(Warning: This gets a little dark and personal. I won’t blame you if you back out right now)

J. Daniel Sawyer wrote a blog post today about conventions. You should probably read if you’re into creative stuff. (It’s here). In it, he talks about con fatigue, the feeling that you just aren’t “into it”, and no amount of cool on the part of the con can make up for it. I only mention that because it totally mirrored my first con experience.

Just about a year ago, I made a big mistake. It was a simple mistake, anybody could have done it. But in the midst of all my research, I forgot to check one thing that invalidated everything else . . . Sorry, too vague. Here’s what happened.

A year ago, I started work on a Steampunk retelling of George Orwell’s amazing work “1984”. Same basic story, but told as an adventure, with daring escapes, dirigible explosions, submarine battles, giant cities built on moving railroad cars. The ideals behind Steampunk lend themselves well to the concept that each man is a cog in a huge machine.

Whister pulled out Cliffy’s chair, and said, “This way, if you would, sir.”

As Cliffy jogged up to walk beside him, he asked, “Howzit all those lads know the wherefores? Did they get special schoolin’ on the way out?”

The metal man gestured at the boys around them, “Many of the young masters have been here for some time. The school runs all day and all night, throughout the year. New students join every day.”

Cliffy thought it sounded strange, but he’d never been to been to school before, so he just wrote it off as normal. Then a thought struck him, “How’s a body graduate, if none start at the same time?”