This was my favorite cosplay at ConnectiCon – which, believe me, had some stunning and beautiful cosplay. But look at that – that’s Sherlock Holmes in a bedsheet and Irene Adler in her lingerie. It’s so wickedly clever, and I loved it.

Is great! Seriously, I had a good trip to Newport, and an amazing time at ConnectiCon!

I’ll start with Newport – it was low-key, I was able to get some solid outlining work done, and I took some good reference photos for the books. Great ambiance, pleasure to visit there again, and I had a lot of meals at the Newport Creamery.

Oh, and for anyone who has wondered what Madeline’s mansion looks like, here was what I used as a reference:

That’s Rosecliff. It’s right on one of the main roads, Ocean Drive, but with 30-odd acres, you actually don’t hear the road noise. In my opinion, it’s one of the most beautiful mansions.

I got home on Thursday, meeting up with my good friend John, who was nice enough to agree to ride shotgun on my first convention. Let me tell you – ConnectiCon was a shit-ton of fun. For one thing, this happened at the first panel we attended:

Most impressively? Those guys had not coordinated in advance! The guy who did Torvo was, hands down (hee hee) unbelievably funny.

I ended up being on three panels over the weekend – Worldbuilding 101, Crossgenre Writing, and The Ten Things You Need To Know About Writing (on that last one, I don’t know what our final tally was before we went to questions, but a few people taking notes said that we were about fifteen-ish – even without counting how often we were expanding on what the person before us had just said). Each one was so much fun – the first two I was lucky to be with Michael J. Sullivan, Leona Wisoker, and the incredible Joseph Bruchac. All so lovely. Big kudos to Michael J. Sullivan, who managed to avoid looking horrified the third time I showed up on a panel with him (seriously, he was not only wonderful, but also graciously served as defacto moderator for two of the panels – Leona Wisoker made a heroic moderator stance in the second panel when the topic completely dried up on us). Last panel included Margaret Killjoy, who was such a pleasure to meet, and who very graciously began peppering his speech with profanity to make me feel less conspicuous after I accidentally broke the curse barrier. I am reading through his thoroughly delightful choose-your-own-adventure book What Lies Beneath The Clock Tower and I’m really enjoying the writing, the goblins, and the presence of absinthe.

Very typically me, I had my camera with me at all times, yet never took a picture with my fellow panelists, or even of my fellow panelists. So instead why not enjoy this picture I took of my favorite set of Game of Thrones cosplayers? That Jon Snow is totally killing it.

I also got to meet wonderful people! Rob Durand and Rachel Sasseen were incredibly nice and cool for the whole weekend, and so much fun to hang out with! We talked, we had dinner, we played games, they introduced me to the fantastic Cam Banks, and then they even did me the *huge* solid of helping me with a very inconvenient and stress-inducing box.

Typically, after that great weekend with many a fun laugh, plus a great round of both Gloom and 7 Wonders? This is the closest thing to a photo I took of everyone – yes, that is the trunk of Rob and Rachel’s car.

Oh, and the gaming. Seriously, I had so much fun. I got to play 3-person Puerto Rico (fast, too – John and I played with a guy who apparently plays Puerto Rico in tournaments – and, yeah, I totally tied him on points, but he beat me by three coins), I learned Revolution with John and my husband (thanks Steve Jackson game instructor!), Gloom (which Cam very nicely taught me how to play), and Rob and Rachel taught me and John how to play 7 Wonders, which is so good that I’m probably going to have to buy it now.

Also amazing? The artists’ area. Stunning, stunning artwork – if I was single and I didn’t have to compromise on my choices in wall art, I would’ve come home with so much stuff to frame. But I did pick up a few small things – one whimsical print of sheep having a tea party by Anne Hoffer, and a set of the most glorious postcards by Cari Corene. Yeah, I’m not sending those postcards – I’m going to frame them.

That’s one of the ones I bought by Cari Corene – she draws foxes, people. FOXES. I am helpless before her power. So was everyone else – her booth was *never* empty.

I also was able to hand out a lot of my business cards, talked with many aspiring writers, and hopefully some more people will check out Generation V. And, in Generation V news – I’m up to 25 reviews on Amazon.com, so thanks so much to everyone who has done that! If you haven’t written a review for them yet, please do! I was very lucky to get wonderful coverage by two fantastic bloggers – shewolfreads posted a review and an interview, and Civilian Reader also posted a review and an interview. All are well worth checking out – I really enjoyed these ones!

For this week – just working hard and trying to stay cool in the monstrously hot temperatures.

The wildlife of Newport (ie, the seagull that ate my breakfast leftovers every morning and the idiