The festival started at 10AM today, but we needed to help set up the booth, starting from a position of greater disarray than normal. Steven suggested we meet him at USC around 6:30AM, and we tried, but that’s so early for us that we might as well have tried time traveling. We arrived a little bit later than asked, but we brought breakfast so all is forgiven.

Parking was a thing. When we entered the orbit of USC, we found a volunteer and asked where we should go. He directed us to the Royal parking, which as it turns out, is for authors and participants. I am an author, but I didn’t sign up as a participant. Melissa and I were just here to help with the booth.

The details get grainy and boring, but to spare you some of it, we parked where we were told, but did not have a code to complete a webform. I asked around to get a code, but no one working the event could help. Maybe I parked illegally all day? I don’t know. To try and rectify the situation, I used my phone to apply to be a participant. I don’t think they’re watching that form anymore now that the event has already started. I’m not sure what parking is going to be like tomorrow.

The parking garage is about a mile away from our booth. I made a few trips, carrying some wooden crates and two boxes of books. Not fun. Fortunately, the rain waited until after I finished hauling the goods.

I remember hearing there would be a 60% chance of rain on Saturday morning. It didn’t come as a surprise, but I didn’t expect it to be such a downpour. We pulled books from boxes, trying to get them in place on the table while at the same time, our space kept shrinking because rainwater seeped down the walls of our tent, threatening to ruin all our merchandise.

I’m not sure how we did it, but we kept the books and boxes safe. Some table cloths got a little wet, and packing paper placed to prevent precipitation from penetrating our place wound up soaked. Our neighbors on one side, noticing that their roof was drooping, decided the best course of action was to push the bubble of water up and out, which meant about 5 gallons of water flooded over our wall and into our space. Thankfully, we moved our stuff to the other side of the tent before they drenched us.

Melissa was ready to go to war. She managed to hold her temper until the sun came out, and we left to go eat $25 hamburgers from a van. After that, she calmed down and everything was fine.

I really enjoyed talking to people today. We didn’t get a ton of sales, but I had a good time.

Towards the end of the day, I spotted Chuck Wendig walking by and I said hello. I was going to buy him one of my books, but he didn’t have the space to take one. I walked with him to his next event and we chatted about writing and promoting books while the world is on fire. He remains one of the coolest dudes in the community, and it was a real treat for me to get to meet him again.

Melissa and I are back in our sketchy room. Outside, I can hear angry shouting and cars racing by. Melissa asked me to bolt the door, and for once, I did it without complaint.

Tomorrow should be sunnier. Hopefully we’ll have more people at the booth. I don’t think the sales will justify the cost of participating, but I’m enjoying the adventure, and I’m really glad we came.