Storytellersunplugged

Where Words Meet

Conventions and You

This week is the annual GAMA (Game Manufacturers of America) Trade Show in Las Vegas, and for the first time in memory, I’m sitting here at home instead. I have many reasons for this.

First, of course, is my family. I’ve been off to Hollywood and Sweden already this year, and tossing another trip on top of that would be a bit much. I used to travel a lot more before my wife and I started having kids, but with five little ones tromping around the house, getting away means having to pull many more scheduling contortions and outright acrobatics to pull such ventures off.

Second, I’m busy. Too busy to leave town right now. I was up until 3 AM this morning, beating a comic-book script into submission, and its lucha libre tag-team partners are straining at the ropes for their chance at me next.

Third, I have more offers for work these days than I can properly field. Since I’m a freelancer, I’m always looking for more. I keep a steady eye on that event horizon out there on the edge of the roiling seas. You know the one. It’s labeled “Last scheduled deadline.” Once you go beyond that, well, Here There Be Dragons.

Fourth, these things cost money. As a freelancer, I’m run a small business, a.k.a. my career. I’m happy to invest in attending a convention if there’s a remote chance it may pay out in the future. I’ve built much of my business on good relationships with friends and coworkers, and while it’s always a good idea to keep those fields freshly watered, I need to keep an eye on expenses too.

Fifth, GTS is all about tabletop games, and I’m mostly working on novels, comics, and video games these days. I’ll always go to the Big Daddy of gaming conventions—Gen Con—but everything else comes farther down the list.

So, I’m staying home. If you’re interested in making or selling tabletop games—or anything else in that market, including tie-in gaming fiction—I recommend the show to you, but you won’t see me there.

In general, conventions—literary, gaming, etc.—are wonderful when you’re starting out in any career. You get to meet all sorts of like-minded people and try to figure out how you can all make a living together. You make the kinds of friendships and contacts that will serve you well throughout your career. You live a little and have some fun so you have something to write about later.

Later, though, conventions become a way to catch up with those now-old friends (the friendship is old, not you, right?) and pass on something of what you’ve learned to the next crop of fresh-faced optimists ready to storm the walls. You sit on panels instead of attending them, and you spend as much time at the show’s Bar Con as you do in the exhibit hall.

The value of the show changes. You don’t stop learning, but you don’t learn as much. The curve flattens out as you go, and you wind up treasuring the friends you see more than the event you’re all nominally there for.

Still, I’m always looking for new horizons, new edges of the world that I can sail over—or off. While I may not be at GTS this year, I’m already making plans for events in the newer fields in which I work, like Comic-Con and the Austin Game Developers Conference and the rest.

And hopefully I’ll be back next year. While I always like to make new friends, I miss my old ones too.

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