Planning the Year

It would be easier to get over the cough/cold/sniffles if the weather would pick a climate and stick to it for more than one day. The constant roller coaster of temperatures and the constant shift in wind direction is not helping. Today's a "warm" day after yesterday's "chilly" day and before tomorrow's "cold" day. I was well enough yesterday to get through about seven chapters. I want to do as much today, but I have choir this evening. I'll do the children's choir because that's an obligation, but then I may not manage the adult choir rehearsal because singing isn't my strong suit at the moment. It tends to set off the coughing, especially as it gets later into the evening.

If I'm really good, I'll finish this round of revisions this week. I'm re-reading without the editor's notes so that I don't know what was her suggestion and what was my change, and then I'm polishing to make sure it all still flows and that the wording isn't awkward. Then next week I may do one more read-through. And then I can get back to the book I was working on in the fall. After that, I have a number of possible options to play with and I'll have to decide which project to tackle first. A lot may happen between now and then that will determine that.

One thing I also need to think about is my convention schedule for the year. I'm still wavering on WorldCon in London. I want to go to London, but I'm not sure I want to go there at the peak (and most expensive) travel season and then spend most of the time I'm there sitting in a convention center. It might be better to do several domestic conventions instead, and then I can travel to England on my own. I have several things to research there, if I'm at that point in my writing. I like being in England in October, and it's much less expensive and less crowded then.

So I'm thinking of going to the Nebula awards weekend for networking purposes, since most of the attendees are published writers and editors. The World Fantasy Convention is near Washington, DC, this year, and that's one of my favorite places, which I haven't visited in forever. That's also a good networking event where I may or may not be able to get on the program. Since WorldCon is abroad, there's a North American convention instead, which is in Detroit this year. That may or may not be something I do. I haven't decided on any regional conventions outside my close radius that allows me to stay at home instead of in a hotel. It seems like all the conventions in the general area draw the same people, more or less, so there's not a lot of advantage to going to Austin or Houston in addition to the Dallas events. I have a release next year, so I need to start building some buzz, but I haven't yet decided if doing a lot of travel in the summer will help toward that, since people may forget by the time the book is out.

I guess I should throw this out there. What events do you know of where I'm likely to meet lots of cool people who will then want to buy my books, where there will either be existing fans or people likely to become fans? Where do you go to meet authors or learn about books you want to read? Bonus if you're on a convention committee and can make sure I'd be able to get on the program. I'm generally fairly amusing on panels, and I do pretty good readings.

Of course, a lot of this depends on the budget for the year, and a lot of that depends on some decisions in the next couple of months that will be made by me and by other people.