Off to AnomalyCon!

AnomalyCon starts today!  I spent last night packing (I babysat this morning so I knew I wouldn't have another chance until right before I left, and I didn't want to be rushed).  I have costumes planned out, too.  I had been contemplating not dressing up this year, but decided I wanted to after all.  And then I found some great stuff for costumes, so now I'm really excited about dressing up!

This will be my third AnomalyCon, and it's always so much fun.  They get a nice mix of bigger, traditionally published authors, small-time indie authors, and everything in between.  Aside from their writing panels and workshops, they also have lots of other interesting stuff going on, such as one of my personal favorites: the history of weaponry guy.  Every year they get him doing more and more panels, I think because everyone loves him.  He's funny, quirky, and he really knows his stuff.

The past two years, the cons have been focused fairly heavily on writing stuff, with one room dedicated to author panels and discussions, and another for writing workshops.  This year though they have one room for both, and fewer workshops by the looks of it.  Other topics has been picking up steam: Last year they had a lot of how-tos on costuming, and this year they added in much more expanded sections for history and art.  There's also the requisite gaming and film rooms, of course.

There's a lot to look forward to this year, and interestingly a lot less of it is writer panels than what I've done in previous years.  I'm still doing some of them, of course, but there are some repeats from previous years, and while many of them are worth attending again, if there's something else I'm interested in that conflicts, I may choose the one I haven't seen before.  For instance, I'm very excited about a steampunk self-defense class tonight that's supposed to address what can be done in restrictive costumes, as well as a dancing class.  There are so many great things like that all weekend that it'll be hard to choose sometimes what I want to see.  I can't wait!