An interesting panel at Readercon on, essentially, the age-old (and probably overly simplistic) distinction between “plotters” and “pantsers,” those who plan everything ahead of time and those who just, well, write and find the work as they go. Dale Bailey, Peter Dube, Stacy Hill, Cecilia Tan and James Patrick Kelly (our talented moderator for this panel) had a fun discussion, with more metaphors crammed into an hour than is strictly socially appropriate. One big caveat–I almost didn’t post this because of how bad the audio is, a function of a big room and an echoey sound system, so be warned that this is often difficult to hear.

Another fun panel from Origins 2013, again grouping me with Pat Rothfuss (two panels and a reading this con) and Jennifer Brozek, whom I’ve known for quite a while. This was a nuts and bolts panel about strategies for getting a novel completed; lots of great questions and discussion here, though I have to say it was amusing to have Pat, who took something like fifteen years to write his first novel and went on to become a #1 New York Times bestseller, on a panel with us, whose paths to publication were quite different. I think the audience was relieved to learn that the route to publication didn’t necessarily demand a fifteen year lead time!

One of a number of great panels I got to be part of at Origins, which has clearly become a convention staple for me now. Here I joined Addie King, Kelly Swails and the inimitable Pat Rothfuss to talk about handling sexism in writing speculative fiction–how does one keep from reifying sexist tropes and (subtly or otherwise) re-engaging with sexist themes while still representing a potentially sexist society realistically? The answers are many, and this only began to look at a few possibilities–but everyone was in agreement that respectful, thoughtful and mindful writing was critical, as was proper research and careful listening. We were a bit less in agreement about how much something like Buffy The Vampire Slayer actually represents those things, but at least we were able to avoid a full out pie fight!