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This past Friday/Saturday I went to CONduit, a science fiction and fantasy convention up in Salt Lake at the Radisson Hotel. Now that I’ve established my geekiness (not that it was ever in question ;)), here’s a recap.

Friday

My first impression, as soon as I walked into the registration area and saw all the people in costumes, was that I was glaringly overdressed in my dress shirt and pants (which is what I wear all the time, apparently because I wish I lived in the 1800s or something). It ended up working out okay, though.

The day was a whirl of panels on topics ranging from Dollhouse (Joss Whedon’s TV show) to writing evil overlords (making them believable, that is) to YA publishing.

I haven’t watched many episodes of Dollhouse, but the following Joss Whedon has collected is fascinating and I figured I could learn from him. And I did learn some valuable things from that panel — mostly ways to deepen my own writing, seeing what makes fans go gaga.

Ditto with the evil overlords panel; we talked about things like making your overlords sympathetic (they have to think they’re the hero of their own story, for example, because hardly anyone is evil just for the sake of being evil) and researching real-life villains like Hitler and Stalin.

For me, the YA panels on both Friday and Saturday primarily burrowed their way into my brain as a rabid urge to WRITE. In all-caps. :) That basically describes the whole conference, actually: in almost every panel I went to, the discussions got my writing soul itching to write. I almost had to force myself to stick around each time — I was sorely tempted to book it and find a quiet corner of the hotel where I could pull out my laptop and write for hours.

After a great panel by Howard and Sandra Tayler on structuring their creative life (they do Schlock Mercenary full-time), my friends Josh (who told me about CONduit in the first place) and Daniel and I headed up to the boardroom so they could check out Paul Genesse’s book release party for The Dragon Hunters (which I’d never heard of). The party was over, but we ended up hanging out with Paul and some of his friends for an hour or so, mostly geeking out over Lord of the Rings.

Saturday

The YA panels on Saturday included one on the Harry Potter phenomenon and another on the Twilight phenomenon. (Ironically, most of the people on the Twilight panel hadn’t read the books.) (I tried reading the first book recently, but watching the movie apparently drained me of any need to read it. I tried. And failed. And tried again. And failed again.)

Another disclaimer: I don’t take very good notes. Most of the time I don’t take any notes at all; I used to, but then I never went back and read them, so I’ve mostly stopped. Which is why these summaries are more general than specific. :)

Anyway, one of the panels I went to was actually a recording of two episodes of the Writing Excuses podcast (by Brandon Sanderson, Dan Wells, and Howard Tayler). I’d never listened to the podcast before, but I ended up liking it a lot. The first episode (season 3, episode 2) featured Aprilynne Pike (#1 on the NYT bestseller list right now for her book Wings) and was mostly about how to make your fantasy or science fiction novel feel real. The second episode was a general Q&A with the audience. I can’t remember much of it, but that’s okay because I don’t have to — it’ll be online soon. :)

After the conference, Josh and Daniel and I went to dinner at the Gateway food court with a bunch of people, including Aprilynne, James Dashner (whose Maze Runner book is being published by Random House), Rebecca Shelley, and Paul Genesse. My overwhelming desire to not look like a fanboy ended up quieting me for most of the rest of the evening (silly me), but even so, it was a lot of fun. Authors are real people.

We returned to the hotel and ended up hanging out till 11 p.m. with Howard and Sandra Tayler, L.E. Modesitt, Julie Wright, Eric James Stone, and others (including a brief stop-in by Dave Wolverton/Farland).

Hmm, it probably looks like I’m name-dropping. (That’s because I am. :P)

Anyway, the conference was a blast — definitely worth the $45. Writing conferences and workshops rock.