Continuum 2005, Melbourne, Australia

13th July, 2005.

I have Tim-Tams and chocs for the first 24 non-Canberrans who claim to know me. I am not actually bribing my way into new friendships; I am making sure that the first nervous few hours contain at least one person who says with a big smile "Gillian, how are you?" Mind you, their next words will probably be "Now give me a frog, damn you, or I will steal your handbag and run off with your favourite book."

Continuum Day 1

We all fitted a lot into a half day today. The organisation of Continuum is so wonderfully smooth that I wasn't needed for my volunteer stint. This is a rock solid convention so far, which is particularly impressive given the vast numbers that have turned up. Even for the early bits of the program (during working hours) the rooms have been jam packed solid - standing room only. The committee has dealt with the horde with a wry sense of humour and a beautiful efficiency. The problems were all things we (attendees) knew would be problems ahead - early dinner hours and hotel location made dinner a bit of an issue, for instance. These are not big things in the universe, though, and the ability to handle so many people so very well is much more important.

I wanted to feel guilty over not helping, but the presence of half the New Zealand contingent cured me of it. We sat in comfortable armchairs and made bad jokes, mainly. In fact, Russell Kirkpatrick (and son) and Ross Temple and I hogged the best chairs in the foyer for an unconscionable period of time. All sorts of friends found us and all sorts of strangers sat near us and read programs. Several of them turned out to be Western Australians, and very well informed (I need to get to SwanCon one day - these are nice people!!). Lots of stray conversations ensued.

I caught up with Karen Miller, Glenda Larke, Trudi Canavan, Richard Harland, Jennifer Fallon, Tessa Kum and a lot of other people. I learned the real names behind a lot of aliases from the Voyager Purple Zone and discovered the aliases hid real people. I don't know why I find it surprising that computers can hide people.

It all felt like party central.

Edit Zoners I spent time with included Davina McLeod and Yaritji Green. Yaritji is much younger than I expected. She has done a lot of things I would never have dreamed of at her age - she is a lady of immense talent and drive. I told her this time and time again. I really have to stop telling her how young she is.

I found myself looking across the foyer every few minutes and seeing another and another and yet another Canberran. There must be a dozen people here from the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild alone. We Canberra folk are just dedicated Con-goers, I think.

I gave Tessa a hard time, as is her due, and I got to talk with a couple of her friends. I also caught up briefly with Cat Sparks and Deborah Biancotti, and I said hi in passing to a host of peoples, including Zara Baxter and Janeen Webb and Jack Dann.

I took various breaks from the party atmosphere through attending panels and such. The first panel I went to was the Dr Who one, where some of us pretended that we had not seen every episode of the first four doctors at least twice, and some admitted they had seen everything, owned everything and could quote quite a few things. Jon Blum gatecrashed the panel and it turned into a who knows what session. Lots of good oneliners and enthusiasm, but a bit slow overall.

The following panel (about wierd history) was, of course, quite perfect. I say this in an entirely unbiassed way.

Seriously, Davina McLeod was an excellent moderator and would have been better if I had been able to see her gestures to me when I talked too much (I have an occasional tendency to talk a lot - no comments upon this will be entered into). I talked a bit about Brutus and the history of Britain, about Richard's sad loss of Excalibur to Tancred of Sicily and what it meant for Sicily's chance at world domination, and about why the chair associated with the Pope Joan story is a problem. I intentionally chose humorous anecdotes, but didn't trust myself to make good jokes from them and so I informed the audience that if they didn't laugh I would *know* they had gone to sleep. The laughter may have been nervous, but it happened.

Jenny Blackford spoke after me: she was interesting. The background is classical history, so she followed up my cute anecdotes with rather more solid classical examples.

Glenda Larke talked next, about how she used her experiences and her background to create societies that work in her fiction. She shows an audience a lovely warm presence, and whenever she stopped talking I kept looking round for her to say more, simply because when she stopped talking I found myself missing that warmth. I sat next to her at dinner too, and found that her presence isn't a staged presence at all. She is a very genuine person and the warmth she bestowed on that audience today was simply a facet of herself.

