I’m writing this from the dealer’s room (free wifi!) at WorldCon, an annual international science fiction convention devoted to books and art. This year it’s being held in Montreal, and it’s been a terrifically great Con – I’ve had lots of conversations with interesting writers and publishers which I’ll be posting on io9 in the coming week. io9 also co-sponsored a party last night with Circlet Press, which featured bright blue drinks and a giant pile of porno books. It was a perfect prelude to the Tor.com rock band party, where I played bass as John Scalzi sang a Journey favorite. I think the moral here is that everything goes better with Journey.

Next I’m heading to the Netherlands to give a talk at the Hacking At Random camp in the wilds of Vierhouten. I’ve always wanted to go to one of these semi-annual hacker camps and so I’m psyched to be part of the program. My talk is Thursday, Aug. 13, at 10 PM and it’s called “The Censoring Mob,”. It’s about the dark side of user-created content. You know, the part where mobs of people online censor other people’s work by flagging it for removal or by using griefing pile-ons.

Then I’m heading over to Paris, where I’ve never been before, to spend a week poking my head into museums, eating a lot of yummy food, and getting some work done on the final chapters of my novel.