That’s the only way I can figure out how I got to spend last week the way I did. If I hadn’t gone to last year’s World Fantasy Convention, if I hadn’t wound up sharing a room with Daryl Gregory, if I hadn’t gone room-hopping with everyone, I would have been at home, watching the kid practice her back-to-front rolls and not get enough sleep.

Instead, all those things happened, so I got to kick around Flagstaff, Arizona with ten talented, funny people, watching Charlie The Unicorn and not getting enough sleep.

I met Sarah K. Castle at WFC, and we got to talking about writing and what we were working on (me, Windswept; her, a science fiction thriller about a world-spanning EPA with teeth, which I said she should market as SCIENCE NINJAS. She demurred). I made a friend, which is always a nice thing to do at conventions, and I also wound up getting invited to Starry Heaven, a novel-writing workshop based on the Blue Heaven workshop that Charles Coleman Finlay created.

The format works like this: every participant submits the first fifty pages of the novel they want to workshop. Everyone reads every first fifty, then chooses two full novels to read. Then everyone goes to Flagstaff (Sarah’s stomping grounds), where you eat, drink, and critique. The first three days are group sessions where we deliver critiques of the first fifties, four a day. The rest of the workshop, we split into groups of three to deliver the full critiques. It was a lot of work, but when you’ve got good material and good people, it doesn’t feel like it.

Sarah’s invite came at a real low point in my writing career (though that doesn’t feel like the right word. Writing apprenticeship? Writing gestation? Writing sitting-on-my-can-trying-to-fill-the-page-with-text time?), and the workshop was just the kick in the ass I needed. I got to read YA, horror (both urban and smaller urban), fantasy, SF, all of it great. There will be some excellent books coming out of this workshop, and I hope that mine will be one of them (or, at least, it’ll be better than it has been before). Fortunately, I got a lot of excellent input from everyone, especially my two full readers, Brad Beaulieu and William Shunn. This next draft won’t be a breeze, but the path to completion looks a lot brighter, thanks to Brad and Bill’s signposts.

So, time to get back to work. But first, I have to go change a diaper. Ah, the glorious writer’s life…

1 egg
2 T flour
1/8 t salt
1 apple, diced and peeled
1/2 c sugar
1 1/2 t baking powder
1/2 c nuts, broken
1 t vanilla

Beat eggs and sugar until smooth. Add flour, powder, salt. Add nuts, apple, vanilla. Bake in 8″ buttered pie tin 35 min at 350. Serve with whipped cream or ice cream. Serves 3-4.

Note: we triple this recipe for a 9×13 pan, but do not triple the sugar.

(Note for clarification: we were not on drugs of any kind. I feel it’s important to state that for the record. We were so squeaky-clean that you could’ve served a banquet for the Queen on our souls. Not that you’d want to, ’cause, dude, that would make for a really crowded table.)

One of us would slow down to catch his breath, look at the other, then start all over again. We reinforced each other in a positive feedback loop that had us laughing so hard that it hurt. Tears streamed down our faces, our stomachs hurt from doubling over, but we could not stop, not even if we wanted.

Last night, at w00tstock, it was just like being in Wendy Grace’s living room, except instead of Rob, there were three hundred geeks, and, instead of “The Commitments,” there was the greatest line-up of nerd music, movies and comedy this world has ever seen. And I just made my Saving Throw vs. Hyperbole, so that’s totally for reals. My sides still ache from laughing.

I don’t want to give a blow-by-blow recap, because Paul & Storm have said on their Twitter feed that there will be future w00tstock events and I don’t want to ruin the surprise. But I will give you these three things:

1) You couldn’t have asked for a better line-up: Paul & Storm, Wil Wheaton, Adam Savage of Mythbusters, Vork from The Guild doing stand-up, Molly Lewis and her ukulele, my new-favorite-comedy-musical-duo-who’s-not-Paul & Storm Hard ‘n Phirm, Josh A Cagan, Felicia Day singing “Do You Wanna Date My Avatar?” (with the whole ensemble, plus Zabu). Sprinkled throughout were videos that were made with nothing but awesome.

