Erotica By Helen E. H. Madden

I am so swamped, I can't believe it. I mean, I'm usually swamped, but this past week beats all. So here's a quick update on what happened at Balticon and why I'm so frikkin' swamped.

Thursday, May 22 - After two weeks of wondering, print copies of Demon By Day arrive at my door. One hour later, my business cards for Demon By Day show up. The kick ass boots I ordered to wear at the con showed up the day before. I now have everything I need for the con. And guess what? Demon By Day is now up on Mojocastle.com. Yeah! I'm officially published.

Friday, May 23 - I had planned to leave at 7:30AM, but after staying up all night packing, I don't get out of the house until 8:30. I drop my oldest daughter off at preschool, stop by the bank, grab breakfast and snack from the grocery store, and finally hit the road at 10ish. Traffic is pretty good except around D.C. and Baltimore. I arrive at the con by 3 PMish. Not bad time. I hook up with Pam Kinney (aka Sapphire Phelan, famous paranormal romance writer) and get my room key. I'm crashing with her and her husband for the weekend. I also check in with Nobilis of the Nobilis Erotica Podcast and say hi to the staff and a bunch of old friends at Balticon. The carpet at the Hunt Valley Marriot is unbelievably ugly, and I am worried that my dress for Saturday night with clash badly with it. My first panel is that evening. The title is "Marriage of the Future." It's one of the panels I suggested for Balticon, and we have a lively discussion of what marriage could be like, touching on politics, religion, reproduction, property, and other aspects. My next panel is at 11PM. The topic is Sexy Women in Sci Fi - What's the Point? Just what every raging feminist should talk about. Again, we had a lively discussion, and although the male panelists sat on one side of the table while the female panelists sat on the other, no one bit off anybody else's head. After that, I hit the 80's party in my non-80's clothes (I refuse to dress in that time period ever again), and then crashed around 2Amish.

Saturday, 24 May - Like a fool, I get up at 7AM, shower, eat, and head out for an early start at the con. The entire day is one long blur of panels on writing, art and podcasting. I met so many fascinating people and made so many great contacts, I can't list them all in the limited time I have today, but here are a few people who's company I enjoyed:

Mur Lafferty, writer and podcaster - www.murverse.com

James Patrick Kelley - ultra cool sci-fi writer and podcaster, http://www.jimkelly.net/

Jared Axelrod - Aliens You Will Meet, www.freeplanetx.com

J.R. Blackwell - writer, burlesque girl, podcaster for Voices of 365 Tomorrows (http://voicesoftomorrow.libsyn.com/)

Tee Morris - Podcasting For Dummies, Survivor's Guide to Writing Fantasy, www.teemorris.com

Paul Fischer and Martha Holloway of the ADD Cast - http://addcast.net/

Nobilis - podcaster, fellow erotica writer, http://nobilis.libsyn.com/

Amber Rhea - podcaster for Mostly ITP (http://www.gapodcastnetwork.com/network-programs/mostly-itp)

Regina Lynn - Sex Drive columnist for Wired Magazine and Sex Rev 2.0 (http://www.reginalynn.com/)

Earl Newton and David Kanter - the producers of the ultra-cool Stranger Things podcast, soon to go into syndication! (http://www.strangerthings.tv/)

Matt Wallace - podcaster and writer; he wrote the script for episode 4 of Stranger Things (http://www.matt-wallace.net/)

Podcasting's Rich Sigfrit - He's Mr. Adventure. Need I say more? (http://www.outcastmultimedia.com/)

Thomas Gideon - podcaster for the Command Line podcast, the rough edge where society, public policy and computers meet (http://thecommandline.net/).

George Hraab - musician, podcaster, atheist, and all around very funny guy (http://www.geologicpodcast.com/)

J. C. Hutchins - author and podcaster of the Seventh Son trilogy and expert on crowd sourcing (http://jchutchins.net/)

And on, and on, and on. Like I said, the whole day was a blur. I woke up at 7AM to sit in on all the cool panels and finished up at 1AM after doing two panels - one on sex and technology, and one on erotica podcasts. Both were lively and well attended, which is very cool considering all the other things going on during that time period (like concerts) and the lateness of the hour. I crashed in the hotel room at 2AM

Sunday, 25 May - Trying hard not to drag, I got up at 8AM, showered, ate, and headed out again for another early morning. There were just too many frikkin' interesting things to do at this con! The highlights included a writing panel with James Patrick Kelley and Mur Lafferty and others on can writing be taught; a reading by Mur Lafferty from her current work in progress; the premiere of episode 4 from Stranger Things (that was the best two hours of TV I've seen in a looooooooooong time, no joke). I also sat in on the Mr. Adventure Podcast (http://www.pulpadventures.net/), then had dinner with the lovely Martha Holloway and Paul Fischer, watched the Geek Fu Morning Show: After Dark, listened to J. C. Hutchins and Mur Lafferty talk about and then got geared up for my last panel of the weekend - So You Want To Be A Sexy Podcaster. And somewhere in the day there was a panel on voice acting and character work, led by the fascinating George Hraab (http://www.geologicpodcast.com/). After all that I got to see the Stranger Things episode again (an impromptu viewing held for those staff members who missed it the first time), which was even cooler the second time around we got to ask questions about how the whole thing was put together. I crashed around 3AM that morning, but you know....

Monday, 26 May - I got up again at 8AM. Fortunately, I had packed the night before, and after I loaded up my car, I got breakfast at the hotel, said my goodbyes, and made the looooooooong ride home. I was so looking forward to going to be early and spending a few days relaxing before packing up to go on vacation in Florida. But when I got home, I found an e-mail waiting for me that said my manuscript of short stories had been accepted for contract with Logical Lust, but did I have any more material I might want to add?

So, I've spent the past week pulling out stories to send in for the collect, plus I've been sending out announcements about Demon By Day (I sold six of my ten copies at the con!), plus I'm trying to get out thank-you's to all the folks I met at the con, plus follow up on contacts for other conventions, plus finish off a couple of episodes for the podcast to run while I'm out of town, plus I need to get stories out to the ERWA writers group...

I'm swamped. But I'm happy, so if all this kills me, I'll go with a smile on my face. See you when I get back from vacation.

Labels: Conventions And Appearances, SOLD

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Balticon 42 Quickie Review