Everfree NW Sorta-Liveblogging · 8:43pm Jul 5th, 2013
(Note: I'll update this at odd intervals throughout the weekend as a record of my convention experience.)
Thursday, 8 pm: My convention started a day early! While driving through Portland, a van passed me with a giant "Honk for Ponies!" banner taped across the back window. I fished a Rainbow Dash figurine out of my back-seat luggage, caught up to them, and waved. Through a complex series of nonverbal negotiations[1] we determined we were both driving north to Everfree and caravaned for a while. I got to talk to the five of them when we stopped for gas. I totally failed at remembering all their names, but David was driving and Pinkie (that's actually her non-pony nickname), in the front passenger seat, does a pitch-perfect Pinkie Pie voice.
11 pm: Checked in, went to Denny's, crashing hard after a long day fixing servers and driving and I've gotten six hours of sleep in two days wait is that a bed sweet alicorn apples it has pillows and everything oh most wonderful of beds
Friday, 11 am: Registration. Dear sweet expletive, registration. The line is around the building. LITERALLY around the building: it goes outside, turns two corners, and is down the sidewalk almost to the parking garage. On the upside, this gave me a wonderful chance to people-watch. There is some fantastic cosplay on display. Counting only minor characters, I've already seen two DJ PON-3s, a Photo Finish, a Flim and Flam, and a changeling, all of which were really well crafted. Why am I not carrying around my camera? I should be carrying around my camera. There will be so much pony eye candy.
1 pm: The first writing panel, on Setting, was counterscheduled against opening ceremonies, and Silver Quill shooed everyone out to go see them (there was a nifty skit involving three kids getting crowned as new alicorn princesses for the duration of the con) and then come back when it was done. (There's another writing panel at 4 pm counterscheduled against the AKR/Sibsy writing event at the main stage, so today is full of shuffling panels around so us fanfic folks don't have to miss the really cool things.)
I wasn't specifically scheduled for the Setting panel — I'll be at Iron Author, Editing and Prereading, and Making The Big Time — but since I was there, I got dragooned into talking a bit while Silver Quill went to try to fix the registration. Got my first egoboo, too: Cypher name-dropped Fugue State amid a discussion of weaving in setting details building off of canon. Thanks! 
5 pm: Also volunteered my way onto the Plot writing panel, which was A) not rescheduled and B) well-attended. (Coincidence?) Afterward, got my badge. In exchange for ghosting the first half-day of the con I saved myself about two hours of waiting. Hooray laziness![2]
7 pm: Hit the very tail end of the show writer panel with AKR and Sibsy, and the start of the Friendship is Witchcraft panel, though didn't attend enough of either to get much out of them. Had to bail out of FiW to go check out the writing track "Character" panel (which had, again, been rescheduled, though the room was still packed). As I was in the audience, I got to torture the panelists by asking them for recommendations of fanfic that did characterization very well : Silver Quill cited Device Heretic's "Eternal", Skywriter pointed to Ghost of Heraclitus' Civil Service stories, and CouchCrusader suggested Twilight Clopple's "Being Awesome: A Novel".[2]
8 pm: Skipped out on the first night's fanfic author mixer in favor of a quiet room dinner gathering. There was pizza.[2] Given that the mixer was at the same time as voice actor Michelle Creber's concert, I don't know that we missed much. I'll make a point to show up at the Saturday mixer though.
11 pm: Managed to attend a few of tonight's Ponystock concerts and hear some live acoustic and rock music. Interrupted by Official Princess Business, and had to run back to the room.[2] Yes, that's a euphemism. No, it's not for what you think.
2 am: Got invited out to the hotel pool for a late-night swim by the met-on-the-road folks. Highlights included a Want-It-Need-It spell being cast on a three-foot inflatable beachball, as no fewer than a dozen swimmers swarmed the object in an unsuccessful attempt to sink it, resulting in a giant, wet, writhing pile of man-flesh. R63 writers, start your engines.
Overheard (afterward): "It's a bird! It's a plane! It's morally questionable undergarments!"
Saturday, noon: The Editing and Prereading panel packed the room, and the audience lit up the panel with questions (among which were the expected "Where do I find an editor?" — ponychan's /fic/ and FIMFic's prereading groups — and "How do I walk the line between improving someone else's story and overwriting their style?" — short answer, make all the suggestions you can, because that's what you're there for, and then hash out with the author what they're willing to fix. Learn to recognize the difference between when an editor is suggesting a change, and insisting on a change. Ask for clarification if necessary).
1:30 p.m.: Skipped the "Literary Merit" panel in favor of lunch. In hindsight, that sounds like the punchline to a self-deprecating joke.
On the other hoof, it was lunch with Skywriter and S.R. Foxley [2], so I don't think you could blame me. We even got to have awesome metaconversation about what ponies discuss in casual conversation, given their apparent lack of professional competitive sports teams and the nature of their weather. (Conclusion: Gossip.)
4 p.m.: This was "Iron Author": I was a judge, so I couldn't legitimately compete, but I was stuck in the room for the same two hours that all the participants were given to write.
So I turned out 121 lines of blank verse on the competition theme.[3]
6 p.m.: The obligatory trip through the dealer's room yielded the obligatory rich haul of swag, including a silk handkerchief sublimation-dyed with Princess Luna's cutie mark, which now has a place of honor peeking out of my vest pocket. Also a new Princess Luna mousepad, a Princess Luna tie, a Princess Luna hip flask, a Princess Luna keychain, and some Princess Luna wall-art.
