I read on someone's blog recently that they get their best story ideas at cons. I had a story I'd almost given up on about halfway through, because I didn't know how to end it. Then the ending came to me during one of the panels at Balticon.

Besides inspiration, I also got a nasty cold there. After cons, the blogosphere is always full of sick people. What with the fascination with plagues (at least three panels on them at Balticon), I wonder if someone isn't doing some ad hoc research... A feeble story idea.

I was with one of my Viable Paradise classmates (also a crit group buddy). We didn't attend parties, but we did talk about reading and writing and a zillion other topics until the wee hours.

Hodgepodge notes:

• Starstruck moments: Peter S. Beagle and Naomi Novik.
• Published is published, whether it's on your blog or in a mag. Most mags want first publication, so don't post stuff on your blog that you want to submit. "Peripheral" type stories might be all right, for example, same world, different characters.
• Main functions of body armor, post gunpowder, are concealment, mobility and preventing target lock. However unpiercable body armor might be, the impact will still damage by its punch or whiplash effects.
• Naomi Novik described her books as having a three-act structure, each with its own climax: a battle or whatever.
• Steampunk panel's discussion of Charles Babbidge put "The Difference Engine" by William Gibson and Bruce Sterling on my must-read list.
• Some good resources for publishing freelancers: Freelancer's Union and Freelancer's Association
• The panel on getting published confirmed that it truly is a good idea to have an agent when you're working out a contract. Joshua Bilmes came across as really nice and really knowledgeable, and willing to go to bat for his authors.
  
• Author's Guild is a good resource for pub'd writers.
• It was fun to hear Peter S. Beagle and his fellow panelists spin yarns about screenwriting. Peter Beagle mentioned that fiction writing is his main love, but screenwriting helped tighten up his fiction, in that something always has to be happening in a script. He looked like he was enjoying himself but that he'd be more at home on a motorcycle or the deck of a fishing boat.
  
• Celtx is open source scripting software.
  

I never did post anything on Ravencon, but one thing that stuck in my head:

• Three sentences; three paragraphs, three pages. If your story will hook an editor for that long, your chances of a sale are good.

A fantastic article on steampunk gadgets in Wired. Lots of links to sites. It's from back in June...

I was talking to the mister about steampunk, with an issue of Steampunk magazine on the table with us. He thinks its attraction lies in the possibility that "any human with common sense" can understand the workings of the machines that are central to it.