May 5, 2023

This year was my first year attending Flights of Foundry, a 100% free 100% virtual convention for speculative creators put on by Dream Foundry. It’s been going for a few years now, and I had heard of it on the periphery of my awareness in years past, but this was the first year where I decided to check it out for myself.

I am so glad I did and so sorry it took me this long to do so. Flights is the complete SFF convention experience. Readings, panels, workshops, live sessions, demonstrations, meet-ups, hall-con, pet slideshows! They had it all. It was actually a little overwhelming at first, and I definitely didn’t budget enough time each day for everything I wanted to do. But that’s what next year is for.

The following are descriptions of what I was able to attend and what I got out of the convention so that anyone else thinking of looking into Flights as one of their future conventions can see that it really is something well worth your time. I learned a lot, had a lot of fun, and I did it all from the comfort of my own home on my own budget.

Day 1: April 14, 2023

Jennifer Hudak Reading

This was unfortunately the only reading I was able to attend, but wow am I so glad I did! I am a huge fan of Hudak’s work. She writes some of the best cozy fantasy out there with some of the most dynamic characters. She gave a reading of several of her flash pieces, and let me tell you, it didn’t matter if I had already read those stories. Hearing them read aloud, in a community of readers and writers, was a whole other experience. Her writing lends itself very well to an audio experience, and it was a great way to kick off my weekend with Flights.

Making Found Families
Speakers: Rosemary Jones, Greg Clumpner, Jennifer Spirko
Moderator: Ellis Saxey

It is no great secret that I love found families in my fiction (I love them in my reality as well, but that’s a different beast). I’ve always wanted to write about a found family, so I decided to attend the panel about how to make one. My greatest takeaway from this discussion was the introduction to a new term I had not ever heard before: The Heroine’s Journey.

I think we’ve all heard of the Hero’s Journey before as a basic structure for a character’s story. The Hero gets called to the adventure and leaves home. Then, with help but mostly on their own, defeats the Big Bad and returns home, solo. The Heroine’s Journey takes a different format. Rather than the Hero being the One True Hero to defeat the Big Bad, their story involves them gathering together a band of many heroes, and together they all defeat the Big Bad and end up staying together as a community afterward. 

Obviously this is a perfect journey to write for a found family, but I think it also presents a much needed challenge to individualism. The Heroine’s Journey is definitely something I will be looking into more, and maybe I will write about it in the future. I am very thankful for this panel introducing me to the idea.

Beautiful Beginnings: Starting Your Story Off Right
Speakers: Sarah Gailey, SL Huang, Benjamin Kinney
Moderator: Sara Davis

I…suck at writing beginnings. When I come up with an idea, it’s usually some plot or character or something that exists in the middle of a story or sometimes the very end. But it is almost never the beginning. I went into this panel to learn how to write a great, engaging beginning to help give my stories, especially my short stories out on sub, a boost in the eyes of editors and readers.

I took so many notes during this panel, but some key highlights I learned were to pay attention to the voice you are starting with, as that is the introduction to the overall vibe of the story; make sure the direction of the story is clear (what are the goals, the stakes, etc); and when it works it works, so don’t be afraid to try something new. The panelists offered a lot of insight into each of these points, and they read examples of some of their favorite beginnings. As a writer, I know now how I need to work on better establishing my promises to my readers with my beginnings and that will lead to a better story overall, starting on page one.

Your Public Persona: Who You Are As A Writer
Speakers: Steven Radecki, Joyce Reynolds-Ward, Brandon Crilly
Moderator: Jaye Viner

For better or worse, being a writer nowadays means being a brand, and how you display that brand online and with your audience matters. I don’t really like social media. I don’t use it personally, only professionally, and it is a lot of work. I do like my author website, but that, too, is a lot of work. For years, I have been trying to find a good balance using websites and socials to aid my career without harming me personally. It’s not an easy task.

This panel offered some insights and ideas for what is necessary, what is optional, and what having an online presence can do for you. The takeaway: BOUNDARIES. Set them for yourself and hold that line. No one is entitled to your personal life just because they read your stories. Decide what you want to share, share it, and keep what you don’t want to share to yourself. And when what you feel comfortable sharing changes, change your boundaries.

I’m still figuring out how to make the best use of my online presence (heck, I’m still trying to decide if I like the design of my website), so panels like this are immensely helpful for getting new ideas, having my own ideas validated, and just finding other people in the trenches of social media with me.

Day 2: April 15, 2023

Monstrous Disharmonies
Speakers: Helen Gould, Jennifer Hudak, Eugenia Triantafyllou
Moderator: Tenacity Plys

Those who know me and my writing probably wouldn’t expect me to attend a panel on monsters. I don’t write horror. I don’t really even write monsters. However, horror has been something I have been looking into, not to write it directly, but to better understand why it is such a popular genre and how I can utilize elements of it to add new layers to my cozier writings. (Also, look at that panel line up. They could have been talking about changing a tire or baseball or whatever and I would have attended.)

