This was my first time at ConneXions, and I had a blast! It was a great group of attendees, though light in attendance on Friday and Sunday. I felt extremely lucky to have such a great slash con so close to my home. Still, I got a hotel room so I didn’t have to worry about traveling to and from every day. I was especially glad for this when a panel I suggested and offered to mod was accepted.
Friday, Day 1:
I woke up about an hour later than usual and had a leisurely but efficient breakfast before heading off to the Metro. I began reading Pack Animals (Torchwood #7) by Peter Anghelides on the long ride to the Library of Congress. While walking from the metro station to the LOC building, I passed two women around my age taking photos of a group of people walking across the street, escorted by the police. I have been watching news nonstop for the past two weeks, but I didn’t recognize anyone in the group (and I’ve been watching a lot of news). Looked like it might have been a representative and her congressional aides, but I’ve no clue. Anyway, I got to the Thomas Jefferson Library of Congress Building a little before 11.
The Library of Congress put together a really neat pop-up exhibit only available for a few days, called Library of Awesome. It was filled with parts of the LOC collection, grouped by themes. It was a great reminder that the LOC preserves these parts of culture that are important to fans. The people behind me as we went through the different exhibit rooms were in the most AMAZING Wonder Woman and Black Panther outfits ever. There was also a brave young man in an amazing Fantastic Four outfit. There were so many great comics on display, I couldn’t begin to list them all. But I did take photos of some of my favorites. In one room they had clips from TV shows playing and I walked in just as Buffy was sacrificing herself (feels!), following by a clip of Doctor Who with the Tenth Doctor. It was a surreal to be standing in the largest library in the entire world, watching Buffy and Doctor Who and looking at first appearances of comic book characters in print! There was also a neat letter from Gene Roddenbery to Carl Sagan.
This weekend, I had a wonderful time at CONfabulation, a multi-fandom convention by the people who brought us Wincon. As always, it’s hard to adjust to real life again after several days of being a fangirl at the height of excitement and being uncensored around/among my people. So I thought I’d write it up while the experience is still somewhat fresh.
Last year, I put together a list of Top Ten Favorite Het Fandom Couples. And of course I wrote a list of Top Ten Harry Potter Ships I Can’t Believe I Wrote. So I thought it was about time to make a list of my favorite slash couples in Harry Potter. These are the ones I read & write most often.
Okay, not really a top ten… just a selection of ten favorites from my button/pin collection (which I keep in an old shortbread tin shaped like a kilt that sits on the pass-through from my kitchen to living room/dining area… which is possibly not where most people keep their collections of buttons/pins, now that I think about it). Note to self: do more top ten lists this way.
Everyone’s putting together serious lists of gratitude lately, in honor of Thanksgiving. This has always been my least favorite holiday, miles below holidays like Skyscraper Day and Opposite Day and National Beheading Day (wait, there’s actually a National Beheading Day on September 2? What’s that about and can I at least pretend it has something to do with Highlander?). Anyway, I decided my first top ten list on this blog should be of a somewhat less serious nature…
My first week of NaNoWriMo 2013 went well. My adventure began at the NaNoWriMo kickoff party on October 27 and continues today, which happens to be the Writing Marathon day. Today is also a great day for donating, which is why my Eeyore user icon on the NaNoWriMo site now sports a halo (over his butt—LOL!). I’m doing NaNoRebel this year, which means I’m working on a bunch of different projects and counting all my words on them toward my total word count.
Here are my accomplishments for this week:
I tried writing just a novel last year, but I really do think I’m happiest when I can work on a lot of things. And it’s tough giving up fanfiction for a whole month. So doing NaNoRebel is working out for me again. I’ve got a little over 15,000 words written. Here’s to another 35,000 words… and more!
