In from the cold
I’m feeling absolutely gutted I couldn’t make it to FantasyCon this year, or the year before that, or the year before that, or the year before that…
The first ever FCon I went to was World FCon at Brighton in 2013, so going to the next World version in the same place would have been *chef kiss* It’s my own damn fault – part financial, part head broken, part do I deserve to go? For a multitude of reasons, I hadn’t written anything – not just OF NOTE, anything at all – for years, and it felt silly to attend since I had nothing to push, nothing to show off, or to discuss, or to brag, rant, or joke about. I know that’s not how it works, and I know for damn sure these things are the last place where any real progress is made with writing. But some part of me still said “nah, you have to be a real writer to go to them things”, and I haven’t felt like one for a while.
The other parts, brain/money/life, are also my fault, but equally stupid and illogical reasons to not attend – hell I had friends try and gift me my time at Brighton for birthday presents and I still couldn’t flip the switch in my brain that would allow me to go.
It’s heartbreaking and beautiful, all at the same time, to see people connecting and reconnecting, laughing and joking, businessing and flaunting, reliving and making new memories. There are people attending that were where I am now last time I went (occasional short stories and bugger all success) and now they’re novelling mega stars with film deals and multi-million pound contra…or near enough. You think that would be inspiration enough to get me on a train and in the hotel boozing and schmoozing with the rest of them, but that ain’t how my brain works anymore…apparently.
The good news is I have been writing. I switched my brain on (or off?) and made some sort of progress on a handful of projects. I’ve dusted off an old novel, somewhere south of a zeroth draft and added more than a few words. I’ve spawned and finished an entire short story for an anthology that tickles my fancy, and I’ve even entered a competition or two looking for words to amaze.
Somewhere around 10,000 words of progress in a month or two and it feels goooood.
I don’t feel like a writer yet, and I certainly don’t feel like I should have gone to FCon, but I’m starting to feel like I should reach out and make those connections again.
I attempted to rejoin some old forums, but I’ve been gone so long they don’t exist anymore! Yeesh. Talk about been away too long! I tried some new forums, but damn are they few and far between nowadays. One had strict “prove you’re a real writer” restrictions that I don’t meet, one has still failed to get back to me to approve my account…three weeks after I signed up, and the other is full of self-aggrandising arseholes talking about everything in the universe except writing. C’est la vie, maybe forums aren’t for me anymore.
So I’ll creep back in the old-fashioned way, by lingering by the competent lot and finagling my way into conversations, until people realise I’ve stuck my head above the parapet. If you hear from me, or if you don’t but feel like a chat, be gentle! I want to come back in from the cold, but everything has changed and the people are scary and the coffee tastes different!