¦ dialling in from Sky Bunker ¦
09:19 GMT, Sunday 5th October, 2008 - The day after the sci-fi lit & gaming convention. My first public appearance. A fantastic and rewarding experience: just a shame the joy of the moment evaporated into incandescent rage shortly after leaving.
I'm wrapped in the thick wool comfort of Starsky and my massive knee-length wool socks...not a pretty sight but at least I'm warm. A couple more weeks like this and I can see my dragging life-support out from the cupboard. The sky above my head is bright but grey, rain is whipping the landscape and hugging the ground with a fine mist: perfect Cthulhu weather. "Growing Hand" by Boards of Canada is ambiently wafting from the speakers.
Yesterday, Saturday morning, I was up at 6 A.M. then in my car, Swampy, to Hagens place; transferred all my merchandise and collateral into his car, then by 7.30 we were on the road... heading East... M4 towards London, cut North at the 8-9 junction and avoid the fekking M25. I thought I would be nervous, apprehensive...I certainly was a few months ago, but now I was simply excited and looking forward to "showing my wares".
The venue was a small market town North West of London. As we cruised up outside the place, I saw a gathering of storm-troopers directing traffic. Brilliant! They looked so cool: from a purely childhood-fantasy-transferred-into-the-eyes-of-an-adult point of view.
The organisers were there to meet and greet. Wonderfully friendly, and organised! Somebody was assigned to look after me. I had two places: a table at a room downstairs for authors, and signings; and a table in a big room upstairs for game-demonstrations.
I chose the game-demo room, thank God.
Later in the day, even the event organisers commented on how strange the author room had become. Utterly void of atmosphere, some quite sullen-faced people, sat behind huge mounds of their books... not engaging with any of the punters who dared to step in there. I thought: how much money have these people paid on printing out stock? Did they have some grand delusion before comming that people would flock to buy all their work? I had brought a few copies of each of my books: I laid one of each out on the edge of the table upstairs in the much more lively game-demonstration room. The atmosphere up there was buzzing. I got to demonstrate "Yellow Dawn" to the punters. I met interesting contacts. I gained a useful perspective on where I am placed in the general context of the gaming industry. I also recieved a lot of compliments, about Yellow Dawn, the quality of the product, the depth of the rule system, the diversity of scenario types possible within the world; a lot of this feedback came from people in the industry, so I was more than delighted. Another delight, was the interest my novels recieved: I was away from the morose author-room downstairs. *grim smile*
Hagen, Mark and Simon (and wee Orson) were there. Simon had his hands full with Orson, and was only able to stay for a couple of hours, but I was deeply touched by the show of support.
The organisers, Mr Lucas and Walter and their helpers, deserve vast applause for the sterling effort they put into this. I think, however, that it wasn't the succeess they wanted or needed. If they do put together another one: I'll certainly go again.
The incandescent rage: it involves the journey home. It's entirely unfair of me to be so angry, but, angry I am, and I refuse to conceal it. What I believe to have been an unnecessary object had to be brought back in the car with us. The object was so large and cumbersome it barely fit in the car. I keep thinking about what would have happened if it hadn't fit? We would have been in a terrible situation. So that pisses me off. As it was, the thing went in but took up so much room, some of my creative collateral had to be placed where it was exposed to risk...and sure enough, and I KNEW THIS WOULD HAPPEN, the poster boards were ruined. After all the effort Stu put into making them for me, they're now fucked. And then there was the whole "dog shit" incident. And getting bashed in the side of the head several times as Hagen took hard corners and the object slammed over and into me. Instead of coming home jubilant about the convention day, I came home tense and angry. And I've been angry all night and all morning. Irrational, probably; unfair, definately, but there you go.
Just quaffed several mugs of strong coffee, munched a bacon sarnie and am now feeling more relaxed and human.
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