In a few days I’ll be off on my annual summer holiday for a much needed week of rest and relaxation in the sun. It will give me a chance to catch up on my reading (see previous for my list of books I’m taking away), my sleep and to recharge the batteries because when I get back it’s going to get very busy for a while.
In August I will be attending the second annual Nine Worlds event. I’ve posted about it before and after hearing such great things about it from last year I’m really looking forward to it this year. Not because of my small role in helping to organise a small part of it (the podcast track which I’ve running with a friend), but because of the many other tracks that are running at the event and the variety. Conventions are typically quite linear, organised around a particular TV show, or film, and to be fair sometimes there are cross TV show conventions, where a few guests from two or three shows.
Book conventions often bring together authors from related genres and sometimes there’s a tangentially connected guest from left field, but by necessity really events are quite focused so people know what they’re getting when they buy a ticket. Nine Worlds is the first convention of its kind that I’ve seen in the UK. One that has a track for books, and you can spend all weekend at that one, but if you want to jump over here for a few hours and do something else you can. So I’m going to jumping between monitoring the podcasting track, attending panels on the book track, dipping in and out of the games track, and possibly the gaming area, browsing the dealer room and probably dropping in on a few other panels here and there. I’m also appearing on a couple of panels, one for the podcast track and one for the book track, but I’ll post more info closer to the time.
Another reason I’m excited about the convention is because I don’t get down to London very often, maybe once or twice a year, and it will give me a chance to meet up with a lot of convention friends I only see when I’m down there. I spend a fair amount of time talking to them online via social media and email, but it really isn’t the same. So I’m really looking forward to sitting down and chatting over a pint or two, and meeting up in person with some new people I’ve chatted to online for the first time.There are too many to name individually, but I’m sure there will be photographic evidence and lots of blog posts after the fact.
So at Nine Worlds there will be copious drinking, hopefully a few games of Cards Against Humanity and I’m taking my Magic cards and might get to battle a few people with those, although I am incredibly rusty so it will take me a while to get back into the swing of things. When I say rusty I’m not being modest, I mean it. The last time I played Magic was when it first came out, maybe ten or twelve years ago, so I definitely need to practice a bit. Overall I think it’s going to be a cracking weekend but utterly exhausting.
Thankfully it’s nearly a month until the next convention, Fantasycon in York, so I will have plenty of time to recover. I’m not running anything at that event, so it should be a bit more relaxing, but no doubt there will be more drinking, meet-ups, panels and organised chaos.
After that it’s all quiet for a while, so I’ll be head down grafting away on book 2, then making a start on book 3. As tiring as the events will be they’re actually really good for invigorating me, and they make me want to get back to my own writing. I think it has sometimes to do with being around so many other creative people. Even though I could away exhausted it’s a good thing. So, I’m off soon, have a good summer holiday and I’ll probably see some of you at Nine Worlds next month.
Stephen Aryan 