Advice

I Have a Job, They Don’t: Sharing Resources

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And here we are, yet again, discussing that painful, and all too common situation of having a job when her friends and family don't. And I, wanting to help my fellow professional geeks, have queued up another heaping helping of advice on what to do in the situation.

Tthe advice for this post? Start sharing their resources. You know, this job search sites you go to, or the newsletter should get, or the group you belong to. Share all the stuff we use constantly in her job search in our professional lives.

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Go Farther: Gaming Cons

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Gaming conventions are the peculiar state these days. They have a long, honorable, interesting history. Yet, in a time of computer games, they may seem a bit outdated to some outside of the fandom (at least to those outside the fandom).  I also have seen, at least in my area, a revival of interest in non-electronic gaming, making me wonder what trends this portends.

Now, as I've been recently addressing ideas on how various kinds of conventions can “go farther” (thanks to Convention Career Connection), gaming–oriented conventions are really interesting to speculate on. They are, in many ways, traditional and focused. Yet, in other ways gaming has such a long history of innovation and change, such a long history of interesting people developing unique entertainment, there's also a lot to talk about career-wise.

(I should note, in order to talk about gaming, I am focusing on cons that deal with war-gaming, pen-and-paper RPG, etc.  Video Game events will fall under another essay.)

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Guest Post by Leona Wisoker: Ideas and Fear; or, The Fear of Ideas

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(I'd like to thank Leona Wisoker, a talented writer who's also had me blogging at her blog, for this contribution on writing, ideas, and fear – something a lot of us know of.  I reccomend her blog as she has some fascinating insights.)

I used to be paralyzed by the thought that I had nothing worth saying, no skills with which to say it, and nobody who would want to read it anyway. Even after landing a four-book contract deal, publishing a handful of short stories, and running a relatively regular blog for almost two years now, I still hear those statements in my head nearly every day:

It's a fluke. It's not real. People are just being nice to me. If I was a 'real' writer, I'd be signed with a Big Name Press, like Tor or Baen. I'm an upstart and I'm going to get squashed very very soon now….

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