Hello! It’s 2:15 AM, so clearly it’s time for the first installment of Leigh Blogs from JordanCon 2012, aka Oh God What Hast Thou Wrought.
Yes, once again I am ensconced in the depths of urbal Georgia to tell you about my adventures at the fourth annual JordanCon, and once again I have somehow been convinced to post a daily blog about it even though this is clearly an insane undertaking.
But, hey. I hear that a little nonsense, now and then, is treasured by the wisest men. So fancy yourself wise and click on for the first day!
So, Extremely Obvious In Hindsight Life Lesson #6,827: If you have a 8:45 AM flight to catch, go to sleep BEFORE 2 AM the night before. Oy.
Extremely Obvious In Hindsight Life Lesson #6,828: Check how far away your hotel is from the airport BEFORE you decide to take a cab. Oy vey.
EOIHLL #6,829, three hours later: Once your sleep-deprived and newly poor self arrives, remember to not get to your hotel three hours BEFORE check-in time. Oy vey gevalt.
Yes, so. That was not well planned. But at least I went to the right hotel. The fact that I am congratulating myself on that should give you an idea of the standards at work here.
But at least I was able to hang with some of the other hapless early-comers, which included our own Jay Dauro and Brian of the Crazy Tattoos and the indefatigable (wow I spelled that right on the first try, go me) Jimmy Liang, who bought me mac and cheese and is therefore a prince among men. Much semi-coherent chatting was had.
After I was finally able to check into my room and totally fail to take a nap, I came down to find that Many Others had arrived while I was attempting to hibernate. The Official Pre-Con Dinner had expanded to some 30-odd folk, so I will not even attempt to name them all, but many of the usual suspects were on hand, including Aubree and Bao Pham and their adorable spawn, the ever-effervescent (ALSO spelled right the first time I am badass) Melissa Craib Dombrowski, this year’s Toastmaster, the lovely Linda Taglieri of 13th Depository fame, Richard Fife of Richard Fife fame, and of course Jennifer Liang, Con organizer extraordinaire, who had apparently actually also gone to work today, because she is CRAZY. And, also, awesome, but we knew that.
And, also, incidentally, three quarters of Team Jordan in the hizzouse, natch. Brandon Sanderson, unfortunately, will not be attending the con this year, owing to that thing where he’s on an entirely different continent at the moment, but Maria and Alan and Harriet are most unmistakably here, and there was much hugging and squeeage. Well, I squeed, maybe no one else did.
Then we all made like spoiled milk and separated into clumps for driving to the restaurant, which, dude, I don’t think I even noticed the name of. Oops? Also, can I say that Atlanta is very pretty and all, but SERIOUSLY with the naming all the streets the same thing!
That is really obnoxious, Atlanta. There are multiple gazillions of words to name things with out there. So instead of making a new street the same name as the other street it’s right next to and just sticking an “Old” in front of the first street, MAYBE it would be better to, I don’t know, GIVE IT A DIFFERENT NAME. Your erstwhile tourists will thank you, and also not have to turn around twice to find a damn restaurant.
Sheesh.
But the dinner was lovely! I sat next to Maria because I always try to commandeer me a Maria whenever possible, and across from a gentleman I did not recognize, but who introduced himself as Darrell Sweet.
…And after a very disconcerting couple of moments, I finally understood that he was Darrell Sweet, Jr. – the son of WOT’s late cover artist.
Whoa.
Mr. Sweet, Jr., by the way, is an absolutely lovely man, as well as an artist in his own right (a sculptor, mainly) and Maria and Alan and I were thrilled to meet him. We offered our condolences for his loss, of course, and he revealed that he had brought with him his father’s unfinished concept art for the cover of A Memory of Light (!!) which is amazing and awesome, and I very much look forward to seeing it. I know I have had my criticisms of the cover art for WOT, but I maintain that it was tragic that Mr. Sweet was not able to finish the art for the last cover. So that is definitely something to look forward to.
[Ed: Not at JordanCon? Keep your eyes fixed on Tor.com early this afternoon, Wheel of Time fans. You won’t be disappointed.]
Oh, and somewhere in there I got to meet our Guest of Honor for the con, Mary Robinette Kowal, who is also delightful, and whose new novel Glamour in Glass has just been released [you can read an excerpt right here] and which I totally plan to get me a signed copy of this weekend. She and Harriet and Maria commiserated on the trials of printing errors, and Ms. Kowal (whom I hope to speak to more later) gave us lovely promotional carved wooden fans, which I imagine will come in handy because, even if I don’t live in the 18th century, I still live in the South. We have heat here, dontcha know!
(Also, some guy named Jason Denzel arrived – late, of course. Typical, just typical. Californians, eh?)
And there was food, and wine, and talking, and encounters with extremely enthusiastically drunk Georgians (no, like really), and more wine and more talking, and I meant to take a picture of it all but of course I forgot because I suck sometimes, and it was tons of fun.
And then we went back to the hotel and Harriet and Maria and Melissa and Richard and Sarah and April Moore and Steve Godecke and about a million other people and I had drinks in the bar and chatted and yelled and told ridiculous jokes at various points, and at some point I looked up and realized holy crap it’s 2 AM, maybe I should go write this thing before I collapse.
And Lo, I did, and Lo, I am stopping now and actually collapsing, because tomorrow the real con begins. More as it Develops. Peace out, kids, see you tomorrow!
