It’s the day after my first WFC and looking back on the past four days, I’m quite pleased I came. I went over budget on food and books, but given that it’s a literary convention I think I can be excused on the excess of books. In actuality many of my purchases were magazines; market research for places to send short stories. I should even be able to write off a number of these.
The hotel was quite nice, possessing a large enclosed Atrium that most rooms looked out into or opened onto. The only problem was the guests in the room above plugging their toilet (ugh) and the overflow starting to drip through into my bathroom. The hotel was good about this, however, and gave me a certificate for two free breakfasts and moved me to a new room immediately.
Austin is probably a nice city, but I didn’t have a chance to see any of it outside of my hotel and the airport. I’m in too much of a hurry to get back home to my family to take an extra day even if I did have the extra vacation days.
Food and portions in restaurants here are enormous. I don’t think I finished any meal that I ordered myself and found it much less wasteful to split orders with friends instead.
The convention itself was interesting. The number of panels left fairly slim pickings most of the time. I missed a few that I hoped to get to, but wound up in conversation with new people and so didn’t feel short-changed. I made too many passes through the dealers’s room and bought way too much as I already mentioned. Now I have to haul it all home. I attended a number of good readings, though again, I’d hoped to get to more. I even managed to get some time to write. I only managed a few business contacts. I’m hoping that next year I won’t be preoccupied with job searching and career switching and I’ll be able to spend more time researching the industry; something on which I’m lacking knowledge.
Dispatches from Obscurity 