Eastercon - Olympus 2012

Oh, it's so nice to be home!

Just about every year, Zandy and I (and now with G) go to this strange thing called Eastercon. It sounds like a really strange thing to go to, but with its own context it is a wondrous thing.

After all, can you imagine any profession where a conference is held once a year that both people within the profession and ordinary people can go to and mingle freely, meeting and discussing a huge variety of subjects of interest to the profession, garnering opinions from the people who use the profession, that people can network (or not, if they want to) and freely share information, where the professionals eat and drink in the same spaces as the consumer, for four days, in one hotel?

Well, if you're an aspiring science fiction/fantasy writer, Eastercon is a good place to be. As well as having the opportunity to meet very well successful writers like George R R Martin (I've also met Anne McCaffrey, Robin Hobb, Iain Banks and Charles Stross) you can rub shoulders with editors and publishers from the major Science Fiction/Fantasy labels and genre magazines and meet others in the same boat as you. Buy them a drink and compare notes of how to cope with rejection. You can go to panels to discuss how to avoid the biggest potholes in your plot (one panel discussion was on how to get published) and others on tips to improve your craft.

If All Things Literary Isn't for you, you might go into the games room and play a myriad of games. You might join the costumers and create something marvellous for the masquerade or costume ball. You might wander through the art show and see work from some of the most successful artists hanging alongside art from new people. You might have the opportunity to see Mitch Benn live (and for free), or knit a Clanger or Dalek. And there's so much more to do and see.

This is Eastercon.

The Guardian has written an excellent article here about the community of SF and how there is something for everyone, to coin a phrase.

But at the end of the weekend, you pack up your room and leave the cocooned space where fairies magically appear and make your bed and clean your dishes, and you return to harsh reality where your house is 11.9°C and the nappies need folding.


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Location:Radisson Edwardian, Heathrow

Studio Organisation Challenge - April

So now you know how you want your craft space to look, now we need to start moving towards that goal.
Challenge for April:
Tools you will need:
Garbage bags
Empty cardboard boxes
One or two empty plastic boxes with lids
A few large shopping bags (bags for life are ideal)
Labels
Pens
If like me, your craft area is full. Hopefully, full of craft stuff, but mine has also been used as a dumping ground for all sorts of odds and sods. We need to clear some space so that we have room to put away our stash. Your room might also be a place where activities other than crafting happens.
1. Take out your plan that we made last month of your space as it currently looks. Divide your space up into four chunks. You will work on each chunk each week. Your chunks may not be uniform in size as some areas will have more stuff in them than others. Divide them up by the amount of stuff you have in each area. Draw this on your plan and letter each section A, B, C and D.
2. Take a garbage bag, a cardboard box, one plastic box and a shopping bag. The garbage bag is for rubbish. The cardboard box is for things to go to charity, the plastic box is for items to keep and the shopping bag is for items you'll PIF (Pass It Forward) or sell.
3. Now, working on one section (doesn't matter where you start), remove items and sort into the various boxes. Don't be too precious about things at this point and only throw, PIF or put for charity the things you really don't want. Once you've cleared a section, take the plastic box and put the items in it back. Use your labels to label any containers where you can't see the contents, but don't try to sort into categories, just get it off the floor. At the end of each week, put the garbage bag into the garbage, take the box to the charity shop and put the items you want to PIF/sell up on some list or a selling website. Do it immediately or it will just fester. If you list something and it doesn't sell, don't put it back on the shelf. PIF it if you can, or give it to charity. By the end of this month, you should have more space. And maybe a little more money.

This is my studio divided into the four areas.
Now, I have a confession to make. March was taken up by some urgent paperwork that needed to be done, so I'm a little behind schedule at this stage, but I have started and a couple of play groups in my local area have benefitted from the decluttering and I've gained back the use of some of the wire cubes that will eventually go up to the studio. I've also removed a lot of paperwork that should be in the house. But I'm not posting any photos as it currently looks worse than it did before (this was to be expected). My goal for the end of this month is to not have anything sitting in boxes on the floor.
Send me your plans and I'll post them up here for us all to compare. Email them to judihodgkin at gmail dot com.
See you in May!
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