Dragon*Con 2012: Paint It Black

Noctilucent clouds guide us to the airport. Sterling fire greets us as we return.

This year the weekend flew by as smooth as China silk. We had good flights, good neighbors, and no real waits even at the airport. No trouble with TSA, which had at least twice the normal personnel in Tampa. Registration took twenty minutes during which the line never stopped moving. We were so uncertain what to do with all the extra time we had on Thursday that Karen had time to paint my fingernails black. Idle hands. My avant-garde tribute to her surgeon on her official five-year anniversary of completing treatment.

There were even more people at the Con than last year. The Thursday night crowd was like a Friday, Friday like a Saturday. Saturday and Sunday seemed just as full. Diversity was up with more African-American attendees and panelists which I’m always encouraged to see.

We ended up with a less frenetic schedule, taking more time off to hang with our Seattle friends, managing to meet up with them for lunch or dinner and the odd panel just about every day. I was glad to have the TracFone we’d bought for my father to text and keep in touch. The Dragon*Con app for the iPhone was invaluable for coordinating schedules and updates.

All the panels were generally decent. No walkouts. Music, however, was a bust. Not much new or interesting (one walkout in the concerts that could have been two). The final body count stands at 16-17 panels, 2-4 concerts, 8 CD’s, two shirts and a skirt with a pair of earrings and a necklace on the way. The tracks  divide out into 1 Pern, 2 Film, 2 Gaming, 2 Space, 5 Art, 2 Comic, 2 Writing, 2 Apocalypse Rising, 2 Sci-fi Literature.  Karen added two concerts and a concourse performance over what I did, as well as an extra panel (and we separated a couple times). During some of the down time, I wrote out three pages on a new science fiction story and outlined the rest of it in my head. This week’s project is to finish it.

Top five panels: Using the philosophy of Kant and Hobbes to interpret the morality of Batman and Superman, and the lens of Buddhism to examine Serenity (the most intellectual panel we attended, contrary to one egotistical writer whose panel came in a distant third). Examining the dynamic character identities by comparing and contrasting the accidental and essential features of Batman and Hamlet. Tactical first aid, with as much tactics as first aid, given by a SWAT-trained EMS (complete with a room clearing demo). Writing intrigue and deception complete with a 5-point identification system (and handouts) presented by a former Air Force intelligence officer. The basics of storytelling in film and what to expect as a writer.

The most resonant piece of observation I picked up: my writing process is very similar to another well-known author who writes very finished drafts with no outline without a lot of rearranging. Hearing that was heartening. I still find I relate better to adapting the creative process illustrators and artists share than anything I hear from the writers. Thumbnails, sketches, pillaging the archives for reference, being mindful of how the work moves the eye, those all make sense to me. The most fascinating bit of trivia: The movie Pretty Woman was originally a dark script called 3000 (the amount of money Julia Roberts’ character charged per night) before Disney decided to turn it into a Cinderella story. The most interesting detail: The military performs triage in the opposite order of the civilian world.

Cool rumors: The Comics and Pop Art Conference, which runs at Dragon*Con, is striking for an academic track next year. Theirs were two of our top five. I would definitely attend more. And the exhibitors hall and dealers room are moving offsite to the America’s Mart building (with 25% more room but no additional dealers) which will free up a ton of room in the Marriott.

Over the course of the weekend, four hundred bookmarks and business cards disappeared, including a handful in an impromptu marketing survey conducted by a friend (which oddly contradicted the way the bookmarks disappeared from tables). We’ll see if any of those make their way home by way of hits. 

This year was our tenth time attending in the past twelve years. While I say each year that we make take the next year off, I know Karen will attempt to book us a room in the Marriott in October. She already booked a backup since we’ve been home. So we’ll decide next summer whether our cons go to eleven.

In the meantime, I have an Amazon order to place for a game and several recommended books.

(And now it’s time for the only reason people muddle through this message, the out-of-context quotes. You’ll find them in the comments).

© 2012 Edward P. Morgan III

Self-Promotion

I hate self-promotion. I mean having to do it for my own work, not someone else doing it for theirs. Unfortunately, at this moment in my chosen industry, there is no way around it. It’s like a plague upon the profession. Or a virus. Once upon a time, agents and editors handled these unseemly details, leaving writers to do what they do best: write. Those have become the misty days of yore.

