Common folk didn't have last names in the 8th and 9th centuries.

Providing a writer isn't put off by conventions - and some are - attending them can be a nice break from the necessary isolation of writing.

Storylines are how characters create the plots involved in their stories.

I think it is probably more important to attend specialized conventions for a journeyman writer than any other, but it's useful at all stages of a career, if for nothing else, to find out how the industry is working at any given time.

I outline fairly extensively because I'm usually dealing with real events. I don't need to give myself as much information as I used to, but I still like to have two pages of outline for every projected 100 pages of manuscript.

I'm not a good collaborator in general.

If they aren't real enough to surprise me, then they aren't real enough to go on the page.