Balticon, day 2: Reading, lunch, UFC

My reading was today at noon. For most beginning writers, and certainly for me, readings are exercises in ego abuse. You show up, maybe a friend or two arrives, and then no one else comes. You sit with your friend and wonder whether to read some piece you both already know, and at some point you give up and leave. Through the course of doing many such readings, I've evolved a simple rule: the people I don't know must outnumber me, or I'm not reading.

By that rule, today's reading was a spectacular success. Five friends showed, but so did four or five other people, as well as the woman doing the podcast for Balticon. (I'll post a link to that recording when it's live on the Web.)

If you've never done or been to a reading, this may seem like a tiny crew, but for me it was a treat.

I read a few selections from One Jump Ahead, answered some questions, and stopped the event at 12:40. Better short than boring, say I.

Lunch was with the friends who came to the reading--Jennie, Ken, Vicki, Dave, and Karen--plus Kyle, who joined us late. Afternoon was wandering the con and some work and down time, as well as a little more food. During this time, I received a phone message that One Jump Ahead was now on the shelves at a Barnes & Noble; hurrah!

We attended the masquerade, which was pleasant enough and hosted superbly, as always, by the estimable Marty Gear.

As soon as that show ended, we dashed to Kyle's for the UFC's pay-per-view event, which he was hosting and DVRing. Sarah asked me to get a photo of the infamous (in our extended family) Oxford-cloth shirt, so here's one of Kyle holding two of them; he's not sure which is the famous one. (Ask him if you want the back story.) Kyle also provided us with pizza and some superb creme brulee ice cream.

The show was a lot of fun, with more fights ending in upsets than not and with an amazing knockout of reigning UFC Light Heavyweight champion Chuck "the Iceman" Liddell by underdog Quentin "Rampage" Jackson. I love the UFC events and recommend them highly.

To write, and then to bed. Tomorrow is panel day, so either I'll have a lot to report or I will simply end the day in exhaustion.