I'm just home from the first day of Arisia, and I'm feeling much better about my con experience than I did after my ill-fated prior attempt. Not a whole lot to report today as I spent most of it helping dealers haul stuff into the very warm hotel from the very cold outdoors, but I'm still satisfied. After I came home a trembling mess from my one day at Readercon in July, I swore that I would do whatever I could to make sure that the next con would be better. I laid out specific goals, and made plans for the best way to psychologically prepare in advance. Today I know that all my hard work paid off.

Here are some things that helped:

1) I was volunteering, so I had something to do, which meant I didn't feel so lost in the crowd.
2) I signed up for a writing workshop class in October so that I would get to know some other local writers, and then see them at cons. Today I saw three of my classmates. When there are familiar faces in the sea of people, it helps.
3) I let everyone I knew know that I was going way in advance, and let them know I was shy/had social anxiety. This meant that on at least one occasion, someone I knew saw me in passing, introduced me to someone else, and let them know that I was a bit shy. It was done with little to no awkwardness and much kindness. I really appreciated it.
4) I poured over the schedule and made notes about potentially interesting things for each hour of the time that I might have free, so that if I found myself unexpectedly unoccupied, I wouldn't be milling about aimlessly.
5) I let others know which things I might attend, so that they could meet me if they wanted to. This resulted in me knowing a couple of audience members at both the one panel and the reading I managed to attend today.
6) I made a point of easing in by only going to couple of things after my 4 hours of manual labor, and I further eased into things by attending a panel and a group reading that both featured saraphina_marie. That was cool because I got to see a friend, and it made the events feel more familiar and less scary.

Tomorrow I have a lot more panels I'd like to attend, and I hope to make a con report entry with free discussion in the comments. Today I'm afraid I am brain dead. I will say that the Broad Universe rapid fire reading (8 authors in one and a half hours!) was really interesting. Hearing 8 people read back to back really brings home the fact that everyone reads aloud differently. Some go fast, some go slow, some do voices, some don't. Some people (like Jennifer Pelland) seem born to read aloud, but the sublimely ridiculous highlight for me was listening to KT Pinto (an adorably joyful person) reading first person POV sexy vampire goddess stuff in her very Brooklyn voice.

So far, I have still written every day this year, and I seem to be averaging a thousand words a day.

Here's the chart thingy:

16116 / 67500 words. 24% done!

Very exciting. Even more exciting is that many of these words are on the retrofuture novel I started in 2004 and never ever finished even though I wanted to. So that's good. One of my major goals for the year is to actually finish draft one of that novel and hopefully start in on the first revision.

Goal for the rest of this week:

*Actually edit the short story I finished into a readable draft by Sunday evening.
*Do 750 minimum new words per day as per the Novel in 90 guidelines.
*Post the next booklog.

7295 / 67500 words. 11% done!

I have 12,129 words in a "short story" now. I can't decide if it is done or still going. I guess I'll figure that out tomorrow.

I have also read roughly 3/4 of the manuscript bethr sent my way. Should finish that tomorrow and send feedback.

I have written every day this year! Huzzah!

Goals for next week:

*Send feedback on previously mentioned manuscript
*Write booklog for week one of 2008
*Finish and/or begin revising short story of doom
*Write new words every day