Fourteen hour drive to the big Star Trek convention? No problem. That’s just listening to the Strange New Worlds musical episode soundtrack 28 times.
My brain’s usual overriding algorithm — if you hear Star Trek related words, that’s exciting and worth attention — does not work very well at this gigantic Star Trek convention.
I keep hearing Star Trek related words from every direction, and my brain is overloading.
This is the second time I’ve been to Vegas. The first time, we drove over from college to see Star Trek: The Experience. This time it’s for the Trek to Vegas convention. So… Vegas is weirdly synonymous with Star Trek for me.
At a pho place, after a very long day…
Daniel to me: there’s a pitcher of water next to us.
Me back: what? Did you say there’s a photo of a pigeon next to us???
Sadly, there was no photo of a pigeon. But we were able to look up photos of pigeons on our phones. You can too!
Sci-fi and furry cons trained me to find people’s names on their badges. So, at this Trek convention, I saw a man with “Copper” on his badge and reasonably thought, “this is a man named Copper.”
It took three Coppers before I realized it’s actually membership level.
I am tired.
In one day at this Star Trek convention, I’ve sold more than at the entirety of the last sci-fi con. And for once, The Necromouser isn’t my best-selling book, but it’s running a close second to Tri-Galactic Trek.
This Star Trek convention is overall much more smoothly and professionally run than most sci-fi and furry cons I’ve seen, but I’ve never had other vendors prank me into losing an hour and a half of sleep at a sci-fi or furry con.
The announcements are too quiet to make out in our corner. So, one vendor came along saying loudly they’d announced the room was closed (true) and they’d changed the schedule to open early tomorrow (lie). All the other vendors who knew each other played along, so it seemed legit.
It’s impressive how committed writers’ organizations are to becoming obsolete. I wonder if they’ll reverse their stances in the next couple of years or if they’ll just go under and get replaced by new organizations that can handle how society is changing.
It is wild to me seeing all these people in Vegas walking around in the 100+ degree weather like they aren’t darting as fast as they can from one bubble of AC to the next.
What better place could there be for working on Otters In Space 5 — which begins at a Tri-Galactic Trek convention — than behind my table, between selling books at the biggest Star Trek convention?
Okay, yes, it involves a lot of interruptions. But also, a lot of inspiration!