I had a good reading this morning. It made me happy. People laughed in the right places -- in all the right places, in fact -- and made encouraging noises afterwards. I filled the conference room they were holding the readings in (it was a small room), and I didn't even know all the people who came. (At least, I didn't know them when they came. Some of them I know much better now.) Pretty importantly, I was reminded that short stories count. They aren't novels lite. They are their own thing. This is something I usually understand when applied to every single writer in the world except for myself. And sometimes I have a habit of rushing on to the next thing so fast that I forget there was a first thing to begin with. I've sold a bunch of stories. I got to watch how they can make people react. That's good.
I had a last-minute change of heart about reading -- not last-minute enough that I was begging someone to use their laptop to get a different story for me, but still. I decided that while I'd been up for five hours by 11:30, many people had not, and maybe it would be nice to read something with a bit of action, some smacking people with sticks, and also some funny bits. There are a few funny bits in "Singing Them Back," but mostly not. It is mostly a serious fantasy story about families and life goals and math and cookies. What I read instead was "Carter Hall Recovers the Puck," hockey fantasy. I think this was the right choice.
I got to hear other good readings this weekend, from
pameladean and mmerriam, and I even went to a panel, and I got to meet some lj friendslist people I'd never met before, and some I'm told I've met before but I don't remember the last time, and some I met before but didn't recognize this time, and some I knew by sight but had never talked more directly to. Which is a lot of lj people, especially when you throw in the ones I know and know I know; and then there are the non-lj people, who do most certainly exist. People and people and people. Only one or two of whom -- and no lj'ers, so don't worry -- tempted me to get out the great sword of smiting, which is a pretty good ratio all things told. (I will give you the high-sign, careswen. Or maybe the hi-sign. Someone on lj knows.)And it was good to come home and have dinner and silliness with
markgritter and timprov, and it was good to talk to my folks on the phone, and the remaining mystery of the evening is which of you called today, because markgritter didn't write it down. 