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Okay. So it seems that convention routine means no food until late in the afternoon. Oh well. No matter. hrug">

In "Writing Your First Novel," Keith deCandido says that if you ask ten writers how they got their first book published, you will get twelve different answers. There is no secret way to get published, there's no secret password to say and no special people to bribe. You write the best story you can and send it to publishers. One person in the audience asked how to get past the first 4000 words. The answer to that is: write the 4001th! Write, write, write! People will always say they don't have time to write. Well, nobody has time to write. You have to make the time to write. Another good advice I got from this panel, and will cheer a good many of you I hope, is even if you sit there and get nothing on your page, this time was not lost. I repeat: this time was not lost! Because your unconscious is still working on the problem. Your brain still processes information, and maybe the next time you sit down at your computer you'll get this bright idea that will effectively get your story out of this loophole it seemed to be stuck in. The panelists all agreed that each and every one of us needs time to think. Some will go for a walk, other for a drive. Always bring your notebook and scribble notes when ideas flow your way. And if you're driving, don't forget to pull over first! "> Another excellent advice for new writers: just write. Don't try to get the perfect sentence with the perfect words. There's always time later to revise and edit, once the story is down on the page! To illustrate that, Keith says: "if you pick at it, it will never heal." Remember that. I surely will! But of course, you should do what works for you. No two writers work the same way.

I attended TOR's presentation on what's upcoming. Great presentation, with slides of the book covers of the new books and a brief description of what they are about. There are a lot of new and interesting titles coming out, and also some reprints of work that was out of print for quite some time.

The next panel was quite interesting: "Creating Believable Evil Characters." The example of Hannibal Lecter was used as one character that is utterly evil, and although there seems to be no reason behind this evil, he's a character that works. Speculations on this say that it may be because Clarice had something to learn about her own dark side that only a character like Hannibal was able to make her see. Also, it's important to remember that evil characters are people too: and one writer, Catherine Asaro, found that she couldn't make her characters truly evil unless she gave them some good characteristics too. My take on this is that there is always a good reason for someone to act the way they do, and that's particularly true to evil characters: the actions they take are justified to them.

Later, I attended another panel on the experience of writing in the Canadian scene. It is almost impossible for us Canadians to make a decent living out of writing. Royalties and advance on royalties are a lot less than what the American market will pay. The good thing is that Canadians are proud of their writers and their achievements, and will usually give them good reviews in the media, which helps a lot in selling the books. Borders for us are of no great import, so it's natural that we should seek to be published by American publishers. The cost of producing a book in Canada is about three times as that of the US market, so that explains the lower royalties and advances, as profits aren't all that good to begin with. Also, as opposed to Americans, we have the luxury to live on lower incomes simply because we don't have to worry about health insurance. We have a government plan that will insure that we get proper treatment should we need it without going bankrupt. And also, books are tax deductible! So we get to have the best of both worlds. ">

In "Fantasy in a Medieval Setting," the discussion hovered around why most Fantasy novels out there are set after a European medieval setting. Like it or not, this is part of our heritage as North American settlers, since we are descended from the British and French. This is part of our education, and this is what we learn in school. There are other Fantasy settings being explored more and more - like urban Fantasy, for one -, but the Arthurian setting or Medieval England in general is what sells and what the audience likes to read.