I survived!

Yeah, that was a little melodramatic, but considering I was headed to an event where it is rather common for everyone to get some sort of plague, the fact that I was able to dodge the concrud despite being immunocompromised is very impressive indeed and, if I may say so myself, a crowning achievement to an awesome weekend!

Highlights: 500 people showed up to my signing with Matt Dinniman, D.J. Butler, Lucienne Driver, and Jonathan Maberry. Granted, 499 or so were there for Matt, but who cares? By the standards of the Guardian, I am a REAL AUTHOR™ now! Sorry Larry, you’re gonna have to wait your turn.

My signing at The Missing Volume went very well. Sold some books, signed a lot more, and recruited people to the Bronze Legion. Ten years service guarantees citizenship, talk to your local recruiter today. Most of them were intrigued by that STUNNING cover art by Pierluigi Abbondanza. Not that I blame them. It really is a pretty cover.

Melissa Olthoff and I were also on a panel about Military Veterans Who Write. I didn’t know what I was expecting when I got there, but the panel was arguably my favorite of the weekend and we covered a wide range of things, including someone accidentally volunteering to set up some sort of veteran writers association. That would be very cool and I’m interested in knowing more.

Getting to meet Jeff Hays from Soundbooth Studio was also super cool (Sorry about the kidnapping you out of the bar! Hope your girlfriend forgives me!). I’m not normally an audiobook guy but he brought Dungeon Crawler Carl to life in a way I don’t think anyone else could have and I have really enjoyed them. It was also very cool to see a lot of my friends I haven’t seen in a long time. It feels like Dragoncon is the only time I run into them these days, which is sad.

Lowlights: My eyes were bothering me still and having all that fluorescent was absolutely brutal. The Dragoncon staff were very accommodating and on more than one occasion they dimmed the lighting in the panel room so I could actually see a little. The colors and shapes were there, but I had zero details for facial recognition and needed to be escorted around the con because I kept running into things. My eyes are recovering from the sensory overload, and I noticed today that I have details and everything back again. Still have a weird little blind spot on my left side, but it’s nowhere necessary for me to function.

All in all, a very successful Dragoncon and I already am looking forward to things I want to do next year!