Like many writers, I am a fairly serious introvert. I don’t like drawing attention. I’m not comfortable in crowds. Heck, I don’t much tolerate loud noises. That’s a product of how I was raised. Ironically, I prefer to demonstrate my abilities through actions, not words. Words lie. Actions, less so.

Before I was a writer, I worked as an engineer. A couple years before I became fully reformed, one of my managers shipped me off to Team Member training, along with a few other engineers from our project that management deemed in need of re-education. Ok, in fairness, maybe we were in a slow time and they were just taking advantage of overhead funds.

The piece de resistance of this training was a Team Building exercise. The challenge was simple. After buying components from a list, things like masking tape, sheets of paper, paper clips, paper cups, string, each with their own listed price, a team had to design and build a bridge between two conference tables that would hold as many reams of paper as possible. The instructor had the copier boxes lined up, I forget how exactly many but several dozen reams. She had a secret formula to determine the winner based on the cost of the bridge and the number of reams it held before it gave way.

She gave us a teaser before the exercise, telling us how one of the bridges in the training session she’d been jetted off to, somewhere much more elegant than a manufacturing building conference room, had won by withstanding all the reams without breaking. She wouldn’t say how it was done, but she didn’t expect any of our teams could equal that feat. Not the gauntlet to throw down before a bored and mildly annoyed engineer.

She told us to form up into four-person teams however we wanted. There were nine of us from our isolated project housed in a remote building. So in that ancient ritual I was all too familiar with, I found myself the only one without a team, the kid always picked last for any sport. I ended up on a team with three type-A personalities from the main building who were their own established clique.

The instructor explained the exercise at the end of the day and showed us the list with prices for each component. So I went home and started thinking about it. In the middle of the night, an idea came to me. It focused on only two components, sheets of paper and masking tape. The tape was expensive but paper was cheap. I remembered reading that paper (unless wet or torn) has a lot of strength if reinforced. And even masking tape, if pulled along its axis of attachment, has a great deal of grip. On a note card in a holder I kept beside the bed, I sketched out my idea in diagrams including identifying critical points and weaknesses. Content, I went back to sleep confidant I was ready to present it in the morning.

The next day, we were given an hour to test out our ideas with sample components, each team in isolation. We gathered up our supplies and trudged off to a different conference room. Once there, the other three weren’t keen on discussing the problem. No one else had any real ideas. No one else had given it any thought overnight. They were more interested in gossiping or griping about the exercise.

Once we got on track, I told them my idea. The meeting immediately devolved back into chaos. It would never work. The paper and tape would never hold. I was shouted down before I even got a chance to fully explain or defend it, contrary to our training. Although no one had any other clear-cut starting point, mine was promptly voted off the table. Then they started arguing, each trying to claim the spotlight with some ill-conceived but suddenly cherished idea.

While they bickered back and forth, I brought together a desk and shelf about the same height. Using the samples we’d been given, I taped a sheet of paper between them. We didn’t have reams of paper but I found some phone books. So I snagged the third guy, who was watching by now, to lean on the shelf and keep it from tipping over. Then I stacked two phone books on the paper. It held without a reinforcement. He called over to the other two.

Silence.

Even after that demonstration, they insisted taking ownership of the idea by building support pillars in the center of the free-swinging span. I tried to explain they would serve no purpose except to burn more money, but tired of arguing (and outvoted again), I accepted the compromise, just as our training indicated. Anything to get it done. We diagramed out what we needed to do and called it a day.

At the end of the third and final day of training, each of the teams bought their supplies, then built their bridges simultaneously. The others let me take the lead, as if to distance themselves, dubious once again the idea would work. They really wanted to back out but couldn’t. One of them almost didn’t show up. I directed the construction based on the plan we’d agreed upon. Even then, they were more interested in reinforcing their support pillars than building the main bridge.

Because it was a simple design, we were one of the first teams to finish. Looking around, I noticed people from my project glancing over, whispering and pointing, frowning and shaking their heads. It’ll never work. I just turned away. We’ll see.

