Sunday, October 24th This was a very short day for us. 11am: Tips for New Writers I sat in on this panel. Mike passed, as he's not a new writer. Neither am I, but you can never get enough pointers. Stephanie Bedwell-Grimes and Derwyn Mak were the speakers. They had some good advice. I ate my lunch in The Room, ready to support Mike at his 1pm panel, but… 1pm: Superheroes Supermodels I got there about 15 minutes in - just to run into Mike. His words: "No one there except us two panelists. We're leaving!" We'd cleared out of the hotel room by noon, we thought we'd leave after the Closing Ceremonies at 4… but it was enough. With an almost 8-hour drive ahead of us, better to get home earlier than to spend a few more hours in the Land of the Dead. We drove home fuming, feeling like we'd wasted money to come for this year. It was on the way back that Pat volunteered to work PR for Con*Cept 2000. Mike and Pat also had a deep discussion with me on the way back that helped me to see some things. Mike says he's given me this same talk before, but if he has, it's like all things for this Taurus: I learn and change very slowly. I've always been very self-deprecating, but the guys pointed out to me how I'd been putting down my accomplishments all weekend. MS can be a cause of much in the way of depression and low self-esteem - but I don't accept that as an excuse. I was like this before MS too. This has to change. Hopefully, I'll succeed in doing so this year! Overall This convention was an unmitigated disaster. No way to sugarcoat that. The organizers repeated the same mistakes they always have, and topped them. Mike told me that they are talking about holding another in 2000, but they didn't even mention it at this year's con - and I'd be very surprised if this doesn't bury the con for good. Pat found out that they came nowhere near making their room block numbers with the hotel; this means that function space that would be free now puts them $5-600 more in the hole. Will I attend Primedia 2000? If Mike is going, maybe… but when a con is so disappointing that even he can't find a silver lining in it, I don't think so. © 1999 by Jeff Boman