lydamorehouse: (Default)
lydamorehouse ([personal profile] lydamorehouse) wrote2020-05-25 06:01 pm

Weekend and WisCON Wrap-Up

For whatever reason, my first day at WisCON was my best day at WisCON. That's not to say that I had a bad time the rest of the weekend, more that I kind of mostly didn't participate? Or... was very random in my participation level?

I did end up having lunch with [personal profile] jiawen and [personal profile] naomikritzer, on jitsi, which was lovely, but I didn't do a lot of other con events on Saturday. In the morning, I wandered around the various Discord channels, but never really settled into any particular conversations. I listened to people discuss the merits of Clarion on the # writers-octarine, but I mostly lurked because the time for which Clarion would have been helpful for my career is kind of passed... and when I did know a lot of people still going to the workshop, there were still two of them (East and West)--so that was some time ago. I bring this up because I found most of the online conversations I dropped into to be like this? Like, people were saying interesting enough things, but I didn't manage to connect to anyone for whatever reason.  The opposite was true with the hang-out. I'm swapping manuscripts with a woman I met there, already. But, this may be a function of a couple of things for me--namely, my age. I am an oldster, for the Discord crowd.  But, also I am the kind of extrovert that makes face-to-face connections far easier than I do text based ones.

I didn't manage any panels until Sunday, but in all fairness that happens to me at Real Life (tm) cons, too. I guess I'm glad that I didn't end up paying the highest tier price for the con, if only because otherwise I would feel guilty that I didn't manage to do more with it.  I definitely felt that  what I got out of the con equaled or exceeded what I paid for, and, in my case, that wasn't nothing.

It is a little easier to wander away from the con, alas. I probably would have been busier at the con, but two weekend nights randomly became family game nights at home. I would have loved to have done a few more meet-ups, but so it goes.  Part of this, for me, is figuring out what I like in an online con, too.

I still say it was well worth it, and I'm very grateful that [personal profile] duskpeterson sent me a link to other online cons that are planned this year, because I am signing up for All The Cons!  (For others looking for the info, it's in the comments of my first WisCON report.) 

Otherwise, our Memorial Day was pretty rainy here, at least in the morning. I did do a little social distance hanging out in the backyard with a friend which was great until he got called back to work.  

How about you? Do anything special for the holiday? How was YOUR WisCON, if you went?





j00j: rainbow over east berlin plattenbau apartments (Default)

[personal profile] j00j 2020-05-26 05:20 pm (UTC)(link)
I really enjoyed the taste of WisCon-- it's by no means the usual experience and it's reinforced for me how valuable that separate time away for a con is, when I can have it. But it was great to have some organized weekend activities that kept me focused on seeing friends and thinking about things other than Current Situation, and on doing something other than household chores (there's always more to do when you're always at home!). And I wouldn't have been able to go this year due to work responsibilities anyway... so some con is good con!
Hoping to do a few more fannish video chats here and there.