Soon we started loading paper. I forget where we went in order, in the middle somewhere. Someone handed me reams as I laid them flat on the decking to ensure there was no torque or potential for a tear. We got half the reams loaded up when the support pillars collapsed with a sound like a gunshot. Our anchor tables jumped six inches closer as the bridge dropped a good foot under the weight.

And held.

I knew then that we had the instructor’s perfect record in hand, so I flew through loading the remaining reams much faster than she liked. Once the bridge was fully loaded, I stood back and waited. It just hung there, perfectly. The room went quiet. The instructor was stunned. Even my teammates stood slack-jawed. The instructor called time and I unloaded it, just as fast so the next team could go.

No other bridge held that day. No other came close. We won the competition without a problem. Though I was pleased, I didn’t say a word. No trash talk. No rubbing it in. No in-your-face grins or high fives. Just another day at the office. I accepted what congratulations came with a thank you, a shrug and a smile. I told them it was a team effort. Then I left. Alone.

Now some people might think I missed the point of the exercise. Perhaps. But they probably have never seen me run a meeting or elicit ideas. Or lead a team, and later a team of leads. Or revive two different organizations from the brink of extinction to where they were thriving years after I was gone. Or ensure a group of friends in varying physical condition all made it to a landmark a mile down a cobblestone, sand and drift log beach, sometimes by picking the easiest path, sometimes by helping stragglers overcome the obstacles.

I understand the stated goal that day was not winning but working together. In my mind it was working together to come up with the best possible design.  Engineering is about design just as much as teamwork. Self-promotion shouldn’t enter into success in that field, but like any job, it does.

In writing, the sheer volume of self-promotion on social media right now reminds me of a stanza from “Language is a Virus” by Laurie Anderson:

“And there was a beautiful view
But nobody could see
Cause everybody on the island
Was screaming: Look at me! Look at me!”

That style of self-promotion is something I’ve never mastered. I prefer to lead by example, not by shouting for attention. It’s not so much what I was taught as what I learned as the only way for a geeky introvert to survive. I’m comfortable with my abilities. I just don’t see the point of having to shout people down in order to be heard. It’s not worth my energy or time. I’d much rather let my words speak for themselves than spam my way through Facebook and Twitter.

We each define success differently. Mine is not based on money or fame, though a little validation would nice. All I really want is for people to read and enjoy my stories. Maybe one day, the right individual will come along who knows how to cut through all the noise. Maybe one day, I’ll be able to get more eyes to the page.

Until then, all I can do is keep writing to the best of my ability. And remember to take in view outside my office window as I keep moving forward.

© 2012 Edward P. Morgan III

"Self-Promotion" - a reading (on YouTube)

Lughnasa 2012

Today borders on two five-year anniversaries. Tomorrow marks Karen's official completion of treatment. Five days later, Noddfa Imaginings was formed. Like the bridge that Janus watches, it is a good day for me to look both back and forward.

About a month ago I was talking to a friend as we were working off the excess beer stock I'd picked up for Karen's party. He's the type of friend that sneaks up on you, the kind that you sit down with one day and find you've crossed some sort of threshold from acquaintance to close friend without ever realizing it. He and I met eleven years ago, at a game of course, through a mutual friend both of us have since lost touch with. He kept in contact during Karen's treatment as well as afterwards. He was one of the first to sign up for the e-mail list. We continue to game off and on as our lives permit.

He was asking me how writing was going after the chaos of the spring. This was before the floodgate opened that allowed me to finish "Terminal." I was telling him about the difficulties I'd had over the past few months and the decisions I had ahead. I'm always afraid the words will dry up, that my muse with flee screaming into the night. He looked at me and said, You have to write. It's like a compulsion with you, just something you have to do. It's in your personality. He said it in a way that said he both understood and wasn't worried.

And with that, I wasn't either. I knew he was right. Writing is not something I chose to do. It's something that chose me. Some days that's hard to remember that as my age settles on my shoulders like a knapsack slowly filling with sand as I wait for inspiration to strike.