The final panellist was the person I had most wanted to hear on the subject: Trudi Canavan. Trudi doesn't have a history degree. The world of her books gives a real sense of time and development. This has interested me for a long time, because quite obviously her processes are not my processes. She explained how she achieves it, and that for her, inventing history is easier than researching it. I found this fascinating, because the historian in me wants to add and add and add to inventions - research is easier.

The only other panel I managed to get to was a few minutes of a very funny session based on the TV game "Blanketty Blanks."

Yes, folks, I spent most of my daylight hours in vile gossip. Also in the anti-launch of that vile novel "The Black Crusade." Jack Dann almost managed to embarrass Richard Harland, and certainly managed to enthuse a crowd about buying the book. I have a copy already, so I jumped round the buying table and fell into long discussion with stray friends.

My evening finished with the Great Debate. I have a panel at an unholy hour tomorrow morning, so some sleep had to happen.

The Great Debate was one of the funniest things I have ever heard. It was so vulgar I will not sully your eyes with the detail. My most obsessive thought is that I think every single female in the audience is now fascinated by Neil Gaiman (and I doubt I will have the courage to talk to him - I only talked to Robin Hobb for a few minutes today because I had no idea who she was when she joined the group: shyness appears at the most awkward times). Gaiman isn't just cute - he is witty and irreverent and will resort to bribes. He also has a very nice speaking voice. The other debaters did a good job at causing mayhem, but Gaiman was the single biggest factor in the descent into disorder. There were many, many good lines, but my favourite was Gaiman's when he summed up the opposing team "Your argument consists of saying random things until they [the audience] clap."

Jack Dann's closing words were "Goddammit, we are done." And so we were, and so am I. Time to get a few hours sleep.

Continum Day 2

I took so many notes today and they are all out of order. This is all the fault of a stray comment by Stuart Barrow who admitted to me just before the maskoballo (which I attended long enough to admire the costumes and the decor and the pretty smoke and for Donna Hanson to carefully engineer me a moment of acute shyness, to her great glee) that he had lapsed into fanboy mode and had entirely forgotten to promote his book. This he did in front of several new acquaintances (one of whom was Ian Mond I think, and the others will remain nameless forever, largely because I am in a kind of name-overload zone) and we got into a debate on how kosher the recipes were. Stu was convinced that most were, but I am afraid only some are, but reassured Mr Mond that the stories are perfectly kosher. Which was a whacking great lie, because Tessa's story, just to name one, is not.

I lost my identity during lunchtime. KJ Bishop and I exchanged selves for a bit (by mutual agreement - we decided it would be convenient). I have no objection to having being her. The Etched City is one amazing book.

Before I get any scattier, I am going to take a break and sort my notes so that I can be thematic rather than random. Go get a cup of coffee or something: I won't be long.

The day started for me with my Arthurian panel. Davina was moderator again and she really does a good job. This time I paid more attention to her cues and as a result Chris Barnes got a fair go. This is a good thing, as Chris is amazingly tall and is a bit of a weapons expert. My personal favourite question (asked by Davina) was the exact nature of a theoretical Excalibur - he went into the possibilities in fair detail. His main argument was that it had to be one-handed, which limited its length and weight. He also talked about comic books and some modern Arthurian literature. I managed to sound pretentious by mentioning Barthelme - I am going to try for more pretension tomorrow, just to see what happens.

The other panel member was Russell Kirkpatrick who was in one of his witty moods. His carefully considered announcement was that he would agree with everything I said. Every time he said "That's right", the audience laughed. Honestly, audiences should not encourage him!! Mind you, they laughed at my jokes, too, but Russell has it all worked out and audiences will laugh at almost anything he says, as long as he says it with a particularly straight face.

My cause of the minute for that panel was to try to communicate a sense of the difference between the historical Arthur and the various cultural Arthurs. Archetype vs artefact vs artifice. I told people about the naming of Widuwilt, about the riots caused by the monks of Laon when they announced in Cornwall that Arthur was dead, and a bit about the Breton Arthur and the medieval Breton belief that Arthur came to rule the Antipodes instead of dying. I mentioned chastity tests and satire and early Arthurs and the size of the grave of Arthur's son and a bunch of other things. People were dizzy with over-information.

