That’s a peregrine?

Drive to Boston went well, although as usual, I’ve gotten too much sun on my face. You’d think I would remember that. Son picked what we listened to in the car — first, the Hamilton soundtrack (downloaded with Amazon Music — I love Prime!), then the first couple short stories in The Legend of Drizzt (from Audible, grabbed when it was a Daily Deal — great voice talent on this).

The Once and Future Teen panel — wonderful group of people on the panel. We talked about agency and vibrancy, how much more extreme things feel for teens, about the value of firsts and how romance isn’t required. I mentioned a book (not by name) that I wanted to throw across the room because of the stupid decision the protagonist made — but how it was in character and totally believable for a teen and how my son thinks I should finish reading the series so he can talk about it with me.

Designing a Game panel — another amazing varied group.value of immersion, designing for fun, how graphics aren’t everything and computing power could be used for more than particle effects. Value of story. Iterative design. Value of being able to pick up a game and start playing without long explanations.

Bumped into a few people I knew, like John Murphy, and chatted more with people I met on panels. Now have the recommendation to watch Something Rotten.

Last event of the evening was Pictionary with the Pros. My team lost, but we had a lot of fun playing. There were interesting things that came up, like how do you convey “union” in a picture?

After getting back to our room, I realized I still needed to write, so I did. Hence the late update. Fortunately, I can sleep in in the morning.

Words written today: 160
Words written this month: 9,133
Words written 2017: 49,648
Average words/day 2017: 1,031
Books completed 2017: 1
Pages read: 2 chapters
Books read 2017: 2
Exercise reps: 0

As you can see, I didn’t break 50k for the year yet, although I did finally break 9k for the month!

Originally published at Erin M. Hartshorn. You can comment here or there.

Saturday night sleepies

Panel on the perfect teenage hero went well this morning. I’ve been fortunate in having moderators who are good about asking for input from all of the panel members, making sure everyone gets a chance to speak. Perhaps too much so, as I occasionally have nothing to say and feel like I should try anyway.

My reading … the reading itself was good. Need to work on the main character’s voice, as I was told it sounded too girly. My reading actually ran a little short, so I could pick another scene to round it out a bit. The only other issue was not unexpected — only my son and best friend were there. At least it was a friendly audience!

Spent the afternoon attending panels — there were some very funny lines in both the making your own mythology panel and the worldbuilding in urban fantasy panel. I’m afraid I drowsed during the other talk I went to. Also spent a bit of money in the dealer’s room.

Eating was fraught. The bar was packed, but it was still easier to get a seat in than the Irish pub. I think between showing up to look for a table and finally paying (or signing for it to be charged to the room, anyway) and leaving, my son and I were there for more than 2-1/2 hours. For a burger and a wrap.

Anyway, I did eventually sit down and get some words.

Words written today: 408
Words written this month: 9,541
Words written 2017: 50,056
Average words/day 2017: 1,022
Books completed 2017: 1
Pages read: 2 chapters
Books read 2017: 2
Exercise reps: 0

As you can see, I finally broke 50k. Maybe after I get back home, I can get that average word count trending back up again.

Originally published at Erin M. Hartshorn. You can comment here or there.