Do you think you can get 2500 words of fandom coming from inside the building?

No, I can get only maybe 700 words out of it. I need to take a cool shower and think for a bit.

But you can get 4,000 words out of the Internet wants your daughters (which is not included in your completed word count)

Then you have:

The Bronze Is Dead. Long Live the Bronze! Save Firefly Imposter! Safe Harbor from Ann Arbor Celebrity Pussy Everyday Apocalypses Gay Wedding Tree. High Stakes Together, Alone Random Acts of Paypal The Fandom Is Coming from INSIDE THE HOUSE!

Sounds like you have 6,300 hundred words easy from all of those. Er and I don't mean truly easy - but easy in the sense that the words are definitely there in the topics. No padding needed.

t waves at GWW for the first time in yonks

Gar, I think most of those topics are already included in the word count, on account of being written.

Allyson, facile maybe, but a serious suggestion nonetheles because it's so deep in the reality: dressing the part.

Not just the whack of the guys who rubber up in full Klingon foo for Baycon and other conventions; what does one wear? If you're there as a guest and part of a panel, is there the snob factor of looking out at a thirteen year old girl in fishnets and fake fangs as she makes kissyface at James Marsters, and thinking "you dopey little peasant"?

Not to mention the bonding over costuming, for those who participate.

And can you do an interview essay? Cheap, fast and generally wordy and interesting way to eat wordcount in nonfiction.

Gar, Allyson needs an additional 6300 words. Most of the stories Allyson named above were already written months ago.

Allyson, you're going to get it done, and it's going to be great. What you already have is so fun, so readable, and just so good.

Here are ideas in no sort of order. Maybe they could be stories of their own, or included in mini-tangents in stories you've already written:

• Geo

• Zoe and/or Schmoker

• The fifth WITT

• Buffista voting, Bureaucracy, and how you invented the Lightbulb

• Crazy anecdotes from other fandoms (e.g. MsScribe; Victoria Bitters -- Buffistas can link you and/or fill you in, and/or give you contacts from the other fandoms -- the Victoria Bitters one could flesh out the Penlind story)

• Sock puppets: How they were often considered funny at the Bronze (Buffy's bra strap, etc.) vs. how they're seen here, and some discussion of harmful ones (the MsScribe thing I mention above could tie into this).

• A companion piece (or a fleshing out of) "The Internet Wants Your Daughters" (which I haven't yet read), about being Fury's webmistress, and taking the flak when he'd get a bit of truth on fans, about Spike and women who write love letters to the Menendez brothers. Maybe it could be called, "And your Daughters Want the Internet".

Did you do a story about your own move from Boston to L.A.? I'm not seeing it in your list. It's been a long time since I've read your essays, and I don't have a great memory for stories I've read, but it seems to me when I read at least a couple of them, I wanted more of you in them.

Allyson, I can't wait to read this book.

Also, I like deb's idea of an interview.... get the opinion of fandom from someone on the other side of the biz.... Tim springs to mind, of course, but I bet there's several folks who could have an interesting side to the story.

Sorry - I thought everything after daughters was unwritten. What about the "schmoker" kerfuffle here - a sock puppet by a previously banned person.

My drabble for the Garbage Can Challenge:
Clutter

She’s not the type to throw things away lightly and it shows. Her filing cabinet looks like Staples threw up, lying in wait for that moment twice a year when she unearths something “lost” and it vindicates her stepping around all the clutter for the next six months. If she just holds on and looks busy, maybe it’ll all come back. The sense of purpose that made her make all those index cards for the book she never wrote. The love that prompted all those birthday cards from people she hardly sees, these days. If she throws out the physical proof, is it like saying they never existed? She isn’t sure, but after tossing a few token items that aren’t totems, she sifts the stuff and puts it back.