Somewhere in there, I accidentally bought a non-Princess Luna souvenir. I'll have to give it away as a gift before anyone discovers my sordid, shameful secret.
8:30 p.m.: We've now been cloistered in a hotel room for two hours, eating Domino's pizza and judging the 21 Iron Author entries. It's pretty inspiring seeing what authors can come up with in two hours! It's also occasionally cringe-inducing, because two hours often doesn't leave you any time for editing, and the "don't judge it on grammar and spelling" rule only goes so far when you're working through a story about Rainbow-Dash and Apple Jack and a lavender unicorn.
It was interesting seeing the wide variety of fics and the imagination that went into interpreting the prompts. (One author identified "Canterlot Vaults" as the place where pole vaulting competitions were held.)
11 p.m.: ALICORN APPLES, the Writing Social was PACKED. There were something like 50 people hanging out in the room, packed around various round tables and chatting and trading stories back and forth. I got a sneak preview of GaryOak's latest, whose title involves Princess Celestia and wingboners, and which would be far less entertaining if it took itself at all seriously.
2 a.m.: After the writing chat died down, I got to have a long and thoroughly excellent private conversation about Official Princess Business, interspersed with a brief trip to the main stage to take in the techno-hiphop-rave music thing and get a bit of dancing out of my system.
2:30 a.m.: Official Princess Business.
3 a.m.: Overheard at ConOps: "You missed the Harmonization of the Ehs."
Sunday, 11 a.m.: More Official Princess Business. My list of places where this has been conducted now includes: in the hotel pool; in our hotel room; wandering the halls late at night; and in the middle of a writing track panel.
1 p.m.: After much scrambling (and some last-minute Official Princess Business in the dealers' room), we're checked out of the hotel and in the home stretch for the last day's worth of writing panels.
2 p.m.: We reconvened the Iron Author panel and read out loud the stories of the three competition winners. I also volunteered, because I am insane and have no concept of "available free time", to offer a critique of their story to any of the participating authors who dropped me a line after the con.
5 p.m.: The final panel, "Making The Big Time," about how to draw in more views for your story and get it into the FIMFiction featurebox, went well! I actually moderated it (because it was my suggestion in the first place), and we managed to fill up an hour and a half with tips on how to advertise your story and write things that will get more attention. Room was about half-full, which is pretty good considering we were scheduled against "Ask The Storyboarders" and a lot of the writing crowd peeled off to listen to the show's staff.
Gracefully decamped not long after Closing Ceremonies for dinner offsite, and that was that. All in all, a good con. My time was far more structured than it usually is at such an event (talking at panels will do that), but I got to meet some familiar names[2] and new faces, buy some great souvenirs, and take away some wonderful memories. Going in, I wasn't sure how much fun I was going to have at such a focused fan-based con where I didn't know many other attendees, but I would strongly consider doing this again (despite the travel time and logistics involved).
--
[1] I wrote messages on paper and held them up to my window. They nodded and thumbs-upped.
[2] I looked for darf, but couldn't find him. I'm sure I'll catch up to him tomorrow!
[3] I have been asked to post it. Expect a new story by tomorrow.
please more of these. it's like i'm really there! pls only post things that include my name or references to me so i can live vicariously through your egoboo
Sure sure make my job of stalking you easy.
Requesting special guest appearance by Luther 'My Harshwhinnial' Blisset, plz
1190075
I tried man but I kept on missing you
1190077
Stalk faster! The con's halfway through closing ceremonies!
1190332
He says: "Sarry nernym but i 1/2 2 fed my cats so I cant not driev 2 Satteal 4 teh con., also I can/t driev,"
1195356
maybe if i actually go to a con i'll have people mentioning me ;_;
also
i could have helped with this
1195362
I actually passed on a number of pieces of advice I learned from you (and name-dropped you), so both I and the panel attendees appreciate your help!
1195366
Having edited it, I can say that sums it up perfectly.
Did anyone take any recordings of the panels?
I am too lazy to google.
1196385
There weren't any official recordings; any unofficial ones I'm unaware of, but I'll keep my ear out.
Incidentally … speaking purely hypothetically, how would I go about properly destroying an accidentally purchased sun-cutie-mark pin? (It's metal. It won't burn.)
Assuming I have correctly gleaned the nature of Official Princess Business, it was an honor and a pleasure to engage in Official Princess Business with you.
1197069
You take a print of the cutie mark from the object you want to destroy and then layer it over any similiar moon cutie marks nearby. You must also paint the objects holding these in traditional celestial colours. Following this, the spirit of Luna becomes so enraged by the desecration that the source of the cutie mark -- your marked for dereliction object -- is consumed in a fiery storm of her wrath.
This is science and has been proven to work.
Errrhnnnnggghhh all of my jelly.
The phrase Official Princess Business conjures images of Luna with a briefcase, jacket, and tie. I hope the actual event was at least half this adorable. (I have my guesses, although it's not something I'd choose to do in a pool.)
1204579
Luna in business attire is a picture I would commission in a second.
I'm pretty sure you have enough context from private conversation to suss out the nature of OPB, so I'm curious why you'd find a pool in particular to be contraindicated. (Ponies do in fact swim. Canon has established this.)
1205110
Official Princess Business Attire.
A pool would work. Like I said, it's not the environment I'd choose—but we've already established that you and I have very different approaches to that sort of thing.
I hope you will be attending this convention again next year. I have been wanting to hug you for nearly a decade now and I feel kind of upset that I only just now realized who you are because I was at EFNW this year and could have done so XD
1416010
I'm helping with the writing track next year so I definitely plan to attend!
I'll also be at FurCon in January (and Babscon in April).