Appropriating Inspiration at BayCon 2014

Confession:  I've let writing lapse lately and that feels BAD.  Maybe that's happened to you, too.  Life gets in the way, and it's hard enough to put one foot in front of the other, let alone put your fingers on the keyboard.

Seeking inspiration and writerly motivation, I spent this past Saturday and Sunday at Baycon 2014, one of the larger science fiction and fantasy conventions held annually in the San Francisco Bay Area. Along with Denise Tanaka and Jennifer Carson, I happily threw myself into the open arms of my fellow fen and found inspiration and motivation aplenty.  Now here I am, writing, my fingers feeling fine as they tap the keys.

I woke at 5:00 in the morning, and the first song of the day on shuffle was Laura Line's "Dreams."  Good omen!  Dreams inspire (several of my short stories have come from dreams that I've remembered upon waking), and the con would be filled with fellow dreamers.  

Characters in Search of a Plot

I got invited to join my first SF/F writer's group after attending a workshop at a Baycon many years ago. I was so excited! I had taken creative writing classes in college, and I had been part of a mixed-genre writer's critique group for a couple of years. This was the first group dedicated to speculative fiction. They would understand me, at last! It had a couple of professionally published authors, along with novices like me. I had high hopes, back then, that with a little spit and polish my manuscript would be rescued from the slush pile, and I'd be the next Marion Zimmer Bradley. 

Meet the Members: Jason A.D. MacDonald

Welcome to the blog!  You are now here: some aspiring fantasy guy's bio!  If you were looking for the bathroom, take a right at the shambling mound bobble-head dispenser and proceed past the basilisk den (avoid direct eye contact—you have been warned).

Nothing grandiose where I'm concerned, folks.  I'm your average undiscovered Shakespeare who needs a decade plus to finish his debut novel.  My first loves in fantastic reading were DC Comics and Asterix, which my parents dug out from bargain bins (I'm still half convinced some dying alien will bequeath me a power ring SOMEDAY and am just amusing myself until then).