Site Post » Everfree Northwest Writing Track · 3:01am Jun 14th, 2013
Everfree Northwest has a number of writing events and authors attending this year. They've put together a press release you can read below.
For 2013, Everfree Northwest is proud to be the literary hub of the pony convention circuit! Come and join our all-star cast of fan authors, editors, and pre-readers and share in the magic of the written word. What better way to celebrate the high-quality writing of Friendship is Magic than with an in-depth study of how to make your writing the best that it can be?
Everfree Northwest has over a dozen various panels and events all related to writing, authors, and fanfiction at this year’s convention. Every year, our writing track lead Silver Quill assembles a suite of fan panelists to talk about plot, character development, setting, literary merit, and advanced literary techniques to help turn your stories into art. Fancy yourself a writer? Then come participate in our two-part Iron Author competition and see if you've got what it takes to turn out two thousand words in two hours! We've also got experts to talk about what it takes to hit the FIMFiction Feature Box, and a bank of pre-readers from Equestria Daily to talk about what they're looking for in a good story. Come and see an early screening of the MLP Fan Fiction Documentary, followed by a Q&A where you can provide direct feedback on the project. Or if you just want to hang out with your favorite fan fiction authors, join us for the authors and fans chill out event and relax with your favorite wordsmiths..
This year, our line-up of fan talent includes:
Silver Quill: Silver Quill wrote her first novella at age eight and hasn't stopped writing since. In addition to her pony fic, she's the author of three novels and has published a number of short stories as well. When not making words happen, she can usually be found at some convention or another talking about making words happen with others.
Pen Stroke: Over his two years as an author for the fandom, Pen Stroke has written over a dozen stories for the MLP community. With his body of work including popular stories such as “Past Sins,” “Better Living Through Science and Ponies,” “Haunting Nightmare,” and the “Moonshine Series,” he has earned his place as the most watched author on FIMFiction.net.
PK: The man. The mystery. Just who this is mysterious man? Well, now's your chance to find out: PK, whose name does not in fact stand for anything, is the author of “Antipodes,” “Lodestone,” and is Equestria Daily's pet and its on-again off-again stuff-writer.
Couch Crusader : CouchCrusader, in his own words, is the product of a cosmic belch and existential confusion horrified into being. He won his name in 2011 over eighty-seven non-consecutive days of summer sofa surfing. Semi-victorious, he is a pre-reader and part-time columnist for Equestria Daily and is best known for writing "Wingmares" and "Via Equestria."
Seattle Lite: Seattle enjoys stalking bad OCs by moonlight and appearing directly behind you. He’s a triple threat, the author of such fics as “Moving On “and “Divergence,” Equestria Daily pre-reader team, and FIMFiction mod all rolled into one cool package.
Horizon: Horizon is a fanfic author best known for the Equestria Daily/Vault-featured story “Fugue State” – a romance about mind control and musical numbers. Returning attendees might also recall “No Regrets” from the 2012 conbook. With decades of writing and professional editing experience, his panels are sure to be informative! He lives (with cats, of course... you can't be a famous author without cats) in a strange land whose name ends in "-ia".
Piquo Pie: Piquo Pie is a pre-reader for stories such as “Cry for Eternity” and “Under A Luminous Sky” and the author of several fics of his own, most notably comedies such as “And Then Rainbow Dash Was a Colt, and Ten Other Really Awkward Stories” as well as “T, the Tiniest Troll” which was recently translated into Russian. He is also working on the MLP Fan Fiction Documentary 2013 which will take a look at 6 individuals from the MLP Fan Fiction community and will tell their individual stories about being a fanfiction author.
Meeester: An avid proofreader and pre-reader for an extensive list of authors, Meeester has worked with authors on stories across the entire spectrum of tags and categories and loved every one of them. He also helps authors as a Story Approver/Mod on FimFiction.net, where he is one of a select few users who approve or fail the over 2000 stories submitted to FimFic each month.
Skywriter: Skywriter is otherwise known as author and cartoon scriptwriter Jeffrey C. Wells. He is best known in Pony circles for his short stories "Princess Celestia Hates Tea," "How to Remove a Unicorn Tooth," and "Derplicity," as well as the episodic novel "Contraptionology!" He finds that My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic has expanded both his artistic and friendship horizons, but would just like to point out that he was into rainbows and unicorns before they were cool.
S. R. Foxley: A recovering work-a-holic with a foxy personality, S.R. Foxley has been writing stories here and there for over a decade. He is best known as the author of “Excerpts from a Filthy Diary.”
totallynotabrony: Totallynotabrony began his pony career with the story "Battleships are Magic." Fueled by a 2000-word-per-day writing habit, he has since followed up with more than sixty stories including military dramas, crack comedies, horror, and awkward human inserts. His favorite character is vampire Cheerilee.
Keep up to date on all of Everfree Northwest’s news and announcements by following us on our website, Twitter, Facebook, and Tumblr. And don’t forget, con pre-registration ends on June 15th. Badges can still be purchased here.
