Worldcon 76 Report- Prologue

Our regularly scheduled programming around here (such as it is) is going to take a few days off while I bring you reports from Worldcon 76.

I'm going to Worldcon this year!

For those who don't know, Worldcon is a convention for writers. And while it has some overlap with costuming, and a lot of other general nerdery going on, it is specifically for writers. Topics of events run from how to self publish to including diverse voices in one's writing.

I never really expected to be going to Worldcon. Maybe in some halfway pipe dream future where I've got way more income going on than I do today. I like gaming conventions even though they're usually a bit more peopling than I am able to handle. I've heard stories about Worldcon that made me envious of the panels and stuff, but it is really outside my budget. It moves around the world and even when it's in the USA the travel expenses, ticket price for the con itself, and hotel booking for multiple days pushes it up to easily over a thousand dollars. That's big bucks for a little fifth rate blogger like me. And while Worldcon definitely sounded cool, I probably wasn't going to drop a thousand bucks on ANY vacation until I'd been to Disney World.

Then the perfect storm happened. The perfect storm....of awesome.

Worldcon is in San Jose this year which is only about an hour drive south from where I live. Cap is going there to do some work making the world a better place, and has a friend with crash space for the both of us. And she bought me the ticket for an early birthday present. I'm one of those people who sees what's possible and carefully manages my expectations. Cap is one of those people who says "Let's go get what you want––we'll find a way!"

And she did.

Thus, instead of our regular fare, I'm going to try to write a report every night. I'll do this like I'm a serious writer/blogger type, and pack a notebook and pencil and everything. I'll take notes and shit to write up in the evenings about the events I attended and what they were like. I'm not sure exactly how much time I'll have at the end of each evening, but I'll get as much up as I can and if there are lingering thoughts I'll put them in some subsequent write ups.

Sound good?  Okay, I need to pack. See you at Worldcon.

Day 1