Writercon UK 2011

[thismaz]

So finally, after almost two weeks, I have written up my version of the goings-on at the 2011 writerconuk Event.



It was a great weekend and it started well. The journey down the Coventry went smoothly and I got to the hotel a little after lunchtime, to find the committee in the bar (sensible committee). Others gradually appeared over the next few hours and it was lovely to see people again, and meet new people. We sat around, chatting and laughing, as the group gradually got bigger and bigger, until we occupied the whole of one half of the space.

At 6:30pm we moved to the meeting room, one the first floor, for the Welcome and The Quiz (a sort of do-it-yourself affair, in that everybody who attends provides the questions). It was, as always, great fun, with a lot of hooting and much frantic whispering within the teams. It's not at all surprising that our team (Team C, aka Team Comatose) didn't win; the range of fandoms represented is very broad. The fact that neither kazzy_cee, nor I, could remember the answers to the questions we had actually contributed ourselves, didn't help.

I was pretty tired, so I dipped out of the communal meal at the local Indian restaurant and had something light to eat in the bar, while I proof-read a bit more of my big bang story. Around 10 o'clock a member of staff came over to collect my dirty (but very empty) plate and said that I had actually fallen asleep for five minutes and she had been worried and wondering whether she ought to wake me. I took that as a sign, went to bed and crashed.

On Saturday morning, as usual, kazzy_cee and I were the first down to breakfast, but we were soon joined by others. At approximately 9 o'clock the whole thing kicked off with the first of the talks. Every year, I learn new stuff at this event.

hesadevil couldn't attend, because she was poorly, except that she did attend, via Skype, which was pretty wonderful.

The first session of the day was by brutti_ma_buoni, who talked about writing to prompts. This is something I haven't done since I stopped participating in tamingthemuse, which used single word prompts. The range of available prompt types, from pictures, to scenarios, to questions, to phrases, to individual words, and the way in which the options narrow as the number of words in the prompt increases, was something I never really thought about. I'm going to have to go and look for some of the prompt communities in my own fandoms.

wildecate followed her, with a talk about music in fandom, which was really interesting, even to someone like me who never thinks to turn on music and can never remember the names of any songs or artists.

After a coffee break (with Danish pastries. Yum!) speakr2customrs presented a talk about research, with some wonderful examples of where research had obviously failed.

Audio_n_Video's presentation on fan vids confirmed for me that this is an activity I will never engage in. However, I now have a much better understanding of why some vids work brilliantly, while others somehow fail. It's all in the way the vid maker times the visual cuts to occur on the major musical beats. He demonstrated by showing some lovely examples, too (and one that clearly illustrated the point, by not quite working).

quinara's interactive workshop on fan poetry was a source of much laughter. She had written a 'bad poem' (or maybe it was just a first draft of a good poem, I'm not sure) and then challenged us to improve it. I don't think we did a bad job, although the imagery went off in a totally new direction.

daiseechain's talk was about the use of scent in writing - both ways to use smells to portray a place, or a character, more vividly and ways to describe smells without the use of scent words. (She smelt of sunshine, to quote a clichéd example.)

The final workshop was in three parts and the group broke up. I stayed in the main meeting room to hear sueworld2003 talk about the use of light in creating manipulations. Plus, I got to look at a lot of very pretty pictures.

The evening meal had to be held downstairs in the restaurant because of problems with the chafing dishes (don't tell me your first response to that - I know it's possibly rude) and we occupied two long tables at the back. We made our usual amount of noise and eventually succeeded in driving away the coach party, who were being civilised in the rest of the room.

The hotel had moved the sexy lounging chairs (TM) down into the bar (major disappointment), but we all repaired back up to the break-out area, in spite of that, where wildecate put on the soundtrack of Once More With Feeling. We all sang along, with much laughter and raucousness. Dawn had more speaking lines than I remembered from last year, but I somehow managed to stumble through them. The show stealer, however, had to be spikereader with her Henchmen No.1. quinaraand bogwitch came a very close second with their rendition of Tara and Willow, à la Eastenders.

After the singalong, I got talking to quizlings. We were trying to remember our favourite spander fics (with a small detour into Giles/Xander) and mostly failing. In the end we opened sparrow2000's Bat Shit Crazy Rec List Update Project to remind us (Yes, sparrow2000 they are a very valuable addition to the slash portion of the BtVS fandom.

I think I eventually went to bed about midnight, but I'm not sure that I got more than two or three hours sleep. I think I was too hyped (and maybe the mega quantities of coffee from breakfast were still zinging around my bloodstream.) I still got up at six, though, and there's nothing like a big hearty breakfast and another 10,000,000 cups of coffee, to get you moving.

I won a wonderful Doctor Who scarf in the raffle, made by lilachigh. Apparently, it's accurate, in the various thicknesses of the bars of colour. I'm told that if I can crack the code, they contain the directions to Gallifrey. If it weren't for the fact that I really love summer, I would be looking forward to the winter, just so I can wear it.

And I won an award. I got a certificate and everything - The Best Posture Award (aka The Sexy Chairs Award) for success in lounging around. It was hard work, I tell you. Honest. I don't remember all the awards, but I do remember quinara won The Cutest Shoes Award (corrected, thank you shapinglight) for her Doc Martens and shapinglight won Weirdest Fandom, with 'Birds'.

Congratulations to the committee for organising such a successful and fun weekend.

Unfortunately, I had to leave for my train before the AGM was over, so I'm not sure of all the decisions. The most important one, however, was that there will be a writerconuk Event, 2012, even if it will have to move because of those pesky Olympics. There will be a poll soon, to vote for when it should be held. So, if you're not already a member and there is the slightest chance that you might attend, do go and join the community, so that you can vote when it's posted.

By the time I got home, at six o'clock, I was absolutely knackered, but it was a brilliant weekend and if you've never come before, you should really think about it. I guarantee you'll have a good time, no matter what you fandom, or the form of fandom activity you engage in.