Cool. Sucks I can't go
In other news, Spock is best pony
Can I be a guest? Please?
Can't wait to watch it over youtube from the other side of the planet !
(Courtesy of the NSA
)
Ohh, now this looks entertaining.
How to get on that list of VIP Writers... that I wonder.
Then again, I should probably finish that fic I'm supposed to be working on.
Wish I could go, but, you know, responsibilities... Although I am wondering on how to get on that VIP list. Hmm, could someone please answer that?
1143380>>1143410>>1143434
There will be a chillout at the end of Friday and Saturday which will basically be a giant fanfiction meetup. At least 3 other people I know that aren't guest speakers will be there in addition to most of the guest speakers at some point.
Should be neat. I'm flying across the US for it, should be cool
1143494
I can't go to the Everfree Con. Can Skype call be adequate?
I would go, but....
Rowing camp.
1143513
I'm flying from Atlanta. How far is your flight?
1143570
Driving from Delaware up to PA and then flying to Seattle from there.
Well, it's nice to see writers getting celebrated! Every event I've seen was artists and musicians.
Maybe one day I'll get invited to something like this. I won't go, of course, but it'd be nice to be asked!
Wooo go Meeester!
I really need to be more... social.
1143520
I don't think that would be possible, sorry.
1) Write a clopfic
2) Write a HiE clopfic
3) Write a second person clopfic
4) Write a rapefic
5) Write a foalcon fic
That'll be five-hundred dollars, please.
I thought this was cool until I saw Pen Stroke was the headlining guest.
And I won't go, because I would most likely kill the EQD prereaders on site.
1144068
>kill the EQD prereaders on site
Do you mean you'd kill the Pre-Readers while at the facility, or did you intend to say 'on sight'?
1144144
F**king auto correct. "On sight" is what I meant.
1144181
I see. So, tell us, how long have you harbored these murderous thoughts towards the Pre-Readers? Have you spoken to a peer about these feelings? Perhaps a respected authority figure?
Now this was the news I was waiting for. The writing panels were the highlight of my attendance last year* and I can't wait to bask in the inevitable glory of this hugely expanded 2.0 version.
*amidst stiff competition--all of last year was a blast, really
1143998
>implying we're getting paid
My congratulations to all the writers that are going. I'm sure there will be something for everyone, and the chance to receive advise from popular authors would be very beneficial.
BRING IT ON
1144198
I have since they rejected my story for not telling the ending in the first paragraph of chapter 1.
As far as seeing a professional, I'm currently arguing with the wall about the cake talking s**t about the basketball. I'm a little busy.
k.
1143998
The irony of that statement... Is that I've only ever seen two clopfics on the Feature box...
1144645
Ho ho ho, you obviously don't pay too much attention to it then.
At least once a week it will have 4/6 spots filled with clop for the new stories section.
1144671
Yes, I do pay attention. And that's not the featured section. The Featured section is on top of the page.
1143434 1143453
There's a definite quid pro quo to the "VIP" attendance. We don't get anything out of it except publicity (conventions like Las Pegasus Unicon, which promised to comp fan guests, are definitely the exception, not the rule … and look at what happened to them). It's good publicity, to be sure — but in return, we commit to speaking at several writing panels and donating our expertise. (For big-name authors like Pen Stroke, Skywriter and totallynotabrony, the convention also gets a return publicity boost from their name recognition.)
That having been said, if you want your name in lights, here's three things to do:
1) Attend the con you want to panel at! Because most cons have zero ($0) budget to recruit fan/panelist guests, they'll draw their talent from the ones who are already planning on going.
2) Attend the panels you want to speak at, chip in good comments from the audience, and make yourself known as an author who has something insightful to say about writing. Or, if there's a panel you want to see that doesn't exist, talk to the programming organizers (e.g., Silver Quill, the EFNW writing track lead). Part of why I was selected as a panelist was that I said, "Hey, this is a panel you didn't do last year which I think you should do," and SQ said, "Would you lead it if we did?"
3) Volunteer. No, seriously. Conventions are a labor of love. If you are willing to put in the elbow grease to make the event better, the people who make the decisions will love you forever for it. If you improve the experience of this year's panel attendees and get your name to the right ears as someone who's interested in helping out, I can guarantee you that you'll be on the short list for next year's event.
(Source: Been attending, and working, conventions across multiple fandoms since 1995.)
Best,
Horizon
Eh, I can't go either way.
1144694
I see... well I really can't go because of cash issues. I want to be able to pay for it myself and not ask my parents. I'm still 17 as well, so I doubt they'll let "some kid" in on the panels even if I volunteer.
1144694 Thank you for the advice.
1144671 Really? well, right now it has a comedy about how The Mane Six Are Pirates, a second-person story without a sex tag, an original-looking AU about a tiny student, a steampunk that has both the "Dark" and "Comedy" tags, and a rare story which has the "Romance" tag and appears to actually be a romance, rather than... that other thing.