One thing we all agreed on was the vital importance of Monty Python and the Holy Grail to Arthurian studies. Russell and I had an almost-dispute on Marian Zimmer Bradley and feminism, but he was so busy agreeing with me he forgot to argue and we ended up nodding happily to each other. It gave me a chance to point out that I once spent a whole sick winter reading every single prologue to MZB's short story collections to illuminate how she viewed feminism and the result explains a lot of things that some people find dissatisfying with The Mists of Avalon.

Now that you have heard every single word about one minor panel you might want some of the rest of the day.

I explored the dealer's room and scored a bunch of freebies. I managed to escape without Harry Potter by running into a sister and a niece and spending quality time with said niece (and introducing her to Glenda Larke "The first famous author I have ever met" she told me, happily.).

I went to a couple of panels (as usual I would move towards one and get detoured by interesting people. I kept running into Jenny Fallon, for instance, and each time we met she fed me a curious tidbit of what she is doing in the NT - that lady leads an exciting life). Certain people summoned me downstairs for a private signing, which was really nice of them - it made me feel like a writer, despite the very juniorness of that writing.

I managed to get in to see the panel on moving out of genre fiction with Poppy Z Brite, Neil Gaiman, Jack Dann and Fiona McIntosh. Jack Dann and Neil Gaiman are dangerous together - conversations go in odd directions and expletives enter.

Gaiman was chairing and came in late. Dann initiated a slow handclap to encourage him. Gaiman made an Entrance.

Once the initial ribbing was over, the panel got down to business. They asked each other if anyone knew what the topic was. Brite offered that she had read it in her room before she came down. None of the others were at all certain. An obliging audience member read it aloud as a question and the four writers chorussed "yes" in answer. From there on, the panel was mainly a series of bad jokes, intermittently punctuated by discussion that was kind of close to the topic sometimes.

One line by Gaiman (one liners this weekend are always by Gaiman - it seems to be an unofficial convention rule) sums up his position on the panel: he defined zen cool as the sound of one finger clicking.

Now I need something to sum up Jack Dann's presence on the panel. That's almost too easy - at one stage he admitted that an early knack for pornography helped pay his mortgage. The more I see of Jack Dann the more I think his personality is not larger than life. It is life - the rest of us are just very small.

A defining statement for Poppy Z Brite? Well, she admitted to writer's ego. She also had the whole panel wearing sunnies so that when Gaiman sauntered up that centre aisle, he was greeted by three dark-glassed faces.

Fiona managed to introduce mentions of bodily parts, but she also admitted to writing non-fiction. For the others, non-fiction was more something they dabbled in or dreamed of. For me, her comments were a reminder that name and fame are not the game. I loved the moment when she admitted to travel writing and editing - it brought the wider world of writing to Continuum.

At 12 pm I was Trevored. Being Trevored is a disorder commonly known amongst Canberra writers of speculative fiction. In this case I was given a chunk of leaflets for Conflux3 and told to hang onto them like grim death til the announcements were made and then to make sure that every single person in the hotel had one. I did my best, and also managed to ooh and ah when the names of Ray Bradbury and Steve Jackson were added to the already-formidable list of Conflux3 guests.

I ran into Jon Blum, who was still apologising for his wife's absence. We did manage to ascertain that Kate and I might have gone to the same school and that we both probably loved it equally.

It was standing room only for Neil Gaiman's guest of honour speech. It must be tough for the other big guests to be so much in his shadow. It makes it hard for them to just mingle the way GoH normally do at Cons, because he can't do that without vast hordes streaming after him. The saving grace is that he is such a very good guest - says all the right things, nice guy, beloved by all, properly sarcastic etc, because even a hint of realisation of how unbalanced the whole thing is would spoil the artifice and topple the tower.