Some days the empty parchment stares back at me smudged only by the smoldering light of another uninspiring dawn. Some days, the sting of rejection transforms into the sweet taste of artistic freedom. Or is that just the poison slipping deeper into my veins? Some days, after several eruptions nearly bury my desk, my notes metamorphose into a pile of karst-like blocks slowly eroding toward amnesia. Some days, I scramble up a midden of words whose meanings constantly shift and slide beneath my pen before I reach the top. Some days, the ink fades a little further from the page until, one morning, nothing remains of each line but the shadow of a memory.

Even then, bright blue ink courses through my veins, just waiting to redden with inspiration. All I have to do is slit my wrist and out it pours. All I have to do is dip my pen and bleed.

Perhaps that pen really is as mighty as the sword. Or in this case than the long spear of Lugh, the bright warrior of Irish mythology and namesake deity of this cross-quarter holiday. Whatever your blood-borne passion, I hope it brings you joy this Lughnasa.

© 2012 Edward P. Morgan III

Lughnasa 2012 - a reading (on YouTube)

Summer Solstice 2012

Today is the summer solstice. I always have trouble writing in this season. This year more than usual, the lines are too bright, the focus too close, the colors oversaturated.

For me, writing is an exploration of the world that plays at the edge of my senses. A world seen only in the interplay of light and darkness, heard only behind the distant wind. It's an unmistakable, yet unidentified scent, a taste without food, a feeling that makes my untouched skin tingle. 

It is a place many have explored but few have charted. Those who left maps drew smudged lines colored by riddle and paradox. The journey is full of obstacles, most of which I create for myself to make the journey seem more hazardous so that when I overcome them, I get a feeling of accomplishment. Another trap I set whose only prey is me. 

I search the landscape not to make a new discovery or to claim some new territory, but to revel in its beauty, ponder its mystery and seek my place within it. On the stained and smeared chart that is my soul, I’ll mark that dark circle “Here be dragons” and call it life.

I know I’ll do better as the winter solstice draws closer. Night is the great equalizer. In daylight, anyone can see.

© 2012 Edward P. Morgan III

Beltane 2012

Beltane 2012 - a reading (on YouTube)

Beltane. May 1st. May Day.

When you say May Day, most American minds spring to the distress call. Some believe it evolved from the Haymarket Massacre in 1886 Chicago several days after what has become known as International Worker’s Day. Others believe that holiday arose in Communist Russia, though the Soviets only marked it, they did not create it.

In truth, the distress call (“mayday”) derives from the French “(venez) m'aider” (“come help me”) and came into use around 1927 as French desperately clung to its lifeline as the lingua franca of international commerce.

Neither is related to the older, Celtic holiday. May Day marks the end of barren winter in the northern climes of Europe. Mid-spring to some, the first day of summer to the Celts. A cross-quarter day of celebration not distress.

Normally, I would write about the green-root rather than the red-root or pan-pan meaning. Today is not a normal day. My mother is in the hospital, my father is dying, and their surrounding situations seem intent on putting the “fun” back into “dysfunctional.”

Currently, my life feels like a three-ringed circus with me cast as the clown trying to distract a runaway tiger so no one gets mauled. Or a flashback to December, 1942 (there I was in Chicago enjoying a nice game of racquetball at the university when suddenly...). Who knew that two six-month tours in the integration lab dealing with the narcissistically Cerberean egos of hardware engineers was really an Israeli-style commando simulation training me for my future?

So, for me, today is about escape. I don’t distract myself in any of the traditional Celtic ways. I don’t drink. I don’t dance. I don’t don antlers and chase maidens through the gorse and bracken by moonlight. When I have time, I read stories. More often, I sneak in a game.

Some people tell me games are a waste of time. I would ask what purpose is served by drinking? By dancing? By drama, or any other pastime? On the best of days, they make us feel good about our lives. On the worst, they anesthetize our pain.

My favorite games serve as simulations. They present problems with discrete though sometimes complex solutions rather than ones that remain intractable. Most games have preset starting points with definitive goals and objectives. They grant players a stronger measure of control than ordinary life. When we get stuck or find ourselves trapped in a dead end, we can backtrack step-by-step to where we went wrong, restart and try again. Sometimes we succeed. But runs of luck can never be discounted.

