9:00 AM : Another sleepless night. I am awake but unsteady. I get it, Life. I should have remembered to bring my damned sleeping pills. Lesson learned. Now can you stop punishing me with headaches and nausea and the feeling that my eyeballs are backed with sandpaper? Because this is definitely not going to help me have fun. Thanks a whole big bunch.
10:00 AM : We bid a fond final farewell to our charming and unpretentious little room at the Accent Inn in Burnaby. It was far from luxurious, but it was comfortable, and I value that far above snob appeal any day. Bye bye, Room 278! You were not our home for very long, but you were still home, and I will always remember you fondly.
10:15 AM : I hit the Story Editing panel late. (Woops, sorry Carthage!)Unsurprisingly, Carthage brought his father, the professional journalist, to this one too. I must say, I really admire the guy’s willingness to enter our weird little world and parley with us. Shows he has the true courage of a journalist, willing to go where the story is, to reserve judgment till he has enough information, and to try to understand things on their own terms.
The story editing panel, in which we (but mostly Carthage’s dad) scrutinized some examples of prose and did some basic editing of it, was both fruitful and humbling. I feel like I learned a lot about what is necessary and what is not in prose, but at the same time, of course, I could not help feeling that my prose sucks and I need to work way harder on my writing.
I knew that was the likely fallout of attending the panel, though, and I somewhat assuaged my ego bruises with the knowledge that it is the other half of writing where I excel. That does not let me off the hook for getting better at the first half of it, what one might call the technical half, but it does mean that technical flaws in my writing do not doom it completely.
Also, I want to hand out massive props for the furry writer (sorry, but I forgot your name) who offered up one of his own short stories for scrutiny by the panel. That took a lot of courage. I am not sure I would have been brave enough to do it myself, if asked.
12:00 PM : I hook up with Joe, Julian, Carthage, and my dear friend Marzipan (not the one from Homestar Runner!) for the brunch buffet at the convention hotel restaurant. One of the best things about any convention is seeing the people you only see once a year at said convention, and I am very happy to see Marzipan. Isn’t it sad how people drift apart over the years?
Also worth noting : I am very pleased with myself at my self-control at the brunch buffet. I eat mostly salad, fresh fruit, and of course, BACON. Unlimited bacon is half the reason I go to a brunch buffet. I completely avoid all the tempting carb-laden options like hash browns and I limit myself to only one croissant. (Croissants are eighty percent of the other of half of why I go to brunch buffets. I have been known to go to a brunch buffet and end up eating nothing but fruit, bacon, and croissants.)
Even when I go to the dessert table, I come back with mostly fruit, plus some sort of nougat/fondant square that was surprisingly terrible. Tasted like the inside of one of those ultra cheap candy Easter eggs you find at dollar stores. Gack.
And that is all I had. (Well, plus two Nanaimo bars. I’m not made of stone! And they are just so damned good. And probably doubled my blood sugar all by themselves.)
2:oo PM : I attend a Multimedia Industry panel run by a fellow who goes by the name of Rocko, like Rocko from the show Undergrads, of which he is a big fan. He works in the animation industry as a sort of virtual puppetmaker. He gets the rough sketches of characters from the artists and turns them into models in Flash that the animators will in turn animate.
His job sounds fascinating and I learned a lot about how modern animated shows are made as opposed to the classical method with which I am passingly familiar.
However, his command of English is somewhat poor and his accent is very thick, and so the panel is easily as frustrating as it is informative. I am highly sensitive to language and so dealing with someone like that is very tiring and stressful for me.
I am not knocking the guy. The fact that he speaks any English at all in addition to his native tongue puts him ahead of me in language skill.
But us writer types are more intimately connected with language than most, and dealing with someone with poor command of it on multiple levels stresses us out.
4:00 PM : Laden with the exotic wares of this strange and intoxicating new realm, Joe, Julian and I once more brave the long and dusty trail back to the familiar streets and byways of Richmond, where we will tell our tales of mysterious far off lands and bold adventures.
5:00 PM : At long last, we are back home in Richmond, and with plenty of time to meet up with Felicity, have a quick supper, and relax for the evening.
As always, the end of a convention is bittersweet. You value all the fun you had, but you are sad that it is over now. It’s rather like the day after Christmas in that respect.
Luckily, soon the rhythms and routines of daily life sweep you back into their soothingly familiar tempo, and your sadness about the convention ending is replaced by fond memories, and the feeling of looking forward to the next one even more than you did this one.
And to be honest, I am really looking forward to finally getting some sleep.