2) There was so much love in that room. The audience was throwing out so much goodwill that it was impossible not to have a good time. It was like the performers and the crowd were wrapping each other into a giant nerdy Snuggie (but in a totally non-creepy way) and cracking each other up, not to cause snags in the show, but because that’s what you do with the people you love: you make them laugh until they’re on the floor, crying and gasping for breath. (What, you don’t do that with the people you love? What’s your deal?)

3) Okay, I’ll give one bit away: Adam Savage gave a talk called “One Hundred Wishes,” which was him going over the hundred things he’d like to do (build a house! Make a movie with his wife! Own a lightsaber, and a real plasma sword one, not one of the seventeen he’d milled out of aluminum). It was funny, and it was touching, and it was so nerdily joyful that it has given me a new goal, which is this:

I want to be part of the line-up for a w00tstock.

I want to be on the stage, in front of a microphone, reading to a theater full of geeks, and then making horrible pirate puns with Paul & Storm, Wil Wheaton and Adam Savage at the end of the show (and I got in one from my seat: as Adam Savage walked off stage after blowing one pun, I called out, “En-cARRRR!” Savage came back and said, “God, we can’t go out on that one.” WIN).

I want, in fact, to be reading the scene from the Principal’s Office from “The Right People” to that crowd, with musical and Foley accompaniment, the way Paul & Storm accompanied Wil Wheaton’s excellent “The Trade.”

So. There it is. w00tstock. When it comes back, if it comes to your town, go. You will not regret it.

(Rob: I am totally bringing you along next time.)

Ever since, I’ve tried to get the people I know on the ballot, for both the quality of their work and the novelty of saying, “Hey, I know that name!” It hasn’t worked out as well as I’ve hoped, but no one said World Domination was easy. That’s why I hope this little nugget will spread from my site to Facebook and Twitter and beyond. You gotta start somewhere.

So, if you can nominate stuff for the Hugos, please take a look at these works. If you like them, please tell people about them. And if you really like them, please nominate them.

Best Novel: “Pandemonium,” by Daryl Gregory. Del Rey, August 2008.

Best Novella: “Far Horizon,” by Jason Stoddard. Interzone #214.

Best Novelette: “The Right People,” by Adam Rakunas (hey, I know that name!). Futurismic, October 2008.

Best Novelette: “The Elephant Ironclads,” by Jason Stoddard. The Del Rey Book of Science Fiction and Fantasy. Del Rey, April 2008.

Best Short Story: “Willpower,” by Jason Stoddard. Futurismic, December 2008.

Best Short Story: “Living with Creely,” Andrew Tisbert. Rosebud #41.

Best Short Story: “Tetris Dooms Itself,” by Meghan McCarron. Clarkesworld #23, August 2008.

Best Short Story: “Random Acts of Cosmic Whimsey,” by Jetse de Vries. Flurb #6.

I’ve only done two crosses, and neither of them had mud. I think I’ve been missing something.

So, The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction gave away free review copies to the first twenty people who asked and said they’d write about it. I asked, I got it (and thank you!), I’m writing about it.

1) I was very glad to see that F&SF was sending out these free review copies to average people. Jason Stoddard and I are always yelling that the best way to market good products is to give free samples to loudmouths and encourage them to talk things up. F&SF’s target audience is packed with loudmouths, so they just have to find ‘em and let ‘em go to town. I hope they’ll start pushing copies on io9, SFSignal, and maybe shove a few at Wil Wheaton and John Scalzi.

2) The edition I got did not make me want it. Warren Ellis’s words that magazines are objects that are designed to be wanted ring in my brain every time I see a new rag on the shelf. Anything with the words “fantasy” and “science fiction” will get my attention, but, man, if you want me to part with cash for your words, the container for those words had better kick me in the back of the head.

