Finally, some TIME!

So NOW I can be a wee bit more detailed on the specifics of the goodness of Keycon. And the badness of driving three thousand km in one weekend, essentially solo. Yay!

Friday

Well, technically Thursday night, but calling it Friday is close enough. We took off shortly before midnight Thursday night, and reached the city limits about quarter after. Nothing particularly eventful about the drive, really, except that a) I got to watch the moonrise just as we crossed the Saskatchewan border, which was pretty neat due to the air particulate from burning off old crops, and b) there are a surprising number of cyclists on the Trans-Canada Highway. But, we essentially arrived in Winnipeg without incident, and headed to the Con, at which point I had been without sleep for approximately 32 hours. Guh.

But, upon arriving there, I looked in my program and lo and behold, free ice cream! Now, being a Con virgin, I didn't know what else the 'Ice Cream Social' entailed; all I really knew (all I needed to know, really) was that there was, in fact, free ice cream involved. Remember: sleep deprivation. So my sister and I headed over towards the free ice cream. Whereupon I promptly lost all ability to speak coherently along with what few higher brain functions I had remaining to me after quite so many consecutive wakeful hours - Jaqueline Carey was serving the ice cream! She, of course, was the majority of the reason I'd just driven over 1400 km on no sleep. So, needless to say, I found myself a bit... overwhelmed. Particularly when she came and sat down with us and hung out and chatted. I'm afraid that I probably didn't make an especially good impression, but fortunately, she seemed to have forgiven me for it as the weekend wore on.

As for the rest of Friday, really not much else of note occurred; Jacqueline had a panel that nighht on Sex in Fantasy, which was rather fun, but unfortunately running against the screening of Serenity, which ticked me off a little bit. Actually, BOTH of the Serenity/Firefly related events were running against Jacqueline's panels. So I was less than impressed with the scheduling, although having said that I realize that this problem is largely a function of trying to have enough variety in the events to keep people interested. It's just not possible that EVERYONE will be happy with one's program scheduling. So, on that score, Keycon is entirely forgiven.

Saturday

After ten hours of sleep to recharge the batteries, we headed back to the Con for more geeky goodness. I got to partake of a little bit of the Firefly Big Damn Trivia game - not as a contestent, but as the resident 'Vanna' for the first half of the game, as the event was two hours long and, as mentioned earlier, running against another of Jacqueline's panels. But the game (what I saw of it) was fun, and I got a Fruity-Oaty bar out of the deal.

Then it was off to Jacqueline's panel on the trials and tribulations of becoming a full-time, professional, self-sustaining writer. It was actually pretty funny, because her original talk had been on the fact that it IS work, and it takes a very, VERY long time, and many rejection letters, and so on and so forth. Essentially, her journey towards becoming a writer was much like that of, oh, about 99.7% of authors out there. But the interesting thing is, she wasn't the only author on the panel.

Now, of course a panel like this one attracts every aspiring author who was at the convention, and there were quite a few. The surprise was that one of the people attending was Scott Lynch, an up-and-coming fantasy author. So up-and-coming, in fact, that his first book won't hit the shelves for a few more weeks yet. The interesting thing about him is that he got published in a very unconventional way. He had posted the prologue on his blog (and my apologies, I've lost the URL for it) and an editor for a publishing house got in touch with him a few weeks later to inquire about buying the book. Of course, he hadn't actually written it yet, but small things like that do little to deter someone whose dream has just been dropped in his lap. The short version is, within two years he had completely drafted the first 3 books and was on board with the publisher for a seven-book deal. So his story made an interesting counterpoint to Jacqueline's tale.

As for the rest of Saturday, there was also the Masquerade (in which my sister competed, though sadly did not place) and a party; several parties, in fact, most of which I stopped in at for at least a short time. But we all have to sleep eventually, and there was an early event the next day that I had no intentions of missing: the book signing.

Sunday

Actually, the funniest thing about the booksigning was that Jacqueline actually didn't know which room it was in, so it was a good thing (on several counts) that we ran into her on the way. I, of course, had brought my entire hardcover collection (all first edition, but sadly lacking a copy of Kushiel's Dart, on account of the impossibility of actually FINDING a copy of said anywhere in Edmonton) which are now all signed. The other reason that it was good to run into her was that we were able to get pictures before the madness of the booksigning ensued, which was nice. And when I say madness, I mean MADNESS - to date, Keycon was the only Canadian event on Jacqueline's calendar in the foreseeable future, so a great many people who couldn't make it sent their books with friends in order to get signed. There was one young man in front of me in the line who had brought 15 volumes to be signed. Craziness!

The rest of Sunday was spent drifting between wrap-up parties in the hospitality suites, and then, I went the art auction. Ooops. Bad idea.

Ok, in my defense, my original intentions behind going to the art auction were to make sure that the couple of pieces I'd bid on in the silent auction went home with me. And I'd made some good bids; a print for my stepsister, as a thank-you for housesitting on the first weekend we had the house to ourselves, one for my parents as a souvenir, and (I confess) one for me. The two that I'd bid on as gifts went without incident; nobody outbid me on them, so I got them for a song. But the one that I'd bid on for myself, I got outbid on by a very determined man on the other side of the auction hall. No problem, I thought; the same artist had several more prints in the auction, I'll just pick up one of those. But on every piece, that same guy outbid me. Finally, the last Williams print came up, and I started off the bidding; he outbid me, I one-upped him, and before I knew it, I'd more than doubled my spending budget from the entire weekend. Oooops. But, I came out of it with a really cool print, and I KNOW I keep promising pictures and not delivering, but it's one of the many, many downfalls of life without a digital camera. Ah well.

Anyways, we wrapped up Sunday night at the Dead Dog, the after-Con party at which all of the leftover food and booze is disposed of by obliging attendees. Unfortunately, because I was driving back to Edmonton the following morning, I had to make it an early night - I think that next year, I'll pay the extra hundred bucks and fly out, and also get a hotel room; it'll be WAY more fun that way, and I can get much more into the whole Con spirit.

Monday

Well, the drive home wasn't much to speak of; it was nearly thirty-eight degrees the entire way across Saskatchewan, and I thought I was going to die from the heat. But, in the end, we made it home alright, and promptly began making plans for attending next year's Con. So, if anybody wants to split on a hotel room, and take a trip to Winnipeg next May, just let me know! I'll be there for sure.

In other news, the Edmonton Oilers are currently 3-1 on the series; it's been a pretty wild ride so far. Let's see how they do tonight!