The View From Drew

I got the bloody driver to work and was able to transfer the pictures from my camera to the laptop.  Here is the group picture from the The Quality of Leadership panel at Shore Leave last month.  Here are nine of the thirteen people who were involved with contributing to the book.  Seated from left to right are neadods , kradical , tiggerallyn , and terri_osborne .  Standing from left to right are puppetmaker40 , peterdavidblog , me, nightwolfwriter , and jmswallow . 

I will post more pictures shortly, but I wanted to get this one up here and on the Big Finish page on Facebook.

I haven't written about this yet as I was of two minds about the situation with this series of conventions that was supposed to stretch across the country.  Originally, I was going to attend and participate in the New Jersey and Washington events, but I then bowed out of Washington because the cost to get there, even driving, would have been too much.  Then I bowed out of the New Jersey event as their Doctor Who guests, including Colin Baker, were all removed.  I saw no point in going to promote The Quality of Leadership when all they had going were cartoon voice actors and wrestlers.  Then they got Adrian Paul from Highlander and Edward James Olmos from Battlestar Galactica.  Well, they canceled the first two events a few weeks ago and now they've canceled their big Boston show, the only one to have Doctor Who guests in it, days before the event.  And in looking at the site, I see that Olmos is now gone from New Jersey.  From the apology note that was posted by the organizer, I get the feeling that the other cons will quickly fall under their own weight too.  This is a shame as we don't have many Northeast coast media conventions.  One of the early canceled shows was in Connecticut the same weekend as Shore Leave.  Good thing I didn't sign up for that.  If anyone does attend any Jumpcon events that do occur, I'd be curious to hear what you thought of it.

After the Who panel Saturday, the family and I went out to eat at this Italian eatery we took a liking to the first night.  I then brought them back to the hotel.  Now, we weren't staying in the same hotel as the con as I was a doofus and didn't book early.  The hotel we stayed at was nice and only five minutes away by car.  I got myself ready with every intention of going back for the masquerade, but Sue and the boys looked so comfortable lying on the bed that I joined them and we watched iCarly until we all nodded off.

Sunday was spent with an early morning panel on the new Who series along with Torchwood and Sarah Jane Smith Adventures.  puppetmaker40 did a great job of making the most of the hour we were given to cover three shows.  It was also funny to watch jmswallow having to stop himself from giving away too much on upcoming developments in the series.  We were able to reveal the inclusion of the Brigadier in two episodes of Sarah Jane for its new season as that is old news on the net.

I then went back and got Sue and the boys to check out of the hotel.  They spent the rest of the afternoon at the con hotel's pool while I attended and participated in various panels.  I caught the tail end of the SCE panel and did plan on sitting in on kradical's hour, but got sucked into a very cool conversation right outside kradical's room with daytonward and jmswallow which might lead to a cool new project.  More as details develop.  (And yes, gentlemen, I am writing up what we talked about and will email the notes to you.  We'll see, as daytonward put it, if it still shines days later as it did when we discussed it.)

daytonward and I then conducted a panel on the two Bionic Woman series.  Actually, it was more of an intimate conversation as there were only four other people in the room, but it was fun.  I even got to run my fanwank on how the new series could still be a continuation of the old series even if both women had the same name.  (I want to put my thoughts down and will eventually post it in the_osi.)  We managed to talk for the entire hour as daytonward brought in his knowledge of The Six Million Dollar Man as well as Jake 2.0 and Now & Again.

We then hit the road and headed out to Ocean City.  We're staying in a new location this year.  Sue wanted something with an indoor pool in case the weather was bad and it worked out well today as she took the boys to the pool while I crashed.  I woke up at 3AM this morning, still buzzing from the weekend and couldn't go back to sleep.

My only regret was that I didn't get to spend as much time as I would have liked to with tiggerallyn.  We were on two panels together, but I never had a chance to sit down and say thanks for being so kind with my early Doctor Who fan audios like The Time Brokers.  I never got to tell you, but It was your positive and constructive feedback that made me continue writing for the DWADs.

Back from the panel.  It went very well, but just as I figured, at about five minutes to the end of the first hour, we all looked at each other and went, "Now what?"  Fortunately, someone asked us to name our favorite Doctor and that got the ball rolling again.  The rest of the time was spent signing copies of the book.  I think we moved about another fifteen or so of them.  I was very satisfied.

Just back to regroup before the huge The Quality of Leadership panel.  Attended kradical's Boogie Knights concert.  I've never been to one of his performances before.  I've heard some of the CDs, especially when he was part of the Don't Quit Your Day Job Players, but I've never seen him perform live.  It was a lot of fun and the songs are pretty funny.

