I meant to have this post up earlier this evening, but my laptop ran out of juice and I wasn’t anywhere near an outlet.\u00a0 I was out of power and I just couldn’t do the writing I wanted to do.<\/p>\n
Looking ahead at what I’m about to write, that’s actually a pretty good segue into talking about Worldcon 2018.<\/p>\n
As I’ve said before, Worldcon is special to me.\u00a0 When I went to the Worldcon in Reno a few years ago with Michael Gallowglas, my life was changed.\u00a0 Going to that event was like breaking the surface of a the water, coming up for air after so much time drowning.\u00a0 I will always have a sentimental attachment to Worldcon, and I’ve tried to go to all of them since Reno.<\/p>\n
This year, I attended Worldcon in San Jose one week after Melissa and I attended the New York Writer’s Digest conference.\u00a0 I went to New York, had a fantastic time, but then came home and went right back to work, and kept working until we drove to San Jose.<\/p>\n
Getting into the event, it felt more like Day 5 than Day 1, for me.\u00a0 I was tired and cranky, the weather was hot, and it felt like a long walk between our hotel and the conference center.<\/p>\n
Like my night writing tonight, I went in with the best of intentions, but I just didn’t have enough power to be effective.<\/p>\n
This isn’t to say that Worldcon 2018 was terrible.\u00a0 It was fine, I think.\u00a0 I just had a hard time enjoying it, and it was my fault.\u00a0 I spread myself a little too thin going into it.<\/p>\n
There’d been some drama regarding the programming before Worldcon even started, and Mary Robinette Kowal had helped straighten things out.\u00a0 The programming seemed fine, but I thought the panels were a little too short and the rooms too crowded.<\/p>\n
I think I only attempted to attend four panels.\u00a0 Half of those, my work called me and I had to step outside and take the calls.\u00a0 Again, I think the event itself was fine, but external factors pulled me out of it.<\/p>\n
That pretty much sums up the whole experience for me.\u00a0 My body was there, but my mind off somewhere else most of the time.<\/p>\n
This was also the first convention my kids have ever attended.\u00a0 They’re 20 and 22, and I wanted to share this part of my life with them.<\/p>\n
Bryanna had a great time.\u00a0 There were several dancing events that she bravely attended.\u00a0 She loves swing dancing, so she fit in perfectly.\u00a0 Later, we found a steampunk hat in the dealer’s room that she loved.\u00a0 We got it for her, and she received compliments on her hat the rest of the weekend.\u00a0 She also attended a panel that was on contracts and said that she really enjoyed it.\u00a0 Bryanna had a great Worlcon experience.<\/p>\n
Chris didn’t have as great a time.\u00a0 He tried to attend a couple of game related or craft related panels, but either the material didn’t work or the instructor wasn’t as prepared as they needed to be for the number of people attending.\u00a0 Two days in a row, Chris went off to have fun and get into his element, only to return a short while later disappointed.\u00a0 That was a little frustrating.\u00a0 He didn’t complain, though.\u00a0 I think he enjoyed what he was able to get into.\u00a0 There just wasn’t much there for him.<\/p>\n
That’s the thing about Worldcon.\u00a0 It’s a fannish convention, but it doesn’t appear to offer that much for the younger crowd to draw them in and make them permanent fans.\u00a0 Bryanna will happily come with me again, because she’s a writer, a voracious reader, and there were enough quirky things at this convention to please her.\u00a0 Chris, who is more into video games and movies than books, isn’t going to want to go to another convention with me.<\/p>\n
I enjoyed the kaffeeklatches.\u00a0 I mostly enjoyed Barcon, though I had trouble socializing.\u00a0 I would have liked to have bought Lee Harris a drink, but I didn’t see him much.\u00a0 I met Sam Sykes, completing my Sam Sykes\/Myke Cole\/Chuck Wendig bingo card for the year.\u00a0 I thought I learned what I needed to know about querying one of my stories, but in practice, probably picked up the wrong information.<\/p>\n
Worldcon this year was just okay, for me, and I don’t blame the organizers.\u00a0 One of the lessons I learned is to give myself a break between events when they’re scheduled so close together.<\/p>\n
One of the best things that happened for me was that I got to meet my friend Michael Roberts (@inkandmagic on Twitter).\u00a0 He’s a great guy!\u00a0 I’m looking forward to meeting him again without the distraction of Worlcon around us.<\/p>\n
Tomorrow, I’ll write about the New York Writer’s Digest conference, and the next night, I’ll write about the Writing Excuses Cruise.\u00a0 I wanted to talk about Worldcon first because of the three writing-related events, it was the one that gave me the most underwhelming experience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I meant to have this post up earlier this evening, but my laptop ran out of juice and I wasn’t anywhere near an outlet.\u00a0 I was out of power and I just couldn’t do the writing I wanted to do. Looking ahead at what I’m about to write, that’s actually a pretty good segue into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1020"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1021,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020\/revisions\/1021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/briancebuhl.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}