Illogicon IV

The fourth annual Illogicon was this weekend, which brings my attendance to three and a half. Last year my car was making some horrible noises on the way there and I couldn't focus enough to enjoy it until I took the vehicle to a shop. Unfortunately I found the failure to be both a bad oil pan gasket and a crapped out AC compressor. Anyway, there's no need to dwell on the past in this case, but I did regret having to miss Mary Robinette Kowal's panel on the intersection of sci-fi and puppetry.
Okay, Illogicon IV, 2015 was great as it is every year. I didn't run (as I did last year) nor play a tabletop RPG this year but I did attend some really great panels. I'm not the most extroverted person so I can't say that I interacted directly a whole lot but I did have a few small conversations with the guys looking to get Worldcon in Washington DC and one of my friends, Jenny Moore, who is one of the partners of Yarn Twisters, an outfit you should solicit if you ever have the chance.
Most of the panels I attended dealt with writing, which has been a staple of the con from its beginning.  Christopher J. Garcia, who edits the Drink Tank fanzine, was the fan guest of honor and totally fun, I'll be sure to be reading his work. Gail Z. Martin and Misty Massey were two very cool ladies who are also involved in a Kickstarter for a story anthology called Tales of the Weird Wild West, which I'm backing. I'm going to go ahead and admit to having a bit of a crush on Natania Barron and her book, Pilgrim of the Sky, has jumped to the next spot in my reading queue, as well as Kaiju Rising, which includes a story by James Maxey, and Larry Correia (whose Grimnoir Chronicles I love). Baen (they also have a good free ebook library) was in attendance again and put on the usual good showing of books recently released or soon-to-be released books, and I definitely took notes. Saturday night offered a great panel regarding independent publishing put on by Chris Kennedy, Ian J. Malone, and Thomas A. Mays (also adding them to the to-read list).
It's partly because of them and all the other writing-related panels that has led me to beginning this blog and returning to posting on my others as well as my intent to focus on writing again. Last year was the year I began reading more than watching TV, movies, or playing video games, 2015 will be the year I refocus on writing, which is something I haven't done in earnest since high school. So, we'll see what happens there as I practice writing short stories (not my strongest), essays (which I've always enjoyed) and complete the first draft and begin revising the novel I began with NaNoWriMo 2013 (I accomplished around 53,000 words by month's end). So those are my plans for this year. And if anyone winds up reading this, you should check out all of the links I've put up in this blog as all of these people are really cool.