Games form one layer to the bedrock of my existence. My father had me playing chess before I turned ten. My mother taught me Spite and Malice. My grandmother cribbage. I discovered a passion for war-games and role-playing on my own. We never had a family game night. In fact, we never had much of a family night at all. Perhaps that plays a part in our ongoing angst.

In times of stress, games act as my reward. I seek them out at every opportunity. Game stores form the constellations that guide my travels, from Maryland to New England, Scotland to Seattle, the I-4 corridor to the dealers rooms at Dragon*Con, even as their individual stars wink out one by one. I can trace the stratigraphy of Sci-Fi City (nee Enterprise 1701) back through four locations. The Fantasy Factory through only three.

On our weary way home from one of several round trips to the right coast of Florida in March, we detoured through Orlando so I could pick up a war-game based on the Crusades that I had hesitated over in January. Reading new rules is a kind of meditation for me. Game tokens have become my talismans. I have more dice stashed in boxes and bags throughout the house than any sane man should. Perhaps that says something but each sight of them brings me just a tiny bit of joy.

In whatever brings you joy this Beltane, I hope your day comes up natural rather than snake eyes or midnight. As I wish you luck in yours, I hope Fortuna grants the same in mine. Regardless, the die is cast, the strategy laid out and opening moves will soon begin.


© 2012 Edward P. Morgan III

Spring Equinox 2012

Spring Equinox 2012 - a reading (on YouTube)


Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,
And bathed every veyne in swich licour
Of which vertu engendred is the flour;
Whan zephirus eek with his sweete breeth
Inspired hath in every holt and heeth
Tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne
Hath in the ram his halve cours yronne,
And smale foweles maken melodye,
That slepen al the nyght with open ye
(so priketh hem nature in hir corages);
Thanne longen folk to goon on pilgrimages...

- Geoffrey Chaucer


When spring had brought forth lush flowers in every grove and field and the weather had turned nice, the minds of medieval people turned toward pilgrimage. Their destinations might be a small shrine just a day or two away, a massive cathedral (a crusade in stone) nearer the cultural center of their society or even one of the holy sites beyond the very edge of their civilization. They traveled for a variety of reasons, to seek forgiveness of a wrong, to seek healing, even just to go, to get out in the fresh air and see someplace new. Upon reaching their destinations, pilgrims collected badges bearing devices as confirmation, a scallop for Santiago de Compostela, crossed keys for Rome, palms for Jerusalem.

We don't often make pilgrimages anymore. Or perhaps we do. Weddings and funerals have become our modern pilgrimages. Weddings especially often involve churches or some other meaningful shrine, whether to art or nature. We travel long distances to attend, hopefully somewhere with nice weather in the spring or early summer. Weddings can be redemptive. Nothing heals the soul like seeing two people you care about commit their lives to one another and witnessing the happiness their celebration brings.

Eighteen years ago, just days before our marriage, my then bride and I took our wedding party on a pilgrimage of sorts. We packed everyone into cars and drove over to the east coast of Florida where my wife and I had gone to university, her for a master’s degree, me for a bachelor’s. A friend, who was a member of our wedding party, had always dreamed of watching the sun rise and set over the ocean. I liked the idea so much that we co-opted it. In Florida, it was easier to arrange than had we lived in, say, Kansas.

Our wedding ceremony was patterned on the ancient premise that the world is composed of four elements, earth, air, fire and water, linked by a universal whole. We had used that principle in making mead, an avocation we’d picked up in a medieval society during our time at school. The botanical gardens on campus figured prominently in that activity at the time. That garden, aptly called the Jungle, with its rivulets, paths and pagodas became the object of our pilgrimage, not so much for the site itself but for the peace and tranquility we both remembered there.

Each of the couples in our wedding party represented one of the four elements, with our master of ceremonies being the spirit that linked them all. As such, we asked each of them to carry a particular stone throughout the entire day, jade for earth, moonstone for air, carnelian for fire, mother-of-pearl for water, and a multi-point quartz crystal broken in two for spirit. The men carried the appropriate stones for me, the women for my bride. Plus we each carried a stone of our choosing for the other. We handed them out at sunrise on the beach overlooking the Atlantic then collected them on a different beach as we watched sunset over the Gulf of Mexico.

