DUNE 7 BLOG

Saturday, September 2, 2006

DragonCon 2006

Even with my hectic book-signing and promotion schedule, and a full list of panels and autographings, I still enjoyed DragonCon very much. This is one of my favorite conventions, and Rebecca and I have missed only one DragonCon in the past dozen years or so. Spread over three hotels and crowded with anywhere between 30,000 and 50,000 people (we kept getting different estimates), DragonCon is full of fans and excitement. The halls and lobbies are crowded with amazing costumes, exhibitors, musicians with SF or Fantasy-based music, artists, writers, and all sorts of readers, gamers, and enthusiasts of all types. The dealer's room has just about everything you can imagine, from the collectible, to the unusual, to the just-plain-bizarre.

Rebecca and I gave a long seminar on "Things I Wish Some Pro Had Told Me When I Was Just Starting Out," one of our most popular lectures. We did panels on young adult fiction, writing in an established universe, Star Wars, and other topics. We each did a reading and several book-signings. We spent time with many other author friends, AC Crispin, Mike Stackpole, John Ringo, Aaron Allston, and media celebrities, stars from many genre shows. John Harrison (director of FRANK HERBERT'S DUNE miniseries) had told me to say Hi to horror film legend George Romero, who was also a guest of honor. George Romero and John Harrison had worked together on various projects, and I was pleased to meet the jovial man who had created "Night of the Living Dead."

Coming home from DragonCon, though, I was quite exhausted and "peopled out." I took only a couple of days at home to catch up on letters, e-mail, phone calls, and other emergencies, then I went off to the Colorado mountains for three days, hiking (in the rain, hail, and even snow!) and recharging my batteries. In the evenings, I did a lot of editing and rewriting on METAL SWARM -- thanks to the book-signing tour I had fallen quite a bit behind on my deadlines. By the beginning of October, I hope to be all caught up.

-- KJA