I survived Day One.
I have been supremely anxious about this event for weeks and weeks. As far back as several months ago, when “When Words Collide” popped into my head I got this feeling of dread in my belly. At that time I could banish it because, “That’s ages away.” Suddenly it was looming, and I started getting headaches and stomach aches. WTF??
I love conventions, and have attended WWC in person, and virtually last year. The worst thing is that usually when I feel anxious about a thing I can sit down and think about why, what’s going on, and can pinpoint it, and work through it. This time? No idea. Even after getting through yesterday I have no idea. But having got through it, I *think* I feel better today. Too early in the morning, and not enough coffee yet to tell for sure.
[And I discovered in the morning that my name/bio isn’t in the program. *sigh* … These things happen, I know. I checked a few other names, and it isn’t just me, but you know, here I am prepping for a discussion about Imposter Syndrome and now I am feeling like the festival is already telling me I don’t belong… that I’m not worthy of having my name in the program… STOP! I managed to set that aside, because yes, absolutely–> This whole thing is being run by volunteers and everyone is working their butt off and I appreciate them.]
Still! Ok, the panel on Imposter Syndrome was fine. Took me a while to settle in, and there were some weirdnesses: with no designated moderator… one person reluctantly said she’d take it on, then another said Well, ok she’d do it. But then a third person stepped in and kept saying Moderator-like things, and the one who’d said she’d do it was unfortunately not great at making sure each person got a chance to speak to a question. (Ordinarily I would take on Moderating, but I was not in the right frame of mind to do it…see above). Then, there was a fellow who kind of inserted himself and gave an introduction. He seemed to think he was on the panel, which he was not. Clearly there was a mistake somewhere (I even went back an checked the program… sorry, friend, your name is not here). The others ignored him, and I don’t blame them, but that twisted up my anxiety again, because I was worried about hurting his feelings, yet struggled with how to solve the problem. (see above).
Other than that, the discussion was good. Oh! And I realized I had left all my notes upstairs. [facepalm]
Then, on to Make Them Laugh: Injecting Humour into all Forms of Fiction.
There was a moderator for this one… yay! But… See that subtitle?? I was prepared to talk about that. I was not prepared to talk about analyzing all the forms of humour. There I was on a panel with three people who have many published works, and two of them at least purposefully write humour. They have studied it and they write it. I write humour, and I “inject humour into all forms of my fiction” but I sure don’t study it. Intimidation started to creep in.
Then I thought to myself, “You literally just finished a panel on Imposter Syndrome. Do NOT let this get to you. You belong here you belong here you belong here.…” If you were there, could you see those words floating around in my head? I was thinking them so hard I was sure everyone could hear me. Anyway, I think I did ok, and made some points about what works for me, and I learned some things. I was proud of myself for saying, “I am not so analytical,” at one point, because Past Krista would have thought, “Oh no, I’m doing humour wrong, I’m supposed to be analytical about it,” and tried to fake my way through it. But over the years I have learned that actually…just coz someone else does a thing one way, and even if lots of people do a thing that way, it doesn’t mean my way is wrong. I am finding the courage to talk about my way, even if it’s different, and you know what? Quite often, my way resonates with people, so there you go.
I finished my panels and went into decompression mode. Japanese take-out and wine, plus a martini to celebrate my mum (on top of everything it was the anniversary of my mother’s death yesterday…though no, that was not what was getting to me).
I did want to say here that the books I mentioned in the panels were Big Magic by Elizabeth Gilbert, and Keep Calm and Bury On — a Selective History of a Plague Year by Dirk Van Stralen.
Ok. On to Day Two. Time for more coffee.