Denvention 3 — Thursday, Aug. 7th.
We’re up and seeking breakfast, or something to tied us over for a while. (Hyperion: I went over to Starbucks for Coffee. Place was absolutely packed. I was number 32 in line.) First up this morning is the WSFS Business Meeting. We started going to these quite a few conventions ago. We’d been volunteering at all the conventions that we attended and wanted to learn more about running them. This year a couple of proposal will be submitted: One to give a Hugo to the Best SF Website, one for Best Graphic Novel, and one to set the upper limit on supporting memberships, and then whatever else comes up that I don’t yet know about from reading the SMOFs list. Most people can go their whole lives and never attend a Worldcon Business Meeting. Us, we like to get involved. The meetings can be frustrating but they’re also a lot of fun in their own way — personally, I like to think of them as performance art. All the meeting are run by Robert’s Rules of Order. I don’t understand them very well, even now, but the person in charge of the meeting (this year Donald Eastlake) usually makes a great effort to explain the arcana of the various motions so that the members understand and can vote appropriately. The meetings occur each morning from 10am to noon until all the business is concluded for this convention. Rules made here are then voted on one more time at the next worldcon and (if approved there) then go into the constitution.
The business meeting managed to eat up a chunk of our day. We finished up about 1:00 PM. So, food was now on the agenda and we walked down to the 16th street mall for lunch. We decided on Rock Bottom Brewery. Good food. Fast service. Within walking distance.
Back at the convention center, we check out part of the dealers’ room. Managed to see about 1/3 of it before the first set of panels came up. I decided to go to Lois McMasters Bujold’s reading of Sharing Knife: Harmony. It should be out in February 2009 and will finish the Sharing Knife sequence. Bujold read from the first three chapters and it begins just after the end of Sharing Knife: Passages. The audience chuckled, laughed, sighed, and made all the appropriate noises at the appropriate parts. Bujold also answered some questions about the writing process, world building, and what she’s up to next.
My next panel to sit in on was “Writer’s and Taxes”. The panelists were an ex-IRS Auditor (now author), a lawyer, and a UK tax person (I’m really sorry on this as she said her title several times but I just couldn’t seem to get it — obviously my caffeine levels are low). Basically, the bottom line is that you need to keep good records and treat your writing as a business. The audience was concerned about what records to keep track of and the panelists said that Schedule C has a list of the records to keep on the back. They also said be reasonable in what you deduct or do. There was a lot of discussion and suggestions about start-up costs, business cost, and the terms usual and necessary. You can claim a lot of things but not everything that people have probably told you that you could claim as a deduction and that it would be worth an authors time to ask other authors who they use to do their taxes and then have someone check them out for them (to save money — do your own and then have the CPA check it over before filing). This was a workshop that was extremely useful and fairly well attended by authors who are starting out and don’t make a lot of money and want to learn how to avoid problems on their taxes.
For our last item, we attended the 2008 Chesley Awards Presentation. The Chesley’s are for excellence in art given by ASFA. Actually, this year, because of a number of issues, the ceremony was to list the nominees in each category. The presenters listed the nominees as a slide show displayed art work by the nominated artists. It was a nice ceremony even without the awards being given. You must be an ASFA member in order to vote but you don’t need to be an artist to be a member (check their website for details). The winner will be announced in late September. The announcement of the nominees was followed by a reception in the Art Show but we weren’t able to get to it.
We walked back to our hotel, dropped our bags and accoutrements and made our way to the 
22nd floor to check out the parties. Last night we just headed for bed, but tonight was the Peggy Rae’s House in 2010 party. The party floor was alive with people moving about checking out the various parties. It really looked like people were having a great time. The only drawback to the parties is that whenever you get a lot of bodies into small spaces it gets really, really, hot even with the air conditioning up high. So, even suites get stifling very quickly. Even so, there were many people to talk to and get reacquainted with. The North American Disc World Party seemed as popular as Peggy Rae’s 
House in 2010, they had food themed for Disc World and some of it was very clever (no pictures — sorry). Peggy Rae’s House had chocolate cake and ice cream. Hmmmm, seems there’s a food factor to a good party.
Finally, we just had to call it a night and turn it. Tomorrow starts with another WSFS Business Meeting, to hopefully work thorough the rest of the agenda. Then we hope to attend even more panels. Also, Friday night is the Masquerade.