Of course, I keep the "Mature" filter on, but then again, if that's what happens when you turn it off, the people who write mature stories must not understand the term.
1144769
A great way to attend conventions for free/cheap is to volunteer as a "gofer" at the convention itself — if you work for a specified number of hours over the weekend (doing minor tasks such as badge checking at doors, or setup/packdown of equipment for events), the convention will give you a big badge discount and/or free admission.
This doesn't help you with transportation to the con, or crash space while you're there, but if you're willing to put in the legwork, you can reduce your costs by a huge amount! The Everfree NW forums have several areas to talk about ride-sharing and room-sharing, and you can ask staff members there what the con's kickback to you for gofering is (I'm not a EFNW staffer, so I don't know offhand).
I do hope you get to go — cons can be awesome, magical experiences. Best of luck either way!
1144911>>1144769
EFNW comps your badge/admission the year after you staff for the con. You pay for the first year then the next year or each consecutive staffed year is comped.
source: I'm staffing EFNW as an event manager this year and had to pay still.
1144911
I actually live in Washington, and Seattle is not too far of a drive from my place.
1144915
Do you know the gofer policy? Typically gofers and staffers are comped under different rules.
(I've actually seen a few cons where gofers get more of a kickback than staffers do — staffers already do ridiculous amounts of work relative to their badge refund, so they're already essentially donating their time. Gofers are the lifeblood of every con, and the con needs to dangle rewards out in order to encourage at-con sign-ups for what is otherwise thankless labor.)
1144899
No it's not. I have it set to show Mature content, and well... Only one clopfic is seen on the front page right now.
1144984 That makes me wonder where, exactly, people see all of these front-page horror stories*, then.
*Horrible pun**
**Even worse pun
1145005
The only way that I see them is when I'm searching for them... Only because some of them are actually funny... So, that certainly says something about the people that complain about them.
And my bad, there are two clopfics.
1145012 Interesting, because with the "Mature" filter off, I see two stories with a "Sex" tag, one of which admits clop in "later chapters", implying that it is not the sole purpose of the story, which, to my understanding, means it isn't a "clopfic" in the sense I've seen the term used. The other story is written by The Descendant, whom I trust would not write something like a simple clopfic, especially for a story labeled "Teen" rather than "Mature".
I derive pleasure from research. Does that make me strange?
1145058
Yeah, well on first glance all I saw was two stories with the sex tag. And I denote anything that is labeled Mature, and has the sex tag as a clopfic. Doesn't matter when the actual clop happens. If it has both, then it's a clopfic.
1144694
That is all *exceptionally* good advice. I'm ashamed of myself for not being able to go to a convention in my life yet, but I rationalized it by not having the means. However, the chance to be able to go, even if it means working there, would be a huge benefit. I may not have the money, but I can sure as heck start building up the connections; getting with the right people and volunteering would definitely more than help my chances
.
On top of that, I also noticed your blog post on Scrivener and I just have one question: Where has this been all my life?!
I haven't yet pined down my creative paradigm yet, but this sure has helps things along and puts things together in a nice cohesive whole. I'm going to start using it as soon as possible
1145071 I try to differentiate between the stories which happen to have explicit sex, and the explicit sex which happens to have the form of a story. I don't read either, but the self-righteous part of me insists that I reserve the generally derogatory term "clopfic" for those stories with little to no literary merit.
...I may regret posting this on a site-wide blog. Oh well.
On a more relevant topic, I'm hesitant to join any off-site or group-specific writing contests (because, believe it or not, I'm quite an introvert), but I would certainly consider entering a site-wide Fimfiction contest. Especially if there's chocolate involved. And even if there isn't (though that would be sad
).
1144694 Me? Big name? I'm flattered but in disagreement.
And hey knighty, thanks for putting in the extra work to link to all the author's pages.
1144198
Thank you.
1144694
It also helps to get in early. I am a local and during some of the early staff meetings I stepped up and recruited Meeester and totallynotabrony as well as asking Pen Strokes to return as he did last year. I also volunteered to host some panels. Remember if you want something the best way to get it is to go out and do it.
1145146
Awesome! If you want to start going to cons — and there are some awesome things to see there, and super awesome people to meet — find one in your area. (If you can get one in your city, so much the better; you can dodge the whole "sleep in a hotel room all weekend" thing.) As noted, many cons will have some sort of way to coordinate with other attendees and work out ride/room-sharing to keep costs down, and you can volunteer as a gofer right on-site with no advance preparation involved. I attended a few cons in my teenage years on a budget of less than $100 (though with inflation, these days, that would require some serious arrangement).
Point is, just like writing, the best way to build up connections etc. is just to go do it! If you let yourself take a chance I think you'll find a lot to enjoy.
> Scrivener
Pretty awesome, isn't it?
Glad I could bring it to your attention.
If you get a story finished with it, drop me a PM. Would be cool to see what use you put it to!
Best,
H
I'll be there!
Possibly inebriated, but I'll be there! I hope to attend plenty of panels. This is one of the things I am most looking forward to. Can't wait to take it all in.