This is a con. Where is the bar.

My WindyCon experience this year was kind of perfunctory. My only scheduled events were on Saturday, but I didn't know that until I already had Friday off. This is good, because I have a lot of writing to do, so I stayed home Friday and wrote. Unfortunately, that went terribly and I'll probably have to throw out the lot, but that's not the point. Sometimes you have bad writing days.

On to the Con!

I was able to convince Jen to attend with me this year, which was fun. She doesn't usually come out to these things, but we haven't seen much of each other recently because of my writing schedule, so it was nice. Plus she got to see me be an author.

My first event was a reading at 11am. In the past my readings have been poorly attended, simply because no one knows who I am and I always get an early slot. These things go hand in hand. But my usual retinue of people came out (four or five folks who come out to a lot of my stuff because they know me. If just they show up I have trouble getting the reading off, because we just sit and talk. It's weird to just read to your friends) and we had two others show up. After the reading one of these two had me sign a shirt from last year's convention (It was a steampunk theme. Jason Blaylock had signed. Scary.) and the other gentleman had a copy of Heart of Veridon to sign.

I think that's the first time someone has gone out of their way to get a signature on HoV. I mean, people brought copies to my signing last year, but again those were people I know. People I refuse to think of as fans.

Readings are tricky. It's the one time authors actually perform their work, and I don't think most authors put enough thought into it. I'm not the best at it yet (next year I will read while standing) but I do what I can. Rather than just present a chapter and then take questions, I pulled three selections from the first three chapters and read them, with some explication and packaging in between. I hadn't practiced the in between bits, though, so I kept remembering things I meant to say before, or explaining the bit I just read after I read it. Imperfect. But I think the form is good and I'm going to stick to it, probably with some more practice ahead of time. I was worried about the clock and then ended up with all sorts of time. There was Q&A, and then it was off to lunch.

Sat in the bar for a couple hours, ate lunch, drank with some friends. Emptiest con bar ever.

Second event was a panel called "Writing Despite the Day Job." I am qualified to be on this panel. I don't know what to say about it, other than it went well, I feel that the audience was engaged and entertained. Some difference of opinion on how to go about getting better. I think that you need to write your way out of writing groups, but that's something I've come to later in my career. Also, none of us are Thomas Wolfe or Stephen King. That doesn't make sense unless you were there. So be there next time.

Other stuff. Uh, there's a worldcon bid for London in 2014. I find that exciting, but in a very distant sort of way. And I had corn beef hash, scrambled eggs and hash browns for breakfast, then came home and took a long nap. Still recovering.