My first “official” author event was a huge amount of fun. I didn’t stress out terribly, other than, as I’ve told several people, feeling like I was turned up to 11 all the time, which is exhausting! 🙂
I had a wonderful time with Ariel Tachna and Nicki Bennett, who are funny and fabulous and plied me with mimosas, mmmm. We spend quite a bit of time writing, both during lulls at the table and after hours. I also got to meet Kiernan Kelly and Kayelle Allen, who are awesome. And, in an astounding feat, Eugie Foster and I met at a non-Dragon*Con-related event and the world did not come to an end! (For our next trick, we’ll try something unrelated to any convention. Be afraid.)
We had a pretty steady stream of people at the table throughout the weekend, and it was interesting to me as a first-timer to see what drew their attention. While I did have something on the table (the Uniform Appeal anthology, all I have in print with Dreamspinner at this point), the convention is, of course, oriented toward scifi/fantasy, so that’s most of what we had available. I’ve been reading almost exclusively contemporary so far, but I picked up a ghost story and found a few more I want to read, too.
(Also, after telling Andrea Speed via Twitter that I’d sold a copy of Infected: Prey, I ended up in one of the most surreal tweet exchanges ever. It’s a very long story involving rental animal ripoffs.)
I spent other money, too, of course. The biggest thing: I ordered a corset. I’ve been thinking about getting one for a while, and the guys from Marvelous Mayhem were on hand with some of their beautiful products. Mine will need to be custom, since the standard size is too small in the bust and too large in the hips (as usual for me), so I won’t have it in time for this year’s Dragon*Con. But look out in 2012! 😉
Downside: I never did get to meet Amber Benson. Ah well. With any luck, she’ll be at Dragon*Con sometime soon!
shaeconnorwrites 