Lunacon Update
Had a good time at Lunacon this weekend. Since it was in nearby Rye Brook New York, I figured there wasn’t really a need to book a room in the hotel, and just day-tripped it on Friday and Saturday.
On Friday, my first panel was at 6PM, so my con wingman Jay Franco and I decided to leave his place in Queens at 4, so we’d beat rush hour and get there with plenty of time, maybe even time enough to get dinner.
That was the plan, anyway. I left Brooklyn at 3:30, and averaged 11 MPH on the Brooklyn Queens Expressway to cover the ten miles or so to Jay’s place in Astoria. From there it was another hour and forty-five minutes to the convention. We arrived at 5:58, and had to really hustle to make my first panel on The Sarah Connor Chronicles.
I’m no expert on the show, but I do watch and enjoy it, not only because it has River Tam… I mean Summer Glau on it. I did a surprisingly good job of hold my own on a panel full of people more obsessive than I by far. Eventually the conversation just devolved into a discussion of temporal mechanics, which is enough to make anyone’s head spin.
After that I went to the room next door for a panel on D&D 4, discussing whether it was the Windows Vista of D&D. I voted yes, but that may be because I think 2nd Edition Skills & Powers expansion wasn’t broke and didn’t need to be fixed. 3rd and 4th editions seem designed to make D&D more like a computer game, which in my mind defeats the whole purpose. The beauty of D&D is that it’s NOT a computer game.
After that we hit the program participant reception where there was a cheese fountain where you could make your own nachos and take healthy vegetables and cover them with liquid processed cheese food for extra healthiness. They also had a big bubbling cauldron of chocolate and pretzel rods and marshmallows for dipping.
Never let it be said geeks don’t know how to throw a party. They even had Guinness.
After that was my reading, but it was 9PM on a Friday and competing with the Masquerade Ball and cheese fountain, so it wasn’t much of a surprise that no one showed. Readings from unknown authors aren’t much of a draw under the best of circumstances.
We headed back that night, and I got a whopping 4 hours of sleep. I might have gotten 6, but Cassie was up screaming twice. She’s got two teeth now, with more starting to cut. Doesn’t make for sleep-filled nights.
I budgeted plenty of time on Saturday, because I was driving my agent Joshua and his assistant Eddie as well. Jay, Eddie, and I all had panels at ten, and I didn’t want us to be late. We let Astoria at 8:30… and got there in 30 minutes.
Ah, New York City traffic! I love you.
My first panel was called Geeks with Kids, and I was the only man on the panel and the only one with an infant. Three of the panelists’ kids were all fully grown. I asserted my commitment to raising Cassie to not only get but also appreciate daddy’s obscure Star Wars and Lord of the Rings references, and then wisely shut up and let the established moms take over. I spent most of the remainder of the hour making faces at the baby in the front row.
After that was Jay’s panel on The Year in Comics, which was pretty good, giving an overview of both industry info and content.
I kick myself about my next event, which I had thought was another panel where I and some other authors would be discussing writing action scenes. I was really looking forward to that, as action is one of my specialties, but when I showed up, it turned out that it was not a panel at all, but an intimate class of would-be writers, and guess what? I was the only teacher.
Ugh.
I can blame the con planners in part, since they never told me that I would essentially be teaching a class, but I also blame myself for not asking more questions. My name was the only one on the participant list, but it was followed by a comma, and I figured the others were TBD.
There was a moment of terror when I realized I had to talk for a full hour, but thankfully I didn’t have time to freak, with twenty eyes staring at me. I took a deep breath, and winged it.
It went okay, I guess, but what really bothers me is that I could have done a MUCH better job if I had known what I was walking into and prepared better. I really lament the lost opportunity, because I think the attendees got shorted a bit. I am going to be angry at myself for days over it.
I had a short signing after that, and then Jay was moderating a panel on Writing Combat Scenes. Jay was nervous since he had never moderated before, but he needn’t have been. It was easily the most interesting panel I’d been to that weekend, mostly due to author Eric Flint, who had a lot of great commentary. I wish he’d taught my little breakout class. I would have wanted to attend myself.
By then it was after 8PM, and we decided to get outta Dodge. The ride back was a zip, and I was able to drop everyone off and be home by 9:30. Cassie should have been asleep by then, but she was wide awake waiting for Daddy to come home, and daddy was overjoyed to see her as usual.
Maybe next year I’ll bring her to the con with me.
Why don’t cons take more care with their panels? I mean to say, they don’t always tell you which panel you’ll be on, let alone if it’s a class you’re supposed to teach – they leave it to you to figure it out! That seems to be really poor planning, not to mention a total disservice to both the people ON the panels and the people ATTENDING the panels. What gives?