it was a long weekend. a good weekend, but long. and tiring. and informative. and . . . well, and stuff. i was supposed to finish out yesterday morning, but never quite made it there, and that's fine. even after pretty much taking it easy yesterday, i'm not fully recovered from the con.
so, maybe tiring doesn't quite cut it. we're talking i worked today and had to fight to stay awake. this is very not normal for me.
the con wiped me out.
which really isn't much of a surprise. i didn't do anything much on friday night but this was also good -- i was so overwhelmed that trying to run around to panels would have shut me down. as it was, it actually came a bit close to it. i finally just found a corner and stayed there until i met up with my ride. for next year i know what to expect, this year was just . . . whoa.i did enjoy seeing the costumes though -- there were some good ones. i mean really good ones. and i enjoyed dinner with gf -- my ride/fellow dii member/friend who also went to the con.
saturday was much better despite the late night. i had a few panels i wanted to go to, and gf, went to a few with me. we were more busy, so the overwhelming crowds didn't overwhelm as much. can't quite say that for the escalators which were too narrow, getting blocked off frequently, and pretty crowded all the time. gf and i not only managed to hit the escalator when it was blocked off on saturday, but also on sunday. something about that 4 o' clock hour . . . .
i took notes for the panels i attended -- the pistol's on the wall, you better use it; fightin' and writin' (which was an EXCELLENT panel, even if I disagreed with some of the "experts"); and the business of writing. i also spent a lot of the afternoon hunting down a stargate poster for my son, then spent a WHOLE lot of money getting it signed by gary jones ("walter"), don s. davis ("gen hammond"), cliff simon ("ba'al"), torri higginson ("dr. weir" atlantis), and rachel luttrel ("tayla" atlantis). that was pretty much my nickel -- the poster was $25 and the sigs ran $20-$25, except for don davis who cut me a bit of a break when he heard who and why i wanted the signatures. the rest were greedy bastards and couldn't cut a mom and her autistic son a break. ;) the nice thing was when gf and her husband pitched in -- he found the poster, and they paid for one of the sigs and for a nice poster case to keep the poster safe in.
'course, then there was the various threats to bop people with it. ;)
i'd also already purchased 2 t-shirts and a shot glass. so, money was running thin and we still had a day and a half left. (and i won't eeeeeeven go into the havoc this has wrecked on our finances. i'm trying to look at it as a much needed vacation. really.)
one of the coolest moments: talking with elizabeth moon after one of her panels about her autistic son and how she managed to make time to write with such a demanding child in the house. she really is a neat lady. even cooler was when we spoke again on sunday and she talked about a few more ideas that she thought about after we separated on saturday.
gf and company also took me out to eat, their treat, at a nice restaraunt. i'm honestly embarassed by the amount of money they spent, but damn was that good! i have a new place where i want to eventually take saxy for an evening out. we had a great time, got in way too late, and had to get up way to early for the 3rd day in a row.
sunday was both better and harder. we were busier because of the number of panels we were attending (i think we barely got a break for lunch during which we ran down and got jim butcher's autograph . . . once we figured out where the heck he was located for autographs), harder because of my issues with the chairs (very bad for the back, very painful) and sitting on the floor (also painful, but not nearly as so). sunday's panels: poor man's war: a writer's introduction to terrorism; scary fairies (another VERY excellent panel -- butcher was hilarious!); editors on editing; anthologies; world building; and 101 ways to kill your characters. i wanted to go to the hour with jim butcher, but the line was just plain scary when i got out of my previous panel that was right across the way. so i tried religion in sf&f, but left that early because it was too crowded and too hot. we ended the evening at ihop at 1 a.m., or something like that.
while the fairy panel was really good, the other's left a bit to be desired. the guy for the poor man's war definitely wasn't a public speaker -- at least not one that kept me awake. most of the others were vague in their advice, and one of them ended up with a panel speaker that could have been a guest on "authors behaving badly." so, for me, while there was some cool info and stuff, a lot of it ended up being just plain weird. really, i think the writer's track for the con needs 2 tracks -- advanced and beginners. like i said though, i did get some good notes. i was just disappointed in the vague way a lot of the information was handled and that sense that the experienced writers weren't getting much out of things because they knew most of it already while the beginners were a little lost in just knowing what the heck we were talking about.
maybe next year i'll do more sflit panels or goth panels or something.
maybe next year i'll be on a panel . . . or something.
monday was another wake up early day, but it didn't quite stick. gf wasn't feeling well and i was downright exhausted. saxy offered to take me in after they cancelled, but i was too tired. i've been in recovery since. i've seen gf online, but haven't managed to make contact -- i think she's pretty wiped out too.
so, it was pretty exhausting, but good. i plan to post my notes on my lj or at the dii forums or something. for now, i'm going to go read a book. i'm tired. still.
word of the moment: creativity
imaginative ability: the ability to use the imagination to develop new and original ideas or things, especially in an artistic context
