauty and his flaws, but I could not dare what Wendy dared in
Masque. And there in lies her brilliance to me.
I am not a fan of tragedy. I know it is
said that to read tragedy is cathartic and therapeutic for the reader
or the viewer. This gal is not one of those people. I found Wendy's
artwork compelling, so I thought I could skim Masque and enjoy that
without getting involved too deeply. That was impossible after the
first pages. I was hooked. Despite knowing where the Poe story led
and where this was clearly leading early on, I was so enthralled by
Anton and Steffan that I had to take that ride to the end. I wanted
to tell Wendy that she was brilliant in how she wrote Masque, but it
came out as a highly exasperated question about the proposed libretto
for Broadway based on the webcomic. Thankfully, my reaction was the
very one she had hope to evoke in her readers. Masque is just the
kind of well written, accessible story that could introduce yaoi
themed content to a wider audience. I'm hoping there is a way to make
that happen. That intimate panel was a wonderful opportunity to
connect with another talented writer I admired.
Sunday's panel on Women Make Queer
Genre was a lot like a literary salon of old. The panel included
Jane, Wendy and Shelly Doty, the writer/filmmaker/musician behind the intriguing
Strange Frame, sci-fi, Lesbian anime. The discussion covered why each panelists
was drawn to Queer genre, the reaction of long time fans both gay and
straight to their works and where they saw Queer Genre developing in
the future. The panel managed to be both highly fannish and
scholarly. I could see a paper being written about it. It was an
amazing experience enjoyed by the audience and panelists alike. A
big shout out to Mars Homeworld. You are welcome in any panel I
moderate!
I am certain that Bent-con will become
a large convention someday. It absolutely deserves to be. I hope to
continue to be a part of it as it grows. But the fangirl in me will
always cherish the unique opportunity I enjoyed while the convention
was young.
