#Balticon 47 Wrap Up – A new Year Begins
So I’ve been back from Balticon for almost a week now and having had a few days distance from the event, it’s time for the wrap up.
Veronica Giguere and Scott Sigler (sporting a Detroit Redwings Playoff Beard) at the Bar on Sunday night.
As always Balticon proved to be a wonderful experience, and an awesome time to catch up with old friends who I talk to on a fairly frequent basis outside of the convention as well as connect with new names and faces who I’ve only come to know in the past year or who have been previously unknown to me as fans and listeners.
It seems that every time I go to Balticon, I’m both humbled by the people who know and are looking to see me, while at the same time being slightly embarrassed that I’m not more active in the community than I already am and within 24 hours of my return to Chicagoland, my podcatcher picked up two and a half days (no exaggeration) of new podcast media that I’ve either not heard of, or not had the opportunity to listen to, that I now am driven to consume. I could spend all this post listing the amazing people I had the opportunity to hang out with, but I’d likely forget someone. But suffice to say, I always have a list of people I want to catch up with when I go into Balticon and I’m always worried that I won’t get to see everyone. Well, not only did I see everyone I had hoped to and catch up with most of them, but I met even more wonderful and fantastic individuals.
Doc Coleman, Starla Hutchton, Renee Chambliss and Christiana Ellis and I talk about juggling squirrels.
As this was my first Balticon as a guest, I sat on 8 panels and had a reading. For the most part I felt the Panels went well, though there are a few that I wish were better attended, and one specifically on the business side of being an author (or any other creative for that matter) where I think we barely were able to scratch the surface. This is due mostly in part to the depth of material and the time constraints of just an hour. It’s my hope to work with a few people over the summer and have something to propose to the con committee for inclusion into next year’s program. Some of these panels were recorded, though none of them are mine (bad podcaster), and one of the new studio purchases I’ll be budgeting for will be for a Zoom H4N for next year.
Technically I lost a bet and owed Veronica Giguere dinner on Saturday night. DARN!
One thing that DID get recorded, however was my reading. I read the first two scenes from Slipspace: Harbinger . I do have that recording, and it will be going into the feed at some point this summer as a bit of a preview of what’s to come when that podcast goes into full production. (Watch this space)
But it wouldn’t be Balticon without a creative shot in the arm. And Ohhh boy did I get one this time around. I walked into the con on Friday with 3 or 4 projects in mind. I left on Monday with a half dozen more. Now, not all of them are for me. Some of them relate to the convention itself, or to my work for Escape Artists. But between a fantastic brainstorm with Veronica Giguere and Starla Huchton I have a well developed framework for a new novel I’ve been noodling with. After a great dinner in which I settled a bet with Veronica, we re-visited our outline for our co-written project tentatively titled “Prospect” And after an interesting conversation on faith, with my new nemesis, KT Bryski, I believe I have a hook or two in line for the future Cybrosis novels.
I seem to have found a new nemesis in KT Bryski. I went easy on her. My mistake.
As I said, there’s so much I could go into and discuss but it’d take far longer than I have and you all might get bored. Instead I’ll simply say this – In my last post, which was a bit of a downer, I spoke a lot about the anniversary and the milestone of a single year. I won’t delve back into that topic here, but as I flew home, putting notes together and drawing up lists of things that needed to get done so I could ride the momentum out of Balticon and into a productive summer, I realized that yes, this is the start of a new year. This is the start of a new creative year for me and now that the pieces are finally in place I am very excited for the year to come. There is much to do, and much still to announce and a lot to look forward to over the next 355 days before Balticon 48 begins anew!
[image error]
