Four days is too short

It has been ages since I have done a proper con report!

I met jpsorrow at the airport in the wee hours of Thursday morning. Hijinks and adventures were had, and I refrained from eating any babies on any of the flights, though my self restraint was sorely tested. 

San Diego was a wonderful, alien place full of sunlight and warmth. pbray lurked at the hotel lobby like the faithful aberration that she is, and shuffled jpsorrow off to their room while I wandered off to look for the room I was to share with icedrake, his wife, and the bebbeh. unforth would arrive and join our crew later that evening.

I wish I could remember the specifics of the weekend. I saw panels and readings, and friends I love and miss. It was absolutely glorious to get to see la_marquise_de_, and to pass along the ferret puppet I had found for her. I was gifted with two of her books, one replacing a beloved title lost in the flood and another that makes me giddy at the thought of reading, about the historical Musketeers.

This started a trend throughout the con that humbled me and left me in tears at least once. At the mass signing Friday night, msagara, upon hearing what had happened, presented me with a staggering pile of her titles- all books that I had loved and lost. icedrake hunted down Peter Brett and gathered me a replacement copy of Warded Man (which I had purchased, but not been able to read before flooding). scbutler has replacement copies for me.  Brent Weeks, Ian Tregillis and Pat Rothfuss all signed replacement copies for me and took the time to sit and chat for a few. I know I am forgetting something or someone, but it was honestly overwhelming, in a good way. In an excellent warm and fuzzy way. 

Dinner with matociquala and scott_lynch was a riot in that fantastic relaxing sort of way that allows me to forget I am an overly anxious person and just sit back in a bar and enjoy making dirty jokes with some brilliant and wonderful human beings. 

I flew back withjpsorrow- another sleepy, infant-filled adventure- and got to see what a plane flying through snow at night looks like. It is actually very pretty. I was sitting over the wing, so the lights there kept glittering on the snow flakes as we sped by. It was beautiful.

There were so many congratulations on my first sale, well wishes on continued success. It makes me want to ignore everything else going on and just...write. I always leave the company of these friends with the feeling that I can do this thing, this writing and publishing. That, combined with the fact I genuinely love every minute spent with them, really makes the hike to WFC worth it.

And hey, I left with an invitation to submit to another anthology, so I guess I have some work to do!

Book Rec- The Folded World by Catherynne Valente

"We are all just humans, and most of us fools, and all of us longing for more than we have, to know more than we know- and yet even that is not enough, for if we knew everything we would only be disappointed that there was not one more secret to uncover." -Catherynne Valente, The Folded World, pg 170

Review can be read here!