I'm in India right now, in Bangalore (now called Bengaluru as India reverts the Anglicized city names to the original ones). It's an urban chaos of the most magical kind, like a gritty fantasy city full of wonder and trash. Small shops jostle with huge parks of concrete towers, rain trees spread over quarter of an acre, barn owls hiss and murmur outside my window in a 20-story building

The city has dogs like Rome has cats, and a pack of them hang out behind the apartment. I think it's a bitch and her grown pups. They communicate by howling, like wolves, rather than barking or yipping.

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Yesterday, a storm arrived at sunset. The monsoon is coming in, the rains have started. The sky was orange as the earth here is red.

At night, the sky fills up with bats, hawking for insects under the lights. And this evening, walking down a paved road, I was delighted by a number of frogs. They're so scarce most places.

It's been a hectic and awesome FOGcon. Unlike other cons, which are for me a spectator sport, I'm up to my ears in FOGcon (or at least my neck). This year, I ran the Dealer Room and also the Writing Workshop. So if my view of FOGcon seems a little bit of a worm's eye view, you'll know why.

[For those who didn't recognize her... the woman in the black gown is Vylar Kaftan, the Con Chair.]

The programming was great, so I had the usual problem of three equally good choices at any particular time, with an added layer of 'But Now I've Got to Check on The Dealer Room or the Writer Workshop details and so I shouldn't go attend anything.'

PANELS AND READINGS

Nevertheless, I got to a few of the panels and readings. Nalo Hopkinson, the Guest of Honor, read from her new book Chaos, which featured a house with chicken legs running around and laying dangerous eggs. It was so wacky and funny that I immediately bought a copy and asked her to autograph it for me.  Juliette Wade,  a writer-group buddy from some years ago, read from her work-in-process, a world of complex political intrigue and social stratification. One reading featured Ivy Blaine, a teenage writer who won our writing competition for students. She's really talented, and her story, about a world in which everyone wears a second skin as a sort of modest covering, was impressive.

The panels were fun, too: Nalo had a discussion of playground games as a reflection of culture - with a practical demonstration that included two 3-year-old panelists, a cleared ball-room, and much audience participation. Brown girl in the ring, Duck duck goose, Lost my gloves, Miss Mary had, Spud... I was pretty impressed at the level of energy and enthusiasm it generated. Said someone next to me, "It should be a separate programming track, Playground Games."

Best Alien Ever got into the difficulty of building fictional aliens that were truly alien, not just humans with larger heads, but yet were relatable. If they're too alien, the story just becomes about how alien they are. Of course we were all bouncing around examples of our favorite aliens from books we'd read. My own was James White's  Sector General books, about a hospital for aliens all of whom had different requirements for gravity and atmosphere, and weird medical conditions...

The last panel I attended was Bodies on the Line, about how your worldview changes if you're in a profession where your body is important to your work. The program mentioned soldiers, sex workers, models, circus performers, dancers, athletes. The discussion centered on how one became very aware of one's body and about taking care of it. Someone mentioned aging in this context, and there was some discussion about a person's "shelf-life" in various professions.

PARTIES AND ... MEAD?

Evening entertainments at FOGcon included karaoke that ran past midnight, the Unaward Banquet, a birthday party for ConCom member Michelle... and a mead-tasting.

Why a mead-tasting? Well, Corie Ralston, Vice-Chair, scientist at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, and author, also keeps chickens and brews interesting things. Last year, it was specialty beers for our honored guests. This year, it was mead, a classical drink brewed from honey, and she brought it in for a tasting. She had three different kinds. Delicious!

THE DEALER ROOM

The Dealer Room, which was my responsibility, came together well. We had a really nice group of vendors, even though space constraints meant it was slightly smaller than FOGcon #1. Lots of books, some art - paper-based and soft-sculpture in the form of handmade dolls, and a couple of jewelry stalls. We planned the aisles for wheelchair access, and Guy kindly field-tested the layout for us. The place was enlivened the last day by four Next Generation con-goers, aged 3-5, who were remarkably well-behaved and utterly delightful.

The only problem we had was the discovery, the day before the Con, that two of the interior doors could not be separately locked until the whole Ballroom was shut down. Only we couldn't, because we had programming going on in the other sections. So we posted guards - Con Committee members - any time the Dealer Room was shut but the Ballroom wasn't. It could have been a nuisance, but it wasn't; members of the ConCom volunteered to cover the various time slots. With wi-fi available and a quiet room, some of us actually got some work done while we were on guard.

