{"id":252,"date":"2013-11-01T18:46:34","date_gmt":"2013-11-02T01:46:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/?p=252"},"modified":"2013-11-01T18:46:34","modified_gmt":"2013-11-02T01:46:34","slug":"convolution-2013-first-impressions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/?p=252","title":{"rendered":"Convolution 2013 — First Impressions"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m in Birlingame, which is near San Francisco, attending Convolution 2013<\/a>. \u00a0I picked up Michael early in the morning, and we enjoyed a leisurely trip West, stopping along the way to pick up a jacket from Michael’s Mom, and a brief tour of San Francisco State University. \u00a0It was a really pleasant way to start the weekend.<\/p>\n

Once we were checked in at the hotel, we went to check in to the convention. \u00a0Michael is a special guest, so he wound up going some place different. \u00a0I got in the back of a very long line, and started to feel my first misgivings.<\/p>\n

I don’t want to speak ill of the convention, but my first impression of it had me worried. \u00a0They were having some severe technical difficulties getting people through registration, and it looked to me like there was a single point of failure.<\/p>\n

When they called preregistered people forward, I went, stood in another line, and then discovered that while they had me on the list, they couldn’t find my badge. \u00a0It was starting to get precariously close to the opening ceremonies, and I didn’t want to miss it because I wanted to give Michael my support. \u00a0He is the toastmaster, after all.<\/p>\n

The convention staff redeemed themselves by taking my phone number, and offering to print me a new ticket and deliver it and my badge directly to me, wherever I was in the hotel. \u00a0That was very nice of them, and they did deliver.<\/p>\n

I think I managed to not be a dick to them while they were floundering around at registration. \u00a0I was worried and upset, and I think I expressed that without being too acidic. \u00a0I’m pretty proud of myself for that.<\/p>\n

Opening ceremony turned out to be a very brief affair. \u00a0After that, I went to a panel with Effie and Arley, a couple of writers I’d met at Westercon and seen again at LonestarCon. \u00a0The panel was about “Show, Don’t Tell” as it pertains to writing, and some of the ways that “Showing” can go horribly wrong. \u00a0It wasn’t anything I didn’t already know, but it was interesting and well presented, and I took some good notes until my laptop battery died.<\/p>\n

After that panel was another one in the same room, about storytelling and teaching culture. \u00a0This panel I found fairly painful. \u00a0The conversation was interesting, but I didn’t see much that I could apply to my own writing. \u00a0Also, there was a vibe that we shouldn’t write about cultures that we’re not a part of. \u00a0It was more complicated than that.<\/p>\n

The day isn’t done yet, but I’m already feeling pretty tired. \u00a0In a little while, I’ll head to the Guest Meet and Greet, and then probably head off to dinner with Arley and Effie and some of their friends. \u00a0Looking at the schedule, Michael is stuck doing some kind of special Bingo event. \u00a0I don’t think I want to attend Bingo tonight, so he’s probably going to be on his own for that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m in Birlingame, which is near San Francisco, attending Convolution 2013. \u00a0I picked up Michael early in the morning, and we enjoyed a leisurely trip West, stopping along the way to pick up a jacket from Michael’s Mom, and a brief tour of San Francisco State University. \u00a0It was a really pleasant way to start […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-252","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=252"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":253,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252\/revisions\/253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}