Those stones went into small leather bags with long straps. I wore mine around my neck at the ceremony and under my shirt at work for a long time after, including the weeks I spent at sea without her that spring and summer. For me, the bundle served as a marker, a pilgrim’s badge if you will, a reminder of the day and all it meant. We ended up replacing the original leather bags that housed the stones some years later. Wearing them so long against our skin had taken its toll. But we each still have them, along with all the stones. As it turns out, the moonstone is one of the last physical reminders I have of the man who stood beside me at the ceremony, one of the witnesses who signed our marriage license.

Out in the Jungle, we talked about marriage and commitment, asking each of the couples what it meant to them. All were married, some for many years, some only a few, some still, some not, some again. In ways, that day is as or more meaningful than the day of our wedding itself. It resonates deeper. Perhaps, that’s because it was based on no societal traditions, just symbols of our own choosing. Perhaps, it’s because on the actual day I spent too much time having slivers of my soul trapped in pictures. Or, perhaps, it’s because I wore that marker against my skin for so long afterward.

So what, you ask, does any of this have to do with the spring equinox? Well, that day, not any particular date in March, marks my wife's and my anniversary. Like the stones, we chose the day specifically for its symbolic meaning, a day made up of equal parts of light and darkness where the light was waxing rather than waning. We both saw our wedding as a marriage of equals and still do to this day, eighteen years later.

Happy anniversary, my love. Even weighing all the joy and tears that have followed, I would make that pilgrimage with you again today. I hope our light is waxing still.


© 2012 Edward P. Morgan III

Imbolc 2012

Imbolc 2012 - a reading

Every year is full of endings and beginnings. Birthdays, anniversaries, holidays, memorials. Days, months and years marking events of real or imagined importance. Earth Day, Breast Cancer Awareness Month, the Year of the Woman, the Third Millennium, the Age of Aquarius. Like a long spiral staircase ascending and descending or an intricate double helix twisting and untwisting, the pattern of our lives repeats.

Nine days ago, we entered the Chinese Year of the Dragon, the Black Water Dragon to be precise. The Chinese consider the Dragon an auspicious year. For some, perhaps it will be. Certainly not for all. For a few, it may seem that they’re accursed.

I was born in the Year of the Green Wood Dragon. For many years, I used that sobriquet as a pseudonym on a Daoist discussion board. I loved the juxtaposition contained within that name. I mean, who would carve a fearsome dragon out of green wood? These days, that’s what I feel like, an unseasoned beast ready to crack and split as I age and continue to be tested.

I’ve always been fascinated by dragons. Dungeons and, Uther and Arthur Pen-, the red of Wales. Chinese dragons are powerful and noble. By contrast, European ones are greedy and fierce. The last battle of Beowulf. Fafnir of Der Ring des Nibelungen. The Legend of St. George. These are the dragons of my people.

Five years ago, I stood rearguard as my wife slew such a dragon. The landscape of that quest resembled Cymru, a native land of dragons, cloudy and craggy, shrouded in mist and mystery. The road through those mountains was hard, the siege against her fortress treacherous, the final battle in its lair fierce. Fortunately, she was victorious at every stage and that particular wyrm breathes no more. Though some nights, its long shadow haunts our dreams still. So, at Candlemas, we light votives to aid in our forgetting. Day by day, those memories are dispelled like ripples fading from the surface of a pond.

Since then, for me, each passing year has become a goal to attain, a quest to fulfill, a series of obstacles to overcome on the path to a glittering treasure I likely will never possess. As humans, we long to take comfort in the future. In auguries and names, we search for stability, an understanding of this life. Eons ago, someone categorized and compiled the names of these years based on a perceived pattern of events. Good years or bad, like a face on the surface of a distant planet, we are predisposed to see patterns even where none exist. But their beauty or ugliness is firmly rooted in the eye of the beholder, not the beheld.

Like a lamb stirring in its mother’s womb at Imbolc, the life of this black water dragon has only just begun. Whether it grows in the Chinese or European tradition has yet to be woven by the Norns. I suspect it will bring a bit of both: joy and sadness, wealth and poverty, misery and health. Ours is but to receive its gifts with patience and with grace, knowing that next year it will not visit us again, at least wearing the same scaly guise.


© 2012 Edward P. Morgan III