Hello again, dear readers! Can you believe it’s almost October? “Corpses and Cognac” nears completion, this blog is now a year old, and…I’ve been so busy that I forgot to post for two months. Woops.

So, with the adage of better late than never, time to finally talk about SpoCon! Which was…all the way back in August, wow. Not only is SpoCon the primary fantasy/scifi convention for Spokane and the surrounding area, but most of its proceeds go toward supporting local libraries and schools. I was already heading up to Washington that month anyway to visit family, so I figured I’d swing by!

SpoCon took place from August 10^th through 12^th, at the Doubletree Hilton Hotel. The art show and dealer’s room was on the first floor, while the panels were split between the first and third floor. My table was located in a hallway right outside of the dealer’s room, which brought us some nice traffic (and later, a great view of all the cosplayers heading to the costume contest). I brought my romantic partner with me this time, who helped run the table whenever I had to speak on a panel. A chainmail jewelry artist was on one side of our table, and the other was for Oneshi Press, a small group of wonderfully creative comic artists and authors.

I’ll be brief with discussing numbers, because I’d rather talk about the panels. I sold 19 books at the convention itself, each with 8.8% sales tax included. While me and my partner’s admission was free thanks to being a panelist, I did have to pay $100 to get my own table to sell books at. Otherwise, I could’ve left some books at the “Marmot Market” and let them sell it at a 20% commission. My personal sales did end up covering the table fee, but since I was a little late getting my hotel room, it didn’t quite offset that cost.

However, even if I didn’t make as much sales-wise, I did get to speak on seven different panels! I got to cover a wide variety of topics, so let me discuss each of them in detail…

1. The Magical Menagerie

If there’s one thing I love to write about, it’s weird creatures, so it was a great topic to kick the convention off with! We discussed everything from researching monsters from different cultures, helping people figure out how to utilize certain creatures in their plots, and what the most useless creature we’d ever heard of was—which, if anyone was wondering, mine is the Squonk.
Also, kudos to the Thor and Loki cosplayers who interacted with the panel in-character almost the entire time. You two were hilarious.

2. Ideas: Where Do They Come From?
   This was a fun panel about the different ways authors plot their books. Half the panelists were pantsers, the others were plotters, and I seemed to be the halfway point (I try to plot, and then meander a bit from there). We also discussed our inspirations, how we get ourselves unstuck, and so on.
   

3. Terribly Funny
   This panel was specifically about the use of humor in horror fiction. Unfortunately, one of the panelists wasn’t able to make it, so we just had two new-to-panel authors with no direction. It became a discussion on different kinds of humor and theories on plot pacing in general, plus forays into improv theater.
   

4. Creating Memorable NPCs
   One of my two panels on tabletop RPGs. While the point of this was about what makes NPCs stand out, it also became about different styles of running a game, which became a pantsers/plotters debate like in the (outlining) panel earlier. Our general consensus was that there are a number of factors that can make a character stand out, but sometimes, the strangest things—like a random radio DJ or a nut-throwing squirrel—will stand out to the players.
   

5. Building a Campaign
   This was one of the two panels I suggested for the convention, and I was joined by two members of the RPG Research team. We discussed different techniques to keep players interested in a tabletop RPG campaign, from the planning stages to in-between sessions.
   This panel has actually been recorded for the RPG Research’s talk show; it should be available for the general public soon, or now for those who want to support them on Patreon.
   

6. See You, Space Cowboy
   Here’s the other panel I suggested for the convention, which was about colonization in science fiction. My original idea had been to discuss how often colonization is forced into scifi narratives, from shows like Star Trek to games like Mass Effect Andromeda. However, the panel instead became a discussion on the viability of actually colonizing planets in our near future, with me focusing on the moral and societal aspects and my fellow panelist covering what we’d need for supplies and staffing. We also covered how corporations may come to lead the space race, different ways to get people to survive the trip to new planets, and so on.
   

7. The Writing Habit
   This one was specifically about staying dedicated to writing. This was a bit of an odd panel for me, seeing as I haven’t worked with deadlines until this year, and I had far less time as an author compared to the other authors. Perhaps the only panel where I didn’t talk that much, but it was interesting hearing everyone’s different routes to authorhood.

There was also some miscommunication involving a writing workshop, but that was the only hiccup I experienced the entire convention. Everything else was run rather smoothly, and both staff and con-goers alike were all in friendly spirits.

All in all, while SpoCon wasn’t the most lucrative convention, I garnered a lot of interest by participating in panels—and learned quite a bit myself. I was also able to finally meet Dawn Vogel and Jeremy Zimmerman, the masterminds behind Defcon One Publishing (who’ve published a few of my short stories over the years) in the flesh. I actually learned about SpoCon from one of their blog posts, so thanks for inspiring this adventure in the first place!

Now that I’ve confirmed that I survived the convention, I’m going to burrow back into my writing again (as well as preparing the upcoming writing comic, slowly but surely). “Corpses and Cognac” is coming together nicely, and seeing all the support for Bones and Bourbon helps inspire me to make this the best sequel I can.

Also, since it turns out today is the one year anniversary of this website…here’s to a great start, and to even better (and maybe more consistent) blog posts next year. Thank you all for your support so far~!

~Dorian