Conventions always slip my mind. I book the hotel room, the plane tickets, and listen to the pre-con buzz, but it never dawns on me that I’m actually going until…oh, the night before. Then, it’s a mad scramble to pack and organize books, and it still feels unreal until the moment I pick up my badge.

That’s how Balticon feels right now.

I have my schedule. Apparently, my past self was very crafty and booked my flight and hotel a while ago. I even have plans to meet up with a few people.

It still doesn’t feel like I’m actually going.

I didn’t believe I was going to Dragon*Con until two days in.

Nor has it really sunk in that I’m going as a guest. I’ve termed this feeling “Cinderella Syndrome.” Every so often, I look at my Facebook wall and think, “Oh, wow. How has this become normal?” Answering that would be another post in itself…and may or may not crop up on a few panels next weekend.

Speaking of panels, here are the ones I have confirmed:

Friday

4:00 pm – Meeting Other Podcasters

5:00 pm – Professionalism and the Emergent Writer

Saturday

2:00 pm – Writing Real Children

Sunday

11:00 am – Autograph Session (and reunion with Tim Dodge! Woot!)

12:00 pm – Professionalism and the Young Writer

1:00 pm – Reading

8:00 pm –From Page to Pod

Monday

10:00 am – Introvert’s Guide to Social Media

So…basically, I don’t intend to sleep this weekend. At all. If you’re around the con, come say hi! I like people. 🙂

Writing may also be a bit iffy. I’m just over 1/3 of the way through the Massive Strix Rewrite. If I keep to this 2000 words/day pace, I should be finished in just under a month (hopefully I can cannibalize more words from the original draft near the end, but I’m not holding my breath).

We’ll see. The dayjob, while awesome, is also very physically tiring…but I’m incredibly anxious/eager/excited to get this thing out to Gabrielle and my cast.

In our historic kitchen, I am Daisy.

Next week: The Balticon Round-Up!