Stone of Remembrance

The next part of our Balticon trip was a visit to Avalon Elementary School in Fort Washington, Maryland for its Career Day.

Many schools have such days, giving the students an opportunity to meet people with various professions. I’m a bit of a square peg here, since I can’t point out an obvious career path, and my house is my place of work – but I can talk about the work that goes into writing a long work, including editing and revising. They’re usually surprised (read: shocked) at the small amount of money I actually get from a sold book.

School Days

Avalon was also a bit of a shock for A., as this school (like many others) has school uniforms as part of its regimen. I did meet some wonderful teachers and some great students: one third-grade class, one fourth-grade, and two sixth-grades (one was in a temporary classroom, a trailer outside the building). Of the eighty-plus students I spoke to, there’s likely one future writer. I’m just not sure who it might be.

I passed on some signed books and gave out some business cards. A. and I got a nice lunch, then we were on our way.

Balticon’s new(er) home

Balticon has been downtown as long as I’ve been a pro, though it left its former quarters last year (when I wasn’t on hand). The new facility is the Hunt Valley Inn, a Marriott just off I-83, a few miles off the Baltimore Beltway. A few years back when Lois McMaster Bujold was the Guest of Honor, we had a brief exchange late Sunday about how tired we both were at the end of the festivities; Memorial Day weekend cons are exhausting, usually starting early on Friday and running until late Monday afternoon. My first scheduled event was Friday late afternoon, and I excused myself from a 1 PM Monday panel so that we’d be able to get on the road ahead of some of the traffic.

At 5 PM I sat in on my first panel: Is It Really Worth the Effort to Write a Book? Our contention was, well, I certainly hope so. The panel was a small one, and we talked about various alternate methods of content delivery – but largely we concluded that we were all writers and we were doing what we wanted to do – write.

Balticon’s panel tracks run late. What’s more, folks turn out for them. At 11 PM, after A. had gone back to the room, I participated in Using Real People As Characters In Novels. K.T. Pinto, a horror writer I hadn’t met, was trapped between me and Dan Cragg (who’s a very good writer I’ve enjoyed programming with before). We discussed the good and bad points of using real folks – and concluded that it has to be approached with care.

Approach With Care

NEXT: Saturday and Sunday at the Balticon whirlwind.