From Cons to Camping

I was going to do a big post about the ACFW conference and the incident in which three guys were turned away from the formal gala for wearing costumes. Diane Graham has created quite the ruckus on her blog about it today, and I agree with her and many of the commenters that the reaction to costume wearing is not fair. In the sense that either costumes are allowed or they are not--and no, Victorian dresses and such do not get to count as "Sunday best" if we don't count formal Elven and cyborg clothing as well.

But truth be told, my anger over this has dissipated rather quickly. Why? The ACFW is the ACFW. It started as the American Christian Romance Writers and they changed the Romance to Fiction but I believe more and more that we spec-fic writers need to just find our own group. Or better yet, make our own group. Katherine Coble states that point rather well in a recent blog post. So, there. You have two blogs to check out if you want to talk about the unfairness of the CBA. I'm done with it for now.

Instead, I'm going to go pimp my novels at the Necronomicon next month. I'll be on six writing panels, talking about:

• The Resurgence of Fairy Tales
• How Has E-Pub Changed the Game?
• You Call It Urban Fantasy. I Call it Horror.
• Developing Rules for Magic
• Getting Started: Strong Female Characters in F&SF
• It's a Hive of Scum & Villainy: Writing the Evildoer

And for your enjoyment, pictures from my latest camping trip at Disney's Fort Wilderness, which started with heavy rain:

Beastie 1 and K'rysy:

Beastie 2 and K'rysy's tongue:

The House of Blues:

Eep! There's a lizard in my hair!

There really are enchanted forests....Does this not just whisper, "Enter. Fairies be here."?

Bad dog! Bad, bad dog!

Tourist shot!

Sleeeeeeepppyyyy dog....

We got the coolest golf cart they have :).

And yes, I did drive it, while sporting my new owl earrings and the shirt Space Kiwi gave me:

Erm.....yeah. There CAN be too much...

And me with my favorite lion:

Hakuna Matata!