Just for the record, for all my gushing about Gaiman (that is the public speaker in me - he is just totally superb at reading audiences and understanding what they really need, and his timing is awesome), my favourite book by any of the writers at this convention is Wizard of the Pigeons. It is one of the outstanding fantasy books of all time, and I kind of lost it and said this to the author tonight. I was entirely embarrassed about it, too - it was like saying the unsayable. I am glad I collapsed and gushed though, because Hobb is a totally nice lady and not only took it in stride, but answered one of my burning questions about how she developed such a strong feeling of outsiderness.

Now, back to Gaiman. My favourite line from his Guest of Honour speech was about the writing process of Good Omens "I wrote a very serious book and Terry Pratchett danced behind me scattering jokes." He didn't speak much, though. He gave us a couple of readings from Anansi Boys and then the MirrorMask trailer and electronic press kit. It was an excellent hour, but the debate last night still beats everything else hollow for pure entertainment.

I went to the launch of Lucy Sussex's new book (A Tour Guide to Utopia) mainly because Lucy and I had a long intense conversation about writing and history after Magic Casements earler in the year and I wanned to see this book launched.

To my surprise, Gaiman was the official launcher. To my even greater surprise he had never launched a book before. This made the whole thing short and sweet, because he knew nothing about the long speeches that often make up the great part of Australian book launches. Lucy did a reading before he came and I now have to obtain the book, because she used her 19th century history in one of the stories and I really have to find out if her utopian women are connected to the Princess Ida club. If they are then that club is haunting me this year and I might have to take drastic measures to make it go away. Would singing Gilbert and Sullivan backwards do the trick?

My notes at this point disintegrate into a comment that I spent a lot of time gossiping. I may just have been chatting, since the pureness of my mind makes gossip unlikely.

After scrawling "gossip" illegibly for my notes, I went to cheer on Stu Barrow at his talk on patents. He didn't need the cheering, as he did very nicely, but the talk was worth attending in its own right. Stu was informative and fun and I am guilty of learning.

During his talk, there was a whole group sitting round me that exuded intensity and perkiness and made me feel faded. The chief culprits were Zara Baxter and Anna Tambour and Wendy Dunn. I wanted to get an energy transplant from them, but none of Stu's patents would have done the trick. I did work out that if an historical novel were written with all of Stu's patents as technical aspects, it would have to be classified as historical fantasy.

Donna Hanson and I walked to Flinders St for Indian food and I needed that walk. I also needed the Voyager 10th birthday celebrations, including the cake with the blue icing. Sean Williams was a joy as an MC. Jennifer Fallon's latest book was launched (reading!!). Karen Miller's The Innocent Mage was made available ahead of publication and it looks very spiffy (more reading!!). Karen looks massively relieved that it has finally reached this stage.

Big day tomorrow and this has taken too long to write.

18th July, 2005. Continuum final day

Last night I wrote too late, so tonight I am not sorting my notes. I figure it will give my report a certain delightful spontaneity and get me to bed much earlier so I can actually wake up in time to go back to Canberra.

The day was a very slow start and I was no use to anyone. This was partly due to my blog-a-thon last night, but mostly due to a migraine. I was very proud that my first headache of the weekend was a migraine and took so long to come. I was even prouder that both Donna and Mum commented on how much I looked like death warmed up. The upshot of the zombie state was that I woke up at Continuum rather than getting there intentionally, and when my brain (eventually) came back into gear I discovered I had missed one of the panels I really wanted to see and that Richard Harland's reading had gone unnoticed. How does one not notice a Richard Harland reading? I scored hugs from nieces, though, and spent my slow period chatting to friends in the foyer, with a niece in tow. I introduced my niece as my daughter once or twice, and scored some good reactions: there were many people at Continuum in need of serious doubt in their lives.

Three things characterised my day. Lots of chats and friendships was one. Food was the second. Readings were the third.

I heard five readings altogether, and delivered my very own.

Poppy Z Brite's reading voice is almost identical to her writing voice and the effect is rather like the words leaping directly into your mind and not going via the page. The pace lends itself to reading aloud, too. The more northern bits of her accent are more obvious when she reads. Communicating all of this information is essential to the proper functioning of my soul tonight.

Glenda Larke's reading was annoying. I wanted to dump the convention and go straight and finish the book she started me on. And I couldn't [great sulks].

