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Ottawa Comiccon 2015 - Day 1

When I awoke this morning, I could hardly contain my excitement. I was up before my alarm and messaging my friend to plan our meet up at the con. That was around 6:30 A.M.

Nervous energy hummed ran throughout me all morning. I did things like dishes and worked on tomorrow's costume. I played guitar.

I arrived at Comiccon around 1:30 P.M. My friend arrived about 30 minutes later with her twins. It was off for food once inside, which was a perfect time for a snack for me and water.

Then it was off to Benoit Chartier's panel on writing. I learned some things. I disagreed with others though I saw the value. I'm not someone who follows a set process when I write. It feels too much like a box. I try to write the same time each day, but I don't always fully understand the story before I've written it. The journey of writing is one of discovery for me. This may change in time as I'm sure I will grow as a writer. I'm sure having a clear idea of where I'm going is helpful for most people, but what usually happens to me is that I plan a bunch of stuff and decide it's not right once I get going on the story. As I plan projects in my day job, I fully understand the value of planning, so even when I don't follow the majority of my novel plan, it's not a waste of time. The point of planning isn't to stick religiously to the plan, but to start the process of thinking about one way things could go. It's important to be open to deviating from the plan because the end solution is often better than the planned one.

After Benoit's panel, I went to a panel on Horror Movies. It was looking at the social aspects. Despite a large amount of technical issues, I found it interesting. The presentation ran through every decade talking about what was going on in horror movies and also what social situations like wars, pandemics, etc were going on at the time. It's made me realize that paying more attention to what's going on in the world could improve my writing.

Next up was a shopping trip. I wanted a copy of Benoit's novel as I kept forgetting to bring money to the Ottawa Independent Writers meetings to purchase it from him there. I arrived at his booth and Benoit wasn't there, so I had to wait for him to come back. Across the way was the booth of another friend, but it was packed, so I couldn't get near what I wanted to purchase from there. This was stressful because I wanted to grab the stuff and head over to the Billie Piper Q & A. Eventually Benoit returned and I got a signed copy of his book Red Nexus. My friend's booth opened up shortly thereafter and I was able to get something that is part of my Saturday costume.

The Billie Piper Q & A was a lot of fun and it was full of sexual innuendo without being inappropriate for children. I blurted out an answer of Sean Connery while Billie was describing all of the qualities required for a human to be the Tardis. I wonder if she heard me or if someone further up also suggested Sean Connery because I wasn't that close to the stage.

I capped the night off with a Steampunk panel. I think my day tomorrow starts with another Steampunk panel.

On the way home, I had to detour when I was almost there as there was a large accident by Aviation and Ogilvie. I turned too soon on the detour and went in a circle briefly.

Here is a picture of today's costume:

Catwoman_2.0

Well I need to embellish the item I bought and head to bed, so I can get up early and get ready for Day 2.

Ciao,
R~

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