I spent the past three days immersed in science fiction & writing at the Locus Writers’ Workshop and Locus Awards Ceremony & Banquet.

Connie Willis served as one of our instructors (during the workshop) and the MC of the Awards Ceremony. She also served on one of the two writing panels on Saturday & read from one of her works at the book reading on Friday evening (along with our other instructor, Chris Barzak).

The awards ceremony was hilarious! (Connie Willis mentioned Sunday, during the writing workshop, that too many award ceremonies are dry ramblings and boring to boot.) Between Connie’s wry sense of humor and Nancy Kress serving as her ‘official heckler,’ it made for quite the hilarious event. (It was also cool to hear Neil Gaiman announced as the winner of a few Locus Awards. He was sadly not present—even though he’s on the Board of Directors for Locus.)

Before the ceremony, there were two panels on “Prediction-Schmediction: Why Sci-Fi Never Gets It Wrong” with Eileen Gunn, Nancy Kress, Karen Lord, Jack Skillingstead, & Connie Willis. Then they had “Adventures in Transrealism” with Chris Barzak, Terry Bisson, James Patrick Kelly, Nisi Shawl, & Gary K. Wolfe.

Hawaiian shirts are mandatory dress code for the Awards Ceremony. Since my husband refused to wear one (in memory of the late Hoban “Wash” Washburne), Connie Willis tagged him with the badge of shame, which says: “I didn’t wear a Hawaiian Shirt!” This entered him into the contest to win one, though he didn’t win. In his defense, he was wearing a shirt in tribute to Hayao Miyazaki, who was induced into the Science Fiction & Fantasy Hall of Fame at the Locus Awards on Saturday.

The writing workshop itself focused on fast methods to brainstorm book or story ideas and then tips and tricks to get them plotted and on to the page. Listening to Connie Willis describe how she came up with her ideas, plotted them, and revised them truly was a great opportunity for me. I learned quite a bit and got to listen to an amazing storyteller (not to mention my favorite author!).

And hey! My fast 20 minute story beginning got quite a reaction from the instructors and 12 other authors. That’s always nice to see. Now I have another story to work on!

Now that the Locus weekend is done, back to my last round of revisions and the writing of book II.

(To the left, that’s me in the car as we were leaving from the Locus Awards. We didn’t stay for the late night party as we needed to get home and give DiNozzo his anti-seizure meds. Update on him coming later in the week as we see the neurologist again on Thursday, along with an Internalist.)