The funny thing is that Glenda doesn't know she is this good. Last night she was named one of the Voyager top ten authors (along with Jennifer Fallon) and she was still shaking her head in disbelief today. Glenda was trying, I think, to prove that it all rested on about ten votes: we just laughed at her. Jenny has a better idea of her writing worth and was pleased as punch. I was all bubbly on both their behalves and for the fact that it is cool to see Australian authors recognised as tops by the Australian reading public.

Robin Hobb's speech of honour was fascinating. She presented us with a bunch of insights into how writers see themselves and how writers are seen and how that view changes when a baby comes into the writers' life. This was good, but nothing new. What was new is that she then explored the physical settings for her Farseer and related books. She has lived in the Arctic and understands those hostile landscapes. I have always thought her settings were a player in her novels all by themselves, and now I know more about why.

At some stage today the occupants of the Conjure table (while Robert Hoge was taking a break) got up to tremendous mischief. They listed alternate panels and authors descriptions for a shadow convention and covered the National Convention table with thoughts about these matters. I want to be on their "Grumpy old writers" panel.

I got to talk to Lucy Sussex today. It appears that her new book is plagued by curious coincidences so I am not haunted by Princess Ida and do not have to sing Gilbert and Sullivan backwards.

I didn't merely waste my day in idle chatter. I attended panels. Note the air of smug superiority in that statement. It meant I woke up properly in the afternoon, for one thing.

The panel on gods and monsters had excellent speakers but didn't really take off. There were some funny moments, but the dynamic of the panel was slowed down by a chair who had to verbally footnote everything and offer his own interpretations throughout. I prefer the dynamics of an active panel to the dynamics of an active chair, I think.

The research panel was fun to be on. Ian Irvine went first, for he had a plane to catch. So it started off sane and intelligent. He talked about how much research is enough for a novel and emphasised the need to know the subject.

Glenda Larke discussed some of her specific queries and how she had handled them.

Davina wanted me to talk about how to do the pre-research thing (asking the right question, directing the question in the right direction, how to understand the answer) but I was so tired I rambled a bit. I did talk about the different knowledge sets that specialists and fiction writers tend to have. While everyone else was saying "Get it perfect" I was saying "Perfection is impossible, but understanding isn't." When I was less writer and more historian I would have argued for perfection, and I found it quite funny that the others, who are more writer than me, argue for that perfection. "Readers will spot every single error," both Karen and Poppy said, seriously. My theory is that they will also spot the ones you don't know you're making. So you set your life into a learning mode so that you make fewer errors each and every time, you don't write about something you don't have a gut understanding of, and once you have winged your wonder into the universe, you stop worrying about it.

A significant proportion of the rest of it was spent in a discourse between Karen Miller and Poppy Z Brite on cadavers and dissection thereof. Don't ask.

The Cordwainer Smith panel had a small audience, but a very engaged one. It was a solid, old fashioned panel, where caring abut the topic and finding better ways of understanding the author were more important than making witticisms. I loved it.

Bruce Gillespie gave us a ton of interesting background on Smith/Linebarger. I lost the names of the other panellists (I missed the introductions because the research panel went overtime - I got to do an ungraceful walk up the aisle and to tender my public apologies), but I particularly appreciated the one who gave a reading. I had lots of thoughts about the relationship between the writer and Canberra and the importance of the name Abednego. I won't reiterate them now, because Bruce asked me to write it up. When it appears, you will find details here.

On my way out from the Cordwainer Smith panel and to the next room, I ran into Trudi Canavan. She was short two panellists. Stephen Dedman and I found ourselves on stage, making up numbers for discussion on what the world would be like if Star Wars had not existed. It was a great deal of fun, especially as Karen Miller has an immense interest in movies and was a panel member secretly from the audience. We talked about everything from franchise figures to the role of memory in deciding what is epoch-making. I didn't take any notes, though, because that was the 6 pm panel and my body was rapidly winding down.

The closing ceremony took a fair while and saying farewells took even longer. About 30 of us ended up in the same Malaysian restaurant round 9.30 pm, in three or four different groups, which led to much table hopping.

And we all went home

Well, we did.