This panel actually went into a more philosophical discussion, and I was there for it. What makes a monster? How are monsters a reflection of the self? Of society? How can monsters and monstrous desires be freeing? All these questions and more were brought up and discussed, and I have never been so inspired in my life. I get it now, why monsters and horror are so popular. I want to learn more. There are some great insights to be gained from understanding monsters, and I have deep respect for these panelists and everyone else that can write this genre successfully and beautifully.

Submission Tetris: Management Strategies When Selling Your Work
Speakers: L.S. Johnson, Ai Jiang, P.A. Cornell
Moderator: Jennifer Hudak

I spend way too much time on Submission Grinder, checking in on my subs, finding new places to sub, and generally procrastinating on writing future stories that I will log on the Grinder. Finding markets and sending stories to them is Submission Tetris, and honestly it is a lot of work. I greatly admire all the people on this panel because you can see by their bodies of work that they have mastered the game of Submission Tetris. I’m not a very prolific writer, and yet I still fumble around, miss submission windows, and botch up my Tetris a couple times a year. I came here to learn how to do better.

And learn I did! I came away with some ideas for a better way to manage my schedule when it comes to Tetris and how to make sure my stories have the best chances by choosing or not choosing to send them out. I also gained some new insight into rejectomancy, or the art of reading into rejection emails. For example: a personal rejection is insight into editorial taste, not your story. That was an eye opener for me.

Finally, I was just really encouraged during this panel. Most of Submission Tetris is done alone, and I often wonder if I am doing it right/well. It was great to hear writers I admire validate my own ideas and ways of playing this game and see their success with it.

Meaningful Middles: Bridging the Gap
Speakers: Elle Ire, Joyce Reynolds-Ward, Jaye Viner
Moderator: Celia Lake

If you haven’t figured it out yet, there was a panel each day on different parts of a story, and today’s panel was on the middle. I am a chronic (and really unrepentant) overwriter, so my middles tend to need a lot of revision and cuts. This panel gave me some insights into what should and should not be included in the middle of a story and where to look for excellent structure examples. 

My biggest takeaway was the concept of there being three main plot lines of a story: the internal, the external, and the bonus (in the case of this panel, the bonus example was a romance plotline). To make a middle interesting and purposeful, take turns plucking at one of these three plotlines. Easy to say, harder to write, but an excellent concept to take into my next story.

Day 3: April 16, 2023

Resources for Writers
Speakers: L.S. Johnson, Valerie Valdes, Neil Clarke
Moderator: Dawn Vogel

If you follow my blog, then you might have read my post on Writing 101: How to Teach Yourself New Writing Skills. While I did get a degree in creative writing, I have spent the majority of my career teaching the art and business of writing to myself. To do so, I access a multitude of resources. This panel was just an hour long archive of everything that is helpful to writers to learn to write, actually write, and then sell their work. I was very happy that I had already heard of some of these, but I gained access to so many more resource ideas. 

There are far too many to list here, but my favorite that I already owned was Jeff Vandermeer’s Wonderbook, an amazingly gorgeous book full of essays and writing advice and practice exercises. One that I had not heard of and am interested in checking out is Writing for Your Id by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, a.k.a. creating a list of things that you love in stories so you can add those things to your own stories. If you love what you write, people will love to read it.

I will note that Dream Foundry and Flights of Foundry came up multiple times in this panel as an excellent resource for writers, so don’t just take my word for it. This convention is amazing.

Exceptional Endings: Making Your Story Linger After It Is Over
Speakers: Sarah Gailey, Eugenia Triantafyllou, Sarah Pinsker
Moderator: Diana Pharaoh Francis

I very appropriately ended my Flights of Foundry time with the Exceptional Endings panel. I…also suck at endings (my first drafts are Not Good, okay. But I can edit them well, so it’s fine. It’s fine!). There was a lot of great discussion in this panel, and there was actually a lot of call back to beginnings and how the ending has to connect with and resonate almost in the same way as the first few paragraphs. Some insights that I landed on were that there really is no such thing as an ending. There is just the spot where you choose to stop telling a character’s story. And where you choose to stop should be where the character is satisfied enough to cease the struggle (or dead, in which case the struggle is ceased for them). Whatever conflict you introduced, whatever weirdness the character encountered, when do they say enough is enough? That’s your ending.

Another point I took away was one that validated my own writing process which is…not as organized and detailed as other writers’ I have encountered. Eugenia Triantafyllou called herself a “famously oblivious writer.” She doesn’t always know the endings of her stories when she starts writing. She just has a cool idea and goes with it. I do that too! But from my background and experience, this seemed like an odd way to write, and I always thought I was doing something wrong. Now, Triantafyllou writes some of the best short stories I have ever read, so clearly whatever she does when writing works. It felt really nice to hear someone whose work I admire say they write in a way similar to mine. There is really no one right way to write, but knowing that someone else has made your process style work is no small thing when you are starting out in this industry and trying to find what works best for you.

And that is a wrap on my Flights of Foundry 2023 experience. I am so glad I attended, and the convention is going to be on my calendar from now on. I highly recommend you check out the convention and Dream Foundry itself. It is a valuable resource for new and veteran writers alike.

Learn more about Flights of Foundry

Learn more about Dream Foundry