On Contemplating Philcon

philcon2011-logoYesterday evening I received a surprising e-mail — it was a pre-invite to Philcon.

Well, it was surprising to me; things like this are always surprising to me.

Philcon is, obviously, a science-fiction convention held every November in Philadelphia. I knew of it it when I lived outside Philly about a decade ago, but working in retail as I did, getting down to the con would have been impossible; there are times of the year that one can’t take time off from work, and the week before Thanksgiving is one of those times. After I moved to Baltimore five years ago, I got an invite to Philcon, and I went up for a day and had a nice time.

But I’ve never been back.

So when the pre-invite arrived yesterday, I started rolling it around in my head.

Should I go to Philcon? Well, I should do lots of things, of course I should go… 😉 That’s maybe not the right question.

Can I afford Philcon. Ah, a much better question. Writers don’t make a lot of money, after all. *shrug*

I priced the hotel room. Which actually wasn’t bad, much less than I was expecting.

I figured up what gas would be likely to be for driving up and driving back.

Meals? Well, I can always stop at Dollar Tree and stock up on off-brand (and shockingly dry) apple newtons for the weekend. 🙂

To make a long story short, if I set aside a certain amount of money from the next five paychecks, Philcon should be doable. I try to live a frugal life anyway.

The ironic thing? Until about a month ago, I had an emergency fund that would have covered this. (Okay, it was emergency fund/trip to Scotland fund, since I’ve never been to Scotland and would really like to go.) But I had to spend the emergency fund; some of it went to my grandmother’s funeral, the rest went to replacing my parents’ hot water heater.

Philcon’s a little different than the kind of conventions I normally attend. More literary, for one thing. A kind of terra incognita, I suppose. It’s always good to break out of one’s comfort zone.

Mark me down for a tentative leaning toward certain, then. Philcon. November 18th through 20th in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. Now I just have to come up with some programming to pitch. 🙂

And this reminds me that I need to get Farpoint squared away, too. That’s just five months away. Tempus fugit

Published by Allyn

A writer, editor, journalist, sometimes coder, occasional historian, and all-around scholar, Allyn Gibson is the writer for Diamond Comic Distributors' monthly PREVIEWS catalog, used by comic book shops and throughout the comics industry, and the editor for its monthly order forms. In his over ten years in the industry, Allyn has interviewed comics creators and pop culture celebrities, covered conventions, analyzed industry revenue trends, and written copy for comics, toys, and other pop culture merchandise. Allyn is also known for his short fiction (including the Star Trek story "Make-Believe,"the Doctor Who short story "The Spindle of Necessity," and the ReDeus story "The Ginger Kid"). Allyn has been blogging regularly with WordPress since 2004.

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