My First Book Convention

I attended my first convention with my book this previous weekend! It’s called OryCon, and it’s the premier fantasy and sci-fi convention in Oregon (according to them, anyway). It’s been held since 1979, so it’s been around a while.

I ended up attending because a family member, months ago, was like hey! I’m going to go to this con as a vendor, my friend is going to sell art, I’m going to pull together a bunch of fantasy stuff, come with us! And I was like surrreeee…

Turns out, they went as an excuse to get me to go.

… which, you know, worked.

I think I got tricked by the idea of “going with” instead of “performing as The Author,” and my anxiety-perfectionist brain didn’t get triggered. Much. It felt more like a trial run, a way to learn about how this worked. That made all of it so much fun. In the moments something did go wrong (like I forgot to double check square worked, haaa) I was stressed, sure—but I didn’t get paralyzed.

I have so many ideas for next time on how to spice things up and keep it fun, and I wonder if I wouldn’t have gotten to those ideas if I hadn’t been taking things in stride.

Oh, and I did sell several copies of Jagged Emerald City! Plus I made a few author friends, attended panels which were insightful and nudged my creative brain, and got to hang out with some great people.

I think my favorite moment was a panel dealing with writers block and resurrecting your novel. The moderator in charge was pretty adamant that the problem all boiled down to having someone else’s “should” in your head. In other words, thinking you need to do something that you read, or someone told you about. When really, there is no “should” in writing—there is only “would.”

What would work best for you. What would make you feel inspired to write. What would work right now to make the best story.

So I’ve been thinking about that a lot.

OryCon held all sorts of things fantasy and science fiction, including crafters, book sellers, blacksmiths, you name it. (I got some holiday shopping done cough.) This convention was shut down a couple years due to Covid, so it came back as a little smaller. Which, honestly, made it a lot easier to handle for my easily-overstimulated-brain.

Now that I’ve gotten practice, I feel much more prepared for future ones.

Because I’m definitely going to future conventions (as long as the world doesn’t end tomorrow or something). Why, you ask, considering my introverted and reclusive nature?

Because, while it’s a few days post-Convention, and while it did exhaust me… it also invigorated me? Enlivened me? I can’t really put a finger on what exactly has happened. Maybe it’s just the high from being in a place with other people like me and being like “hey! look! I belong too!”

Overall, I had a great time at my first book convention and am looking forward to the next time I get a chance to do this.

Have you attended a Convention as a vendor before? How did you like it?