While I was at LTUE, I had occasion to give my son some advice about being proactive, not just waiting for things to happen. Later, I thought about it and decided that it’s a piece of advice I need to take myself. This is especially true with regard to my social life. Most of my life I have been much too passive about waiting for people to approach me, and disappointed when they did not. It’s about way past time for me to be more active about meeting people.

I also had occasion to ponder the difference between me and the hero I’m writing about in the book I’m working on. One of the reasons he is a hero is because he has habits of taking care of the little things, the daily chores, the small tasks. He doesn’t procrastinate his maintenance. Me…hah. That’s something I need to work on. It’s harder when you have to train yourself as an adult than it is to establish good habits when you’re young.

on Monday, there was a post on According to Hoyt, Nah King, Nah Queen that I spend most of the day composing and monitoring comments. I do that, sometimes, if the post and content are interesting; This is a fairly congenial bunch of commenters, and I agree with and like many of them.
Tuesday, I spent some time at , which was talking about book covers, and got a chapter written so I can take it to my writer’s group tomorrow night.
Today, I did some work on my Knowledge Base. I’m back to working in early prehistory, trying to expand and extend things useful to it.

Now that I am at home and can type faster than the not-so-smart phone I bought on this trip will let me do, I can give a better report. The day before, I took my older son out to lunch, and wound up giving him some Dadly advice, that he needed to chose his own direction, decide what he wants most in life, and do what it takes to get there. Afterwards I thought I need to take my own advice, when it comes to social interaction.
The night before LTUE started, I thought to check out the hotel and get familiar with the place and parking arrangements, and ran into David Farland. Last November, I attended one of his workshops. He remembered at least my face and asked how my writing was going. I was pleased to be able to report progress.
On Thursday, one of the panels that stood out to me had the title “How to Feed an Army”, with panelists Jonathan LaForce, Kal Spriggs, Brad Torgersen, and Paul H. Smith. These are all military or former military, and they talked about logistics and supply. Water, rations, gasoline and parts, medical supplies, casualties, presenting supply information so it is most useful to busy commanders, thieves, information management, and related. Since the main character in my story is conscripted into the king’s army, this was highly valuable. This was one of the blocks in my story. I wasn’t sure what he would be doing there. Now, I have a better idea and I can proceed. Kal Spriggs is the author of several works; I’ve read his “Children of Valor” series, starting with Valor’s child Valor’s Child, and liked it. I’ve only read one of Brad Torgersen’s works, The Chaplain’s War, but I liked that one, too.
I attended a “Kaffeklatsch” with Sarah Hoyt. I’ve become a fairly regular commenter on her blog, and wanted a chance to meet her. I did and introduced myself as one of her “Huns”, but she was busy and had other friends. I didn’t want to be too much of an obnoxious pest by hanging and following her around. Perhaps another time.

Friday, besides the keynote address by Jo Walton, and a panel on “Hidden disabilities”, I wound up attending surprisingly few. Most of the ones I wanted to attend were full by the time I got there, so I wound up wandering the halls. I did have a nice conversation with Jo Walton, whose work I haven’t read, although the name is familiar to me, and she kindly recommended a couple of her works. “Effective Networking for Authors and Artists” was highly useful, and I will be changing my approach my blogging and Facebook activity based on their advice. I had a chance to speak with panelist Donna Milakovic afterwards, and she was very friendly and encouraging.

Saturday, I attended a 2-hour session on medieval weapons and armor, by C. David Belt. Since had invited those attending his session to ask him about the subject, and he was fairly mobbed, I skipped the crown and went to attend the talk by Todd McAffrey, but afterward I buttonholed him in the hallway when a panel I wanted to attend was full, and he gave me some highly useful worldbuilding advice on my hero’s probable weapons, armor, and gear. The next panel I got into was on “Writing Children”, with Sarah Hoyt among others, and another one was “From Peasant to Noble: Social Mobility in Feudal Societies”. That clarified some of the rather vague notions I had about the “Now what?” after my hero kills the dragon.

I was hoping to meet Marion G. Harmon, author of the Wearing the Cape series, which I have greatly enjoyed. I did spot him and tell him I had read and enjoyed his work. He was unnecessarily apologetic about the delay in writing the next book in his series, and appeared preoccupied about something, so after telling him his series is one of my re-reads, I left him alone.

There was more, but, hey, why try to tell all? It was one of the more productive and enjoyable events I’ve ever been to. Next time I go to one of these things, I’ll be better prepared.

Still at LTUE. I got a few tips about networking, a few tips about my novel, attended some interesting panels,and had a good time. It was suggested that for networking purposes, I need to attend as many face-to-face events related to writing (and my other working interests) as possible, and become active on social media such as Twitter & Facebook. I think I need to get home & assimilate first.

Mostly just a test of my smart phone and ability to do mobile blogging. I met a few authors, got a few hints on scenes to work on for “Dragonkiller”, made a couple of contacts for possible future editorial and artistic work, and had a few other nice conversations.

Yes, this blog is perishing of loneliness. Partly due lack of attention from me, partly due to lack of visitors (other than spammers). Comments would be highly welcome.

I will be attending the “Life, the Universe, and Everything” symposium in Provo, Utah. There are a few authors and their fans that I’m especially hoping to meet. Since most of my writing so far has been is nonfiction and goes into the Knowledge Base, I expect I will talk about the project there.

I’m also working on some fiction stories:
One of those is a fantasy; I’m only a few thousand words in. The working title for is “Dragonkiller”.
I’m also planning what I call a historical fantasy series. I haven’t actually begun writing it yet, but I have concept I like. The working title is “Magister”.

For “research” purposes, I’ve been building a e-library of GURPS supplements. I’m expecting to use this to help me build secondary characters and situations. I’ll have to see how this goes.