As I type this, I am sitting in the luxurious lobby of the Midwest Hotel and Conference Center situated in beautiful Columbus, OH. For those of you who don't know, I am spending this weekend at Context 20, a sci-fi / fantasy convention. The convention is hosting a series of writing workshops, those being the main reason I am here, and so I get to spend 72 hours immersed in writing bliss, thinking about nothing else aside from fantasy worlds and writing techniques. I am having a blast already.
In lieu of a new article this week, I thought I would post a series of short updates from the conference. I really enjoy when other writers I follow do that sort of thing, so I thought I'd give it a shot. I am always amazed that they find time to pull themselves away from the fun of the convention to write up quick articles, so I am not sure how it is going to go. At the very least, I am imagining a few typos will emerge in these as my usual proofreading techniques will undoubtedly be bypassed.
Anyway, I flew in last night (Thursday), arriving at the hotel about midnight or so. I worked it out so that I could get in a full day at work, so it ended up being a long day for me. At 11:30 last night I found myself standing outside the Columbus airport waiting for the courtesy van to take me to the hotel. My flight had been delayed an hour, so I was a bit worried that I might have missed my ride. It started to look grim as the minutes wore on, and I began to wonder if my trip was about to begin with an unexpected $40 cab ride.
Sure enough, though, about fifteen minutes later, the little white van pulled up, and the little English driver hopped out to help me with my bags. Appropriately enough, this guy was like a character out of a Stephen King novel. You know the friendly groundskeeper that shows up in the beginning of the story with helpful advice and then comes back at the end to take the hero to the hospital? That was this guy. A little old British man with a thick accent, all excited about the goings-on and such. It was such a fitting start to my time here, I had to laugh.
Not much has happened today so far. Slept in nice and late as I expect it to be a late night. I got dressed in my new conference clothes, tried to convince myself that I look something like a cool writer, and came down to have lunch in the hotel restaurant. It was actually pretty busy down here for lunch. A bunch of--I suspect--normally introverted writers and gamers were all bustling about setting stuff up or meeting up with each other. It was a pretty cool vibe that unfortunately seems to have dissipated as I type this. I believe they were mostly con staff, and they have moved on to the box-moving-and-lifiting intensive work of setting up all the rooms.
I am going to keep myself parked down here and get some writing done for the next few hours. I believe registration starts at 5:00. It will probably be good to have a relaxing afternoon before all the craziness starts. I'll try and post again later tonight as more stuff happens.
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