(Title is hat tip to a British comic strip I read as a kid)
For the second year in a row, I attended Ravencon in Virginia Crossing near Richmond. It’s a lovely place to hang out.
The programming schedule was perfect: enough time between my panels to browse the dealer’s room or go back to my room and crash (with four pets, I’m almost never completely alone these days). I ran into a couple of friends (Wayland Smith, Lisa Hodorovych), talked to a few writers I hadn’t met. The only drawback? I didn’t get an author table so I didn’t have a chance to push my books. Despite which I sold two — one two a guy who’d bought one last year and liked it, one to a dude who liked the cover of Undead Sexist Cliches.
I was supposed to follow that up with Atomacon in North Charleston, SC, this weekend. However lugging my suitcase full of books (just in case …) and a stuffed backpack around Ravencon kicked my bursitis into high gear (the old “doesn’t feel too bad, I can lift more stuff” error). I decided the four hour drive to Atomacon, followed by more lifting stuff — I did have a table reserved — was a bad idea.
That was disappointing — I like selling books and I was one of only two panelists on a couple of panels (so it’d be a pain if I wasn’t there). I looked into flying, thought it would be affordable (probably not practical for my bottom line, but still) and it was … but by the time I’d checked the time-frame with TYG, it was $300 more and that’s with the return flight getting in close to midnight Sunday. I contacted Atomacon who were wonderfully good sports, and said they’d credit my table fee to next year.
(Cosplaying Holy Grail‘s Killer Rabbit)
I haven’t once second-guessed myself so it was definitely the right movie. And my shoulder, while improved, is still sore enough I know how much it would have hurt Monday if I’d gone.
That did give me a full week to work, which was good. I spent a lot of it research reading: The World War II Combat Film by Jeanine Basinger (that took a while. It’s a very dense book) and The Savage Dyaries by Dafydd Neal Dyar (reviews to follow). I got some work done on Let No Man Put Asunder and three movies watched for Jekyll and Hyde.
Oh, and my short story Bleeding Blue sold to Stonecoast Literary Review, my first sale in a while! Me, a literary person, imagine that!
