On Shore Leave Anticipation

Shore Leave is coming up. The second weekend in July — the 9th through the 11th.

Guests this year include Edward James Olmos and Katee Sackhoff.

If you’re in the Baltimore area in mid-July and you’re looking for a convention, Shore Leave’s worth your time.

I bring up Shore Leave because yesterday I received an e-mail about programming for the convention. In short, they’re looking for ideas. I’ve been spitballing a few ideas in my head.

One thing I’m thinking of pitching:

Writing Fiction at Stupidly Short Lengths
Learn about Twitterfics, Drabbles, and Flash Fiction as writers talk about creating stories at super-short lengths that make conventional stories look like War and Peace by comparison. Discover the appeal of the super-short form, uncover the techniques writers use to conceptualize and create at that length, and try your hand at your own super-short story!

I write marketing copy on a daily basis, can’t you tell?

As I mentioned in yesterday’s posting, I like writing drabbles, which are stories of precisely 100 words. I’ve not tried a Twitterfic yet, which would be a story in 140 characters, the length of a tweet. Running a panel on the topic struck me this morning as something that’s potentially fun and different. And I’m all about the fun and the different.

I’m also thinking of pitching a Merlin panel, though I haven’t come up with a catchy name for it. I do, however, have a catchy name for the standard Doctor Who panel — “The Eleventh Doctor’s The Charm!”

I’ll come up with some other ideas over the weekend.

Shore Leave. It’s a month away. I can’t wait!

Published by Allyn

A writer, editor, journalist, sometimes coder, occasional historian, and all-around scholar, Allyn Gibson is the writer for Diamond Comic Distributors' monthly PREVIEWS catalog, used by comic book shops and throughout the comics industry, and the editor for its monthly order forms. In his over ten years in the industry, Allyn has interviewed comics creators and pop culture celebrities, covered conventions, analyzed industry revenue trends, and written copy for comics, toys, and other pop culture merchandise. Allyn is also known for his short fiction (including the Star Trek story "Make-Believe,"the Doctor Who short story "The Spindle of Necessity," and the ReDeus story "The Ginger Kid"). Allyn has been blogging regularly with WordPress since 2004.

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