{"id":3425,"date":"2016-09-03T23:17:35","date_gmt":"2016-09-04T06:17:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dresan.com\/blog\/?p=3425"},"modified":"2017-05-11T22:22:40","modified_gmt":"2017-05-12T05:22:40","slug":"learning-while-contributing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/2016\/09\/03\/learning-while-contributing\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning while Contributing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.dresan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/20160903_215541.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"337\" alt=\"20160903_215541.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ve been going to conventions for about thirty-five years, but have appeared on panels only in the last ten, and even that only consistently for the last five &#8211; so I still feel like a fanboy up with all the more experienced authors. And while sometimes I have a lot to contribute, I often find it\u2019s better not to ask whether I have something to say, but whether I have something to add. It\u2019s frankly awesome to be up here with luminaries like John Ringo or Esther Friesner, and it\u2019s often just best to to sit back and listen &#8211; but even then, don\u2019t give up on yourself. I was on three panels today with more experienced people, and I made sure I both shut up and listened and stepped up and said something at the appropriate time &#8211; with the result being that several people came up to me and thanked me for my contribution to the panels that I\u2019d been on. Several of the authors got together afterward, and we all seemed to think that it was our interactions with each other that made the panels great. So \u2026 think of what you can add, but never give up on your own unique contribution. It\u2019s there, you just have to find it.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.dresan.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/20160903_215517.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"337\" alt=\"20160903_215517.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Pictured: the forward and reverse angle on viewer for a panel on \u201c101 ways to kill a character\u201d which I was on with John Ringo, who chose just the moment I took my selfie to lean over and ask someone a question.<\/p>\n<p>-the Centaur<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019ve been going to conventions for about thirty-five years, but have appeared on panels only in the last ten, and even that only consistently for the last five &#8211; so&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[193],"tags":[84,5],"class_list":["post-3425","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-real-life","tag-dragon-con","tag-we-call-it-living","ratio-2-1","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3425","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3425"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3425\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3615,"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3425\/revisions\/3615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3425"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3425"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dresan.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3425"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}