Sharan Volin

Since there's only so much I can say in 140 characters I decided to post about the weekend here (even though I'm still way behind on reading my friends page). But I had a really great time this weekend at the Nebula awards.

Friday night after work I headed to the opening night cocktail party. I got there an hour late because for some reason I was thinking it started later than it did, and traffic from work in Van Nuys was nasty. I got there in time to see Adam-Troy Castro, who I hadn't seen in a long time, about to head to dinner. He invited me to come but they didn't have room in the car and the valet was about to take mine so I decided to go in and try to get registered and see him later. I didn't find the hospitality suite but I hung out at the cocktail party, and later went to dinner with Alan Rodgers, Amy Sterling Casil, Ian McDonald, John Moore, and Michael Capobianco. We went to an all-you-can-eat seafood place in Woodland Hills and had a great time.

Saturday morning I had a dentist appt., and that afternoon I headed to the hotel, FOUND the hospitality suite this time and got registered. I took the shuttle from the hotel over to the L.A. Times Festival of Books, and spent a couple of hours there wandering around and hung out at the Greater Los Angeles Writers Society booth for a while. Then I walked over to where the Nebula banquet was taking place and got changed.

The banquet was great and the awards ceremony was fun. Ian McDonald was at our table but unfortunately didn't win. I did get to see 2 other friends - Catherine Asaro and Nina Kiriki Hoffman - win, but unfortunately neither one of them was actually there. I congratulated them both on Facebook after I got home! I got to talk to other people before the ceremony too. Afterward I headed back to the hotel and hung out in the hospitality suite. I was talking to Adam and Judi Castro, Scott Edelman, Alan Rodgers, and Amy Sterling Casil, and we got into some REALLY interesting conversations and Scott even wound up looking up an apparently REALLY bad silent version of the Wizard of Oz that Adam mentioned on YouTube through his iPhone. Later I also got to talk to Mike Resnick for a while, which was nice. I haven't been able to talk to him much in a long time. Maybe after graduation I can get my e-mail under control so I can actually read his mailing list and keep up with things better!

I might just have to go to next year's Nebulas next year in Florida now. I haven't been back there since I left Florida State, and Adam and Judi seem to be involved in running it. I'm also looking forward to the Stokers in June. And I'm really glad I'm finally going to have time to write again in a few weeks! I've been neglecting my writing for way too long, so I'm finally going to fix that!

It was really great to see some old friends I hadn't seen in a long time (and meet some new ones).

Today I'm just going to have to stay home, unfortunately. I have one last comparative literature paper due this week, plus my final project for Intro to 3D Computer Animation due Tuesday night. And I have to do those at some point:).

I just thought I'd post a quick update. Kitty came home Friday night and is doing well. I was really worried when he went nuts when they were trying to show me how to do the subcutaneous fluids at the vet, but it turns out that as long as I warm the fluids first and he gets lots of petting and attention while it happens he's actually really good about it. *whew!* He goes in to my regular vet Friday morning, so I'll know more then.

Classes also started this week and are looking good so far. Today I actually had my first class in "Intro to Fiction Writing" (since I finally decided to FORCE myself back into writing). It turns out the teacher likes SF too (William Gibson and Roger Zelazny), so that's nice!

I'm also telling all my teachers that I'll be in San Francisco at the Game Developer's Conference. My roommate and most of the rest of Infinite Monkey Factory are flying up Tuesday afternoon, but I really can't afford to miss 2 of my Game Hardware Architectures classes (which should be interesting, since it looks like we'll be learning how to program for the PS3/cell processor!). So I'm flying up first thing Wednesday morning instead.

I've also done some work on another New Years Resolution, trying to do something about getting over the long time fear of singing in public (it goes back to a bad experience with a lousy sound system at my brother's bar mitzvah - before that I was in chorus for 8 years, even made all county chorus once, and always LOVED to sing). I finally tried out Karaoke Revolution, Rock Band, and now Singstar (although I think I prefer Karaoke Revolution - it's more "fun"), and found a game that I not only enjoy, but it's the only game (other than maybe puzzle games) I've ever been able to BEAT on expert mode, and even get platinum on. I can still do the singing even if I am badly out of practice. Hopefully by the end of the year I'll either take a singing class at USC or maybe just take private singing lessons.

I also got this cool little GPS when I realized that it just might help me navigate rush hour traffic when I'm trying to get to my 6:30pm or 5pm classes on Mondays and Tuesdays. This thing's nice, and so tiny it's actually smaller than my Palm Z22. It even works for walking or bicycling.

Oh, and I'm writing on my new laptop, a Thinkpad X61 tablet convertible. I was hoping to wait until the summer to upgrade but my 3 1/2 year old Thinkpad R50p decided to force the issue a few weeks ago when the network card died. This one's going to be MUCH nicer for taking notes in class with, though. It's been an expensive year.

Of course I've discovered the joy of Vista (yeah, I know, but apparently XP tablet edition sucks even worse). Apparently I can't open a popup window without Firefox crashing, so no preview for me here. (UPDATE: problem solved! It was the Thinkpad Password Manager Firefox extension that just got installed crashing Firefox. I disabled it and popups work again!)

Well, I have to go get some stuff done, take care of Kitty, and get to sleep, since I have a 1pm class tomorrow and can't afford to oversleep or I'll have NO time to work.

I got home today to find my first story contract waiting for me! I guess that makes it official (although I was told by one person it's not a "real" sale until I get the check, but that person was only married to a SFWA member so what do they know). Well, this won't exactly get me into SFWA or HWA or anything, but to hell with the snobs who think it's not good enough, it's my first sale and I'm happy about it!:)

I didn't get much done over the weekend because the cold or whatever I had come down with drained me of energy, but my roommate and I got a Christmas tree (as he said, "An Atheist and a Jew go out to buy a Christmas Tree...". We're still trying to figure out the punch line.) It gives the cats a new place to hide out:). I also actually managed to finish a book - "A Scanner Darkly" by Philip K. Dick, which means I can finally watch the movie.

I just got an e-mail from jeffstrand that they want to buy my story "Food For Thought" for the "Until Someone Loses An Eye" anthology! Since the "Dark Rapture" anthology that previously bought a different story pretty much imploded before I even got a contract much less published, this would make my first real sale!

P.S. I guess it's a little late to get on Worldcon programming, but I guess now I can justify it for Loscon, Baycon, etc...