By Sunday evening, we sat around in the comfortable sofas outside the Salon rooms, decompressing. I listened while people told hilarious stories, and a couple of the kids ran around. Eventually, I tore myself away and drove back home to a house that suddenly felt very quiet and peaceful.

At FOGcon, I ran into so many cool people I hardly get to see outside of Cons. That's the best part of Cons, isn't it? You can wake up knowing that when you go downstairs, there'll be people you want to talk with, awesome programming to attend, cool stuff to buy, and the occasional problem to trouble-shoot.

We're hoping to have FOGcon#3 next year.  It's a friendly, compact Con where there's always something interesting going on. It's sort of a mini-Wiscon West, as someone put it. If you were there, plan on coming back. If not, think about coming...

Expanded Horizons, one of my favorite venues, has just reprinted my story, "Blood Amber."  It's inspired by a Bengali folk tale that I first read when I was eleven, and was able to re-find on Amazon. I know Amazon has much to answer for, but it's given me this: All the books I read as a child, and didn't think to save, they're available somewhere in the world and I can track them down.

Blood Amber started out longish, expanded into a novella, threatened to become a novel. "Sorry, this is boring," said one editor I submitted it to, and even though his publication never actually took off, I knew he was right. I simplified and focused the plot, condensed the time-line, and heightened the action; it shrank it right back down into a short story, in fact, a very short story with a slightly Arabian Nights feel. Then I submitted it to an awesomely-named anthology, The Book of Tentacles, and it was accepted.

The upside was that the anthology was indeed a pretty awesome. The downside was that I don't know if it got around much.

Two years later, Tentacles no longer had an exclusive, and I immediately sent it off to EH. I like EH a lot. Its mission is cool (read its guidelines). It accepts reprints. It's the most author-friendly publication I know, buying only the non-exclusive rights to a story for what works out to semi-pro rates. It normally gives a remarkably fast turnaround, not just in a story-decision, but from acceptance to actual publication. It's online, so I can link to it.

So here's the story. Board the magic boat with Joya. It's a short ride, and you'll find out why there are jewels in the waves.

I was headed to a meeting in El Cerrito when I saw the turkey. It was on the other side of the road, blocking a car. The driver was trying not to run over it. The turkey was snuggled up against the car, gobbling softly. The driver got out, shooed it off. It shooed; but then, the moment he got back in, it planted itself squarely in front of the vehicle. I was getting late, so I carefully passed on the other side, leaving the enamored turkey and the baffled driver.

On my way back, a couple of hours later, the turkey was still there, though that car was gone. Instead, It chased a different car, which refused to stop.

Then along came the red Honda, and there was a touching display of affection until it, too, moved on.





















"Alas, my love, you do me wrong..."



"...to cast me off discourteously..."


























"If you intend thus to disdain, it doth the more enrapture me..."



"And I am still thy lover true..."



"Come once again and love me!"

The path of true love never did run smooth.

I just read with great interest aliettedb's Minor Rant on Gendered Languages. Aliette's way ahead of me in the language department (among others); she speaks French, English, Chinese and Vietnamese. She's writing in response to a theory that in languages in which objects are given a linguistic gender, the culture attributes gender characteristics to those objects. A feminine table, for instance, or a manly computer. She says that's bunk.

I agree. I speak only two languages myself, English (I hope) well, and Hindi reasonably fluently but not grammatically. Hindi is a gendered language (and it's one reason I don't speak it grammatically -- I can never remember what gender something is supposed to be). I believe there's some relationship to which vowels are used, but now I'm getting out of my depth.

The point is, linguistic gender attaches to a *word*, not to the object it represents.  In Hindi, tasveer means picture, and it's feminine. Chitr also means picture, but it's masculine.

The post also set me to thinking about another attribute of language, and I'm not sure I can express this properly: Complexity and connotation. English has a huge vocabulary, with shades of meaning. Even if the word means the same thing, the connotation can differ. Pig doesn't mean exactly the same thing as swine. Word choices are extremely large. For a writer, this means that a lot of nuance can be achieved by deciding how to say it. It's a wonderful thing.

But it also means that, in translation, it's almost impossible to avoid connotations that might not even have been put there by the original author. If in the original language, a word means, simply "unmarried woman," it makes a huge difference in English whether she's called a spinster, a virgin, a maiden, a girl, an old maid, or just a woman.