After that, I sat in on a panel for the Next Generation anthology, The Sky's in the Limit.  It was a good primer for my upcoming panel.  This was a one hour panel and after the introductions and explanations of how the stories came about, it was like pulling teeth to get some questions from the audience.

This has me worried.  What the hell are we going to do for two hours at a Star Trek convention on a Doctor Who panel?  It will be interesting.  I was pleased to hear that jmswallow will be on the Who/Torchwood/SJA panel tomorrow.  (That's getting one hour.)  I thought it odd that I was not included at first, but it didn't occur to me until he mentioned it that he would be an obvious choice.  We Americans are so oblivious.  This is going to be fun.

I have pictures from both events which I will post by Monday.

Went back to the hotel for the Meet the Pros gathering.  It was a little intimidating at first, especially when I saw all the cool posters, free samples, and cover art cards some of the authors had to promote their work and all I brought were a handful of The Dome CDs.  Fortunately, I was seated at the same table with glennhauman who, though I haven't seen in some fifteen or more years, is exactly the same person.  In fact, I don't think he's aged.  He's got this cool new start-up venture called Comicmix.com featuring all new stories of characters such as Jon Sable and GrimJack.  Mike Grell is on board with this and the best part - it's all free.  New material is being posted each week with the plans to move this into a dead tree format at some point.

And that's my plug for the day.  ;)

Anyway, with another author from Creative Couplings with me, it made it easy for people who wanted to get the book signed to find me.  The thing was that they didn't just come with their Creative Couplings.  First, I actually sold and signed two copies of The Dome.  That was a real thrill as most people didn't ask much about it or if they did they listened politely, sniffed, and moved on.  Audio drama - pfst.  What was even cooler was when kradical came up later and told me he signed one of them.  kradical had brought numerous copies of The Quality of Leadership with him and though he said he didn't sell as many as he liked, I certainly felt like I signed enough of them.  I signed for family and friends who didn't come.  I signed for new series fans who were now discovering the old series.  (I kinda envy them and the adventure that awaits them.)  I signed for longtime fans.  We talked about our favorite doctors and episodes.  It was interesting to hear about other people's experiences with discovering the show.  I signed a couple of copies of The History of Christmas.  I even signed one copy of Missing Pieces, the fan charity anthology that I contributed to many moons ago.  That was especially cool.

In addition, I got to meet face-to-face, daytonward, jmswallow, steve_mollmann, tiggerallyn (who hooked me up with copies of the fan Doctor Who audios done by Gary Russel and crew before they became Big Finish), michaelschuster, Richard White (EDIT: nightwolfwriter), Kevin Lauderdale, and Dave Galanter.

I was going to stay for a drink or two at the bar, but I got a call from Sue.  Mikey wasn't taking to his new environment too well and wouldn't go to sleep.  I went back to lay the "Daddy Smackdown" (it's not as bad as it seems), but by then with the exhausting trip down and all, I didn't feel like going back, so I crashed until now.

The nicest part of the whole experience though was talking to some of the people.  In my bio I state, "John S. Drew writes stories he hopes someone will enjoy."  A lot of times I feel down as I don't write as much as I should and that has been moreso the case lately.  Listening to some of the comments the convention goers made about my work really helped inspire me.  It was especially nice when I saw the Missing Pieces anthology.  That was a large tome and for someone to remember I had a story in it meant she remembered it.  I have a lot to think about this week.

Oh, and I also walked away with a cool huge cutout of the artwork of Creative Couplings which I will place in my classroom, but it will also come in handy at any other appearances I make.  I really need to develop some of those items for The Dome.

Checked in at the con.  Didn't see anyone I knew, but we weren't there long.  The kids were hungry and as I was on no panels, we went to dinner at a local pizza restaurant.  They make a great flatbread pizza.

We're back in the hotel and I'm going to take a shower before heading out to the Meet the Pros party.  Why must this be so late?  I'd like to take the kids, but it's getting late and Sue is going to have to stay with them.  Oh well.

I'll be at the Bionic Woman panel on Sunday from 2-3.  In fact, it's just me so far.  ;)

I've also chimed in for a Reaper and Heroes panel.

Well, here's the preliminary schedule.  I have a feeling this may be it for me though.

Friday, July 11:
Meet the Pros: 10:00PM-midnight: Hunt/Valley corridor


Saturday, July 12:
"Doctor Who: The Quality of Leadership": 3:00-5:00 p.m., Salon A (Two hours kids!  We have almost the entire gang coming!)


Sunday, July 13:
"Doctor Who, Torchwood, Sarah Jane Adventures": 10:00 a.m., Salon F

"S.C.E.: Corps of Engineers": 12:00 p.m., Salon B  (I'm not listed, but I'll crash it as I've got my SCE novella, "Paradise Interrupted" out in dead tree form now.)