I would have posted earlier, but the moment I got back from DragonCon I caught a horrible virus. This was not the con's fault, but rather the thought of my boyfriend who had spent that weekend roistering in Montreal at a bachelor party and eating a pig head, so he was punished for his sins with illness, and then I was punished for his sins because I live with him.


On the way to DragonCon I took the Dragon Train. This is the Amtrak train that leaves New York and gets to Atlanta eighteen hours later. I shared a roomette with Maureen Johnson. Holly and Theo Black and Justine Larbalestier and Scott Westerfeld completed our entourage, except they did not have roommettes. Roomettes are sort of like rooms, but small and with a squalorous toilet right in the middle. I can't imagine who in their right mind would up and pee in their squalorous roomette toilet right in front of their roomate and God and everyone. I can see no reason to do this at all unless you're in jail and your roomate is named Vinnie The Death Maker, and that was not the case, so Maureen and I vowed to never ever use the squalorous toilet, then piled everything we owned on top of it in an attempt to pretend it was not there.

The con was good. This was my second DragonCon, and I find the experience almost like being at some kind of World's Fair of the weird — wandering from place to place and being amazed by the craftsmanship and skill put into the costumes. I saw the alien from Aliens hanging out with Batman, Jack Sparrow, and a guy with a missing head; Claire from Heroes with John Constantine, some steampunkers, and the White Witch, and the guys from 300 poking each other with spears. I was there as part of the Young Adult Lit programming, and did some cool panels including one on Blood and Fur — vamps and werewolves in YA — and one general writing panel with Scott, Justine, Maureen (dressed like Wonder Woman) and Holly which was great and suffered only from being cut off at the end before we could talk to anyone who had questions. So if you were there and you had a question, I am sorry. There was also a panel on YA girl heroines who kick butt, on which Maureen managed to start a fight about Bella Swan and then stuck up impassionedly for "expanding pants" books — which I think from the context was what the other panelists were calling realistic fiction for teen girls, which seems overly general; you can't toss Gossip Girls in with Sara Zarr and Meg Cabot, for they are not the same.

There was a Yule Ball, which was Harry Potter themed. I did not go to it, but I did pass by in front of it and saw Hagrid and the Whomping Willow through the door. It appeared to have been scheduled at the same time as the Pirate Ball and there were many confused pirates streaming in and out, expecting to have their swashes buckled within and instead being confronted with people mostly dressed as male British schoolteachers.

PIRATE ONE: Avast! Where are the wenches?
PIRATE TWO: Arr. This be not my kink.*

On the way back from DragonCon, we read aloud from the Worst Book Ever Written. This book is a popular book, or at least a very good seller, and it is one of Holly Black's favorite books, except not in the way where you like something but more in the way where you find something hilariously bad. Reading aloud from this book is a transformative experience, especially for writers, because this book does everything you're always told not to do, and does them in spades. Justine describes it here: "It takes a kajillion chapters for the protag to cross a steet. All conversations are replicated in their full tedious detail—Including repetitions and broken sentences and ums and ahs. And this tediously described every second of the protag’s day is interspersed with some of the most horrifically bad sex scenes ever written."

Both Maureen and Scott are dignified individuals. They rarely giggle. But I caught both of them giggling at this book. It was an experience. And no, I can't say what book it was. It was not YA, though. Justine actually threw up during the reading. Now that is the power of prose.

It made me think about why some things are just bad, and other things are so bad they're fantastic. Something to cover in another post, perhaps.

All in all, a great con experience.

*Okay, the pirate didn't say that, Scott said that while observing the pirates in distress. It was funny, though.

And lastly, I'm planning a YA book recs post, so if anyone has read anything particularly awesome lately let me know!