I was taking a look at the Bible in Hindi.Why the Bible? Only because it exists in so many versions and languages. The Hindi translation I found online seems closest to "The Good News Bible" -- but even so, it's *simpler* in its language.

There's no way, of course, for someone like me to read the Bible (or pretty much anything else) in its original language. But I can't helping thinking, How much has been gained in translation?

Expanded Horizons' new issue is out, and in it is my story Marriage of True Minds.

The story is based, of course, on the Shakespearean sonnet, and it looks at the whole idea of love and change. But it's all kind of entangled with the idea of devotion, the Hindu "bhakti" and the Sufi "fanaa" -- and the external pressures both social and familial. For a simple 2000-word story, it has a lot going on.

When my daughter was around 2 years old, she loved to paint; but it was a process, an activity not focused on the end result. We'd hang the paintings up to dry along the staircase. That particular day, she inspected one of them and said, with a sense of discovery, "I made a cat."
She had indeed made a cat, a very sophisticated one seated on a cushion.

My short story process is something like that. They tell themselves to me as I write them.  That's to say, I usually start with an idea, or a phrase, and the story grows from that like a sugar crystal in syrup. I usually don't quite know what's going on until after it's written and I read it. Even then, my first read is a superficial one. It's only after it's been revised several times that other layers start to reveal themselves. So it was with this one.

I made a cat. Or at least, a different kind of love story.

I'd booked myself on a Monday evening flight (instead of Sunday) to allow for maximum serendipity and World Fantasy Con goodness. Sunday evening, I was very glad I'd stayed on, it was such an awesome dinner. But by Monday morning, the Con was played out.

No problem, I thought: I'd get a late checkout to 3 p.m. and get some work done. Nope. The hotel, even though it wasn't sold out, has a policy of only allowing one hour after its 11 a.m. checkout. I asked for the manager, who said the same thing. So by noon, I was on my way to the airport.

No problem, I thought: I'd just get an earlier flight. But the woman at the United counter looked dubious; it was going to cost me $75. Really? The flight only cost $112 in the first place. Yes, it was their policy. So I gave up. I couldn't check in my bag, either; I was too early.

I had some lunch, then returned to the United counter. A pleasant gentleman looked at my ticket and said,"Would you like to leave earlier?"

So he rebooked me, and I got home 3 hours early. As we drove in, even before we opened the garage door, we saw three costumed kids at our front door.  I felt ridiculously happy about not missing Halloween after all as I handed out candy to neighborhood kids. We had more than usual this year.

Sunday, Oct 30, 2011.

Kater texted me that she was getting in line to get Neil Gaiman's autograph; and soon after that, that she was leaving since she had a long drive ahead of her. We hugged goodbye before she hit the road.

I attended yet another panel, Time Goggles: Modern Perspectives and Period Literature with Emma Bull moderating. By this time, I was rather burned out on note-taking, so I don't have much accurate detail. What I remember most clearly from this discussion was the challenge of representing the mindset of people of bygone eras and societies in ways that were both authentic and sympathetic... and the conclusion was that it was difficult, if not impossible, because values had changed so much.

I ran into Don Clary, who had another balloon sculpture hat. He said Neil Gaiman wanted photographs with it after the banquet. (I saw them later, posted on Tor.com's facebook page.) Don modeled it for me to take some snaps, too.



After that, it was relaxing, hanging out with people, and chatting. Shweta and Nathaniel. Vy and Shannon. I got a photograph of Shweta's familiar, Buddhistmippo dressed as Appa considering himself a warrior. Ken Kao did some amazing flips from a standing position.

Toward evening, I found myself back with Grace Ogawa and Mary, and Sarah Parker, who were at a table with Celina Summers (Musa Publishing) and author Gini Koch. Gradually, a group of nine of us assembled, and we headed off to Pam Pam for dinner. It was awesome. Lots of funny stories, and we spent the whole evening laughing. The funniest was Grace's story of how, sword in hand, she'd confronted a potential intruder. (Yes, she keeps a sword under her bed. Doesn't everyone?) This sparked discussions of an anthology based on that anecdote... of which more another time.

I drifted around the Con Suite for a bit, got some coffee, but was running low on energy. I decided to call it over, and went up to my room to catch up with my LJ.