Author: ctrlalttabby@comcast.net

Well, another year of Windycon has passed. Why does it feel like I was older this time? Oh, wait… never mind. This year was packed with excitement! We arrived there to meet my visiting relatives (again) who have been in the States for the past few weeks. Friday night was mostly uneventful, just saying hi to people and awkwardly trying to remember their names (cut me some slack, I only see some of these people once a year!).

Saturday was more interesting, since I had a panel from 10-11 and then another one from 11-12. The first one was about whether and how to pursue underwater living due to global warming (and it would be super cool anyways). The second one was called Creature Comforts and centered around things that you would rather not be without (like chocolate).

I spent a lot of the afternoon roaming until my mother’s panel on books. I sat through that, kind of paying attention, but left afterwards to go check out Green Room, which is where the panelists and staff can go to get exclusive food. That said, the ConSuite (where everyone else gets food) was run by a friend, and he runs a pretty great ConSuite. I played Fluxx right before dinner, which was supposed to be pizza, but my cousin and her friends had “had a late lunch”, which they confessed had in fact been at a pizza place. Really, guys?

We went to the cheese tasting thing in the Art Show while roaming and glancing at all of the pieces that we had bid on, making sure nobody else had outbid us. I bid on an image of a T-Rex fighting an alligator, and my mother (really, my grandparents, with money they left for holiday shopping) got me one where the rocks jutting out from the waterfall were bears.

I determined that the cheese hadn’t been enough food and dragged my aunt up to Green Room for tacos. Technically, she wasn’t supposed to go into Green Room since she wasn’t a panelist, but I was told that I could bring in one chaperone because I was a minor (and am, I’m not that old yet).

Anyways, we returned downstairs for the art auction, where I bought yet another Cheryl Storm dragon (my wallet cringed as I bid). It’s this cute little golden dragon sitting in a lantern. I ended my night by walking to some of the parties upstairs. I was probably only allowed in because the alcohol inside was closely guarded by fierce, fire-breathing convention-goers. Wait no… fire breath wouldn’t go well with alcohol. Water-spitting? Anyways, it was being watched, which was exactly what they were supposed to do, so fine with me. I got a glass of lemonade and spent a (sadly short) amount of time at the chocolate fountain.

My Sunday was very short. I helped set up ConSuite because they were understaffed, ate, and then went to Critter Crunch. Turns out, they’ve stopped using the Spider as a free robot now, probably because it’s become more popular. Unfortunately, it has acquired a lean on its right side, but I drove it proudly anyways. I got a ton of random stuff, including two T-Shirts, an iguana that grows when put in water, and a collapsible plastic sword, and fifth place in the free-for-all at the end.

I proceeded to wander for maybe an hour before setting up my spot at the autographing table, where I was to stay for an hour. In the duration of that hour, and made exactly one sale, I spent most of the time eating the lunch that my mother had delivered and reading my own work. Might as well reread it since I have time, right?

Anyways, come to WindyCon, whether for Critter Crunch, gaming, panels, or the Klingon Jail and Bail. It’s fun, and I promise that we don’t bite! Well, much…

I have been going to Dorkstock every year since I was 3 months old, excluding it’s brief hiatus. Once a part of RockCon, now a part of GameholeCon, Dorkstock was one of my favorite conventions as a child. It was where I first started doing Paint-N-Takes, where I met many of my gaming friends and where I played my first games of Munchkin and Chez Geek.

This was the second year of Dorkstock being a part of GameholeCon, and this year we got to share a room with Looney Labs. Remarkably, I only played two Looney Labs games over the course of the day (we were only there for Saturday this year). I played Doctor Who Fluxx, which comes out on the 23rd, and Choose One, a Would You Rather game where one person chooses what they’d rather and you try to guess their answer.

I spent the majority of my time helping a friend run a live version of Escape From Dork Tower, where you are moving from room to room and trying not to let the monster catch up to you. My role was the dice chaser, which is exactly what it sounds like.

I also played Chez Goth, which may not have been entirely age appropriate. John Kovalic won the Igor Bar Contest, since he was the only one who brought any. Igor Bars have (at minimum) a chocolate chip cookie layer, caramel and rice crispy treats layer.

That’s right, it’s November. And some of us know what that means… NaNoWriMo! NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. During the month of November, you are striving to write daily and surpass your word goal.

I know that as of last year, the adult goal was 50,000 and the kids had a typing test, but I also know that this year they reorganized the kids version (officially the Young Writer’s Program) and are using this year as a Beta test for it. That said, I’m very impressed with the editing they’ve done, making it possible to write the story on the website instead of copying and pasting your exterior document into the word count box. They’ve also added a feature allowing kids to do an independent challenge at any time of the year, not just the official one in November. Again, I have no knowledge on whether the adults have this privilege.

I’ve been doing NaNo since I was 8, with the exception of last year (we were visiting relatives out of town for Thanksgiving). It wasn’t my first NaNo, but my second that actually got edited and (self-)published.

My advice to you if you choose to do this any time in the future is that you don’t have to get it right the first time. A lot of people would say, “I don’t know, my first draft is always garbage.” Don’t worry about it! You aren’t finalizing the story within November, you’re just using NaNo as inspiration to write.

After I wrote my book, An Unexpected Journey, it took me another 6 months or so of editing after school. I would take a printed paper copy to school with me or when we would be in the car for an extended amount of time. I would go over it, marking it with red pen, and I would have Mom do the same thing during her lunch break. As soon as I finished with homework, I would go home, fire up the computer and start typing in my edits. When Mom handed me hers, I would go over it with her and discuss the changes we were considering.

That’s also not to say that I was always editing. I would hit a big project in school and not work on it for days at a time. But it eventually came about. The edits thinned, and we started sending it to CreateSpace, a self-publishing company that we found through NaNo. They had their own edits that they suggested, all grammatical and the such.

If my memory holds true, it was June 2015. It was just under 2 months to my 10th birthday when I received the news that the CreateSpace system had finished suggesting edits and had provided Amazon with the book and my foreword about it, which would go as the description on the page. And that was it. I was officially a published author.

I can’t thank NaNo enough for my success. If Mom hadn’t found NaNo, I might never have reached this point. Of course I would write, though how long it would take me to finish a story I don’t know, but it would have taken me years to build up the courage to publish. By using NaNo, I forced myself to get online and keep writing the story. There was no, “Meh. I don’t feel like writing today.” I had a deadline, and I wanted to win.

Last Saturday, Fermilab had an open house, so naturally I went. I got a ton of free science stuff, including 2 Gyro wheels.

Directly past the security checkpoint, they handed us each a bag with a brochure, a pencil, and a VR box (only 1 per family). The VR is really cool, you put your phone in it and then use their program.

We wanted to see the Mr. Freeze liquid nitrogen show, but they were out of tickets, so we just walked through a couple Neutrino exhibits instead.

Then we went to the STEM fair, where I got about a thousand brochures. I also got to pet a raccoon fur. The picture above is one of the signs near the STEM Fair, showing some of the cool stuff in that building, most of which had tours and shows going on in them.

Finally, we went to see their buffalo. They were so cute! There are 2 bulls, 15 cows and about 11 calves.