KJ

I am home from FogCon, and just like last year and the year before, I'm happy, but also pretty fried from so much mental stimulation and socialization with people I don't know well. I expect this will be common to any con I attend. Worth it -- I just have to be prepared for it as an aftereffect. And now, thoughts on today's activities:

( Longish, a bit rambley. )

Then I attended the post-con feedback session and then I came home, where I flopped out until it was time to go to the grocery store. And now that I've emptied my brain of its post-con thoughts, I can take the rest of the night off -- and turn around in the back of my mind whether I ought to finally make good on my long-held temptation to attend WisCon this year.

First day at FogCon: complete! The first panel I wanted to attend was at 4:30, and I got here about an hour before that, which was plenty of time to check in to the hotel and settle in. That panel was about building a world and creating a criminal justice system based on that world, and it was fun and serious and silly and just very hard to describe. After that was the dinner break, which I spent about half in the con suite snacking and chatting with people, and about half in my room writing up a few notes for my panel tomorrow. Next stop was ConTention, which is not so much a panel as an event, during which the attendees have moderated arguments about all kinds of science fiction and fantasy related topics. This is a tradition at FogCon, and I have to say it's one of my favorites -- having intelligent discussion about all kinds of topics, with an opinionated moderator who's good at not letting things get out of hand, and chatting with folks afterwards. And I had a great shining moment, too, when I introduced the moderator and a few other people to the concept of slash goggles (in the context of whether the text of Harry Potter supports J.K. Rowling's contention that she intended Dumbledore to be gay).

There were a couple of late panels that sounded interesting, but by then I was really hungry, so I grabbed dinner in the hotel restaurant and then went back to the con suite, which was hopping with nice people and fun conversation, and I spent two hours standing around and chatting with people about all kinds of things. Once nice thing about FogCon is that every year, I feel like I find more people who are in fandom and who are familiar with the fanfic community -- there are a lot of writers at this con, most of them writing for publication, but many of them write and/or read fanfiction as well -- and it's one of the few offline places that I can be really, truly comfortable with being open in my identity as a writer. I have to say, it feels pretty good.

And now to wind down a little bit before bedtime, and my Big Afternoon. Let's hope I don't die of nerves between now and then.

I'm about to fall over from tiredness -- a combination of post-con collapse and lack of sleep from work stress (long story) caught up with me actually around lunchtime, so I left then rather than sticking around for the last panel session and the post-mortem -- but I want to make note of the last things I did so I don't forget it all.

I went to two sessions today. The first was a panel on loving problematic things, which was big and messy and complicated and sometimes frustrating and could have been at least an hour longer. It ran almost ten minutes long as it was and left a lot unresolved. I might have more to say about this one later. It was definitely worth going: I know I got some food for thought out of it.

The other was the Guest of Honor reading, which I attended mostly for Nalo Hopkinson, who is a wonderful reader -- her writing has a strong voice, and hearing it in her own voice gives it a stunning musicality. She read from her new YA novel, Chaos, which I immediately went to the vendor floor and purchased. I hadn't been familiar with Hopkinson's work at all before she was announced as one of the GoH (the other, Shelly Jackson, was unfortunately not able to attend at the last minute), so I made a point of going out and picking up a couple of her books -- I didn't do that before the last FogCon, and I regretted it -- and read one, Brown Girl in the Ring, which I totally recommend.

After that, as mentioned, I was pretty wiped out, so I grabbed lunch and headed home. Sorry, if anyone seeing this missed saying goodbye to me, or catching up with me at all! Next time, for sure.

I am here, just taking a few minutes in my hotel room between events. I arrived around 3:30 and have gone to one panel so far, on genre fragmentation, and I spent most of the time with my librarian hat on, listening to people talk about classification and tagging and recommendations, and I wanted to say something brilliant about it but never managed to come up with a thought coherent enough to share. Still, food for thought about how to make recommendations to people, and how to get your writings found online.

Next is the Social Media Meet-up in the con suite, at which I may meet some of you who will read this! *waves* I haven't exactly been active online in any FogCon related venues -- mostly I just follow the Twitter hashtag and friended a few people right after last year's con -- but I'm looking forward to the opportunity to connect with people IRL.

This year, I'm staying in the hotel, even though Walnut Creek is only about 45 minutes away from my home. I like the idea of being able to disappear into "con space" for a few days, hide out from the real world a little bit. As long as I hide out from the real world within con space, rather than my hotel room. This will be the challenge...

I hope to do a writeup at the end of each day like I did last year, and I'll probably also post tidbits to Tumblr (#kj at fogcon), if anyone is interested in following along. And if you're here, come say Hi!

I should probably have done this awhile ago, but despite today being shorter I was pretty zonked when I got home, so I crashed on the couch with T and Dragon Age and the cats for awhile.

Today I just did two panels, went to lunch with folks, and sat in on the post-mortem. There was an after-party as well, and I thought about going, but my social energy limit was just about tapped (which is probably why the couch had such a strong hold on me this evening) and so I bowed out. Maybe next year -- and I expect I will go back again next year -- I will feel more confident in my ability to go up to people and talk to them. I did end up feeling pretty comfortable talking in panels, though. While my lunch group was gathering, one person mentioned that their friend was a first-time con goer. When I said that I was, too, he seemed really surprised and said that I didn't show it.

So anyway, some quick thoughts before bed, and maybe I will come back with a more coherent conclusion tomorrow.

( Thoughts on day three )

Deep thoughts will have to wait for tomorrow. For now, sleep. If you are reading this and you were at the con: thanks for making my introduction to the world of cons such an excellent one! It was great to see/meet you, and I hope you enjoyed yourself as much as I did.

Just some assorted notes, mostly so I can keep track for myself of what I did and learned today. No one should attempt to use these as a complete write-up of anything, since I didn't take any sort of notes (except for keeping a running "oh boy, more books I need to read" list on my iPhone).

I got to the hotel around the time the programming started, about 1pm. I attended three panels, a reading, and a free-form debate, as well as the opening reception, and they were all interesting in their own ways. In order:

( This is long, I guess not surprisingly. )

And now, to rest up for tomorrow. Programming actually starts at 9AM, but I fear I'm not going to be able to drag myself in that early. However, there's a panel at 10:30 that I definitely want to see, about Being Wrong on the Internet, so if I want to make sure to arrive in time I should get some sleep.