I am heading off to DragonCon in the next few days. I’m looking forward to hanging out with my friend Maryann and spending a weekend indulged in geeky and writery pleasure. DragonCon has always had a special place in my heart, even before I started writing. I’ve described it as 40,000 of your closest friends getting together for a five day party.
As of this moment, I’m in the middle of packing and preparing things for while I’m gone. This involves checking items off a list I compulsively started when I decided I was going six month ago, set up meals that will be easy for my mother to prepare, set up a blog post that will hit while I’m gone, and enough laundry for the next two weeks.
The more fun part of these preparations is deciding what panels to attend. It is also the most frustrating. With almost forty different tracks of programming spread over four hotels, each one their own con-within-a-con, you will not be able to do and see everything. That is a fact of life when attending DragonCon. My time slots are double-booked at minimum, with one even quintuple booked. I will decide when I get there which panel I’m attending based on who is presenting, how much I want to hear them speak, and how close they are to where I’m standing.
I have noticed a change in my panel selections this year. I told myself that I am going to have fun. I wasn’t going to do the writer’s workshop offered because that would cut too much into my fun time. Maybe some year when there weren’t people whom I really want to meet. I’m gravitating towards writing craft and publishing panels, things that have to do more with how to be an author instead of for pure enjoyment. I do have those things scheduled to, but this may turn out to be more of a working vacation than I originally thought it would be.
I won’t be trying to update this blog while I’m gone. Normal posts will resume on September 8th. Watch my Twitter, Facebook, and Flickr for any updates while I’m gone.