3) Three stand-out stories gave me that blessed skull-thumping feeling: Geoff Ryman’s “Days of Wonder,” Albert E. Cowdrey’s “Inside Story,” and M. Rickert’s “Evidence of Love in a Case of Abandonment: One Daughter’s Personal Account.” Rickert’s story, about a future where women who had abortions are capital criminals, scared the crap out of me and got even scarier the more I heard from Sarah Palin.

4) My one complaint (because what kind of blogger would I be unless I complained about something?) is this: everyone in this edition has been published in F&SF before (though if I’m misremembering, I’m happy to print a correction). A double issue would have been a perfect opportunity to rescue someone from the slush pile and introduce a new writer to F&SF’s audience. And I don’t just say this as a collector of rejection slips; I say this as someone who loves new stuff. Give us new authors, guys! Give ‘em a lower rate and put ‘em on your website instead of in print! Make little story origami to hand out at conventions! Make a widget that has nothing but newbs! You can make the Internets work for you, and New And Shiny is the Internets’ currency. Just sayin’.

And of course George Carlin was in there. The classic gold albums (FM & AM, Occupation: Foole and Class Clown) are still my favorites, though it’s his routine “Death and Dying” from On the Road that epitomizes what I loved about Carlin: the voices, the microphone mastery, the playful love of words and language how they shape our thinking about Big Heavy Shit.

I didn’t like much of his standup after Parental Advisory because it sounded like he’d stopped going for the funny and gone after the applause. It’s easy to make a friendly crowd hoot and cheer, but making them laugh? That’s hard, man. And to make adults laugh over wordplay and absurdity all while dealing with Big Heavy Shit, that’s really hard. All of the albums that were based on misanthropy sounded like a man who’d just said, “It’s too hard. Fuck it.”

So, I don’t mourn George Carlin, because the teacher I listened to hasn’t gone away and will never go away. Light up some Toledo Windowbox tonight for him.

Here’s the thing, Nathan: I had a hell of a tough weekend. 22 miles on foot on Saturday, then 1.5 hours in the Pacific (water temps somewhere in the high 50s), then 8 hours in the saddle. I was supposed to bring in 115 miles, and the weather was beautiful, just the kind you’d want on a big ride. Problem was, see, I still can’t do the hills on PCH, so I had to go south along the bike path. And if I thought it was a good day for cycling, so did half the city. The other half decided it was perfect for walking and rollerblading, and that the bike path would be the perfect spot to get their mobile on.

So, it was a long day of slowing down, dodging pedestrians, helping people out with flats because I wasn’t going fast enough to escape their pleas for help, everything. And the sun was going down, and I still hadn’t found the last 17 miles and…

Nathan, I had to pack it in. I probably could’ve grabbed my windbreaker and lights, slugged down one more Powerbar and done a fast Marina loop, but I was done. No more dodging cars, no more looking out for taxis fighting for fares, no more swerving around jaywalking Venice hipster wanktards. Finito. Finished. Done.

I felt like an utter failure, that I was going to travel to Taupo only to get pulled from the bike course because I couldn’t finish the bike course in time. It’s been a long nine months, man, and I’m sure you could imagine how frustrating that would be. I flopped on the floor, without even the energy to stretch, and I flipped on the tube, hoping to have myself a good manly cry.

And there you were. TNT was playing “Saving Private Ryan,” right at your scene.

I don’t know if your turn as James Frederick Ryan, Minnesota, is one you recall with fondness (though, dude, getting a speaking part like that in a Spielberg movie had to mean a pretty good paycheck), but it has now earned a special place in my heart because, just at that moment when I lay on the floor, completely out of gas, and you started bawling. And I mean bawling, just sobbing your guts out like the entire world had come to an end and there was nothing else to do.

And I realized: I don’t need to cry, because you did it for me.

After watching that bit a few times (thanks, Tivo!), I felt better. Granted, the hot shower, banana and resting in my wife’s lap helped, but I will always know that it was you, Nathan Fillion, who pulled me out of that funk. And for that, sir, I thank you.

-A.