Friday

There's a thread on Twitter from Gail Simone https://twitter.com/GailSimone/status/1086275965355941893 about awkward/weird convention moments.

I've had so many I honestly don't remember them well but one still stands out. It was at a convention in 2014 or 2015 (after the first few Raksura books had come out and after my Star Wars novel was out, but long before Murderbot. I think the second Emilie book, Emilie and the Sky World, was about to come out.) I got added to a panel at the last minute, because two of the other writers on it had had to leave. It was on writing fight scenes, and was in a fairly big room, with a full audience.

So I got there early and was one of the first to arrive, and I put my name tent on the table. One other panelist was already there, and he was someone I hadn't met before. He takes me aside and tells me about the other two writers who had to leave early and wouldn't be here (which I knew) and how they were very big deals, and that the audience was expecting a lot, and how they had this panel every year, and it was a big deal, and that the audience would ask questions, hard questions, etc, and how he had already asked another important writer to be here so I really wasn't needed.

He was basically kindly giving me the head's up that I wasn't cool/important enough to be on the panel and should leave before I embarrassed myself.

I didn't leave, it turned out to be a fun panel with fun panelists (with one exception) and I was the most experienced writer there, so.

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