Here begins the madness that is the days before Dragon*Con.
I love this gig. Honestly, I still love it. But it becomes like a marriage over the years. In the beginning, every aspect was exciting and every detail had to be perfect. No effort felt like effort; all the things done were labors of love, without a single string attached. It was exciting, and it was new, and even the rough times were fun.
Then the years wear on. This is our sixth outing to Atlanta, and the little hardships get to be more and more pronounced. The running. The waiting. The rejections. The logistics. The technical difficulties. The exhaustion. The planning. The running. The blisters. The lines. The people. The work. The running.
It doesn’t mean we aren’t going to give it our all. There’s a lot of interesting things to cover, a lot of old friends to catch up with (both among the guests and on staff), and there’s always something to see and do. It’s not a tiger cage in the hot sun by any stretch of the imagination.
But it’s a lot of stress. I always say, it’s usually not fun until it’s all over. As many things go wrong as they go right, but it’s usually the ones that go wrong that eat away at me as the weekend progresses. There’s the thrill of, “I’m doing something I love” coupled with, “I need results.” It’s all well and good to hang out with the cool folks, but when the day’s over I better damn well have something worthwhile on the recorder or I’m gonna spend several hours beating myself up afterward.
My wonderful assistant this year is
If you’re gonna be there, let me know and I’ll try to find you all at some point. (Maybe a meet-up? Hrm. I’ll post something on the main RDA page.)
In any event, keep in mind this week is going to be crazy for me. It’s time for the balls to meet the wall.
Yeah, that sounded better in my head.
