Whidbey Island Comicon – 2025

The quick post to social media:

Back for my third year as a guest speaker at the
Whidbey Island Comicon – this weekend ! (July 18-20).
Cool.
See you there.
(Details to follow, as time allows, eh?)
address: 390 NE Midway Blvd, Oak Harbor, WA
https://www.whidbeyislandcomicon.org/

The longer post:

What? Whoa! Yay! Eep!

I just got the word that the event is on! Welcome to the writer’s view of this event.

The books are already in my car, because most of them live there. I’ll get a few more from storage.

My sorta sedate evening ramped up when I got a dance invite for tomorrow night, which I was responding to when the Comicon note came in, and I have tow more personal emails to send out for other stuff. Oh yeah, and working on Muddling By (draft #6, reviewing my notes), and probably doing something silly like washing the dishes.

Aside from all of that, being a writer, no, being an author means being reactive when necessary. Someone wants me to give a talk? The answer is ‘Yes’, though the detailed discussion may change that. Am I ready? Sure. Why not? But by Friday I’ll have my Travel boxes out of storage, another box of books, and what else…?

Some time in there I’ll make a run to the bank for change, though that might already be in the Travel kit.

This is a rush of a week, but this is also why it is good that I’ve been doing talks and events for two decades. There is an infinity of optimizing that could be done, but at the very basics I need:

• me
• ideally at least one of each of my books, though this is a comicon, so the non-fiction could stay home – and they won’t
• change
• business cards
• eventually a relaxed attitude
• oh yeah, and clean clothes and a clean me, maybe with a haircut.

I’ve sold books at almost every event, but the greatest benefit has been talking to the other authors, and in one case, talking to an attendee who happened to show me how to break through a hurdle I had on a screenplay about tall ships in 1876. There was no way to guess or plan such things, but if I don’t show up, the chance that they’ll happen becomes much lower.

So, here I go, into a busy week. Hopefully, I can post more coherently next week with a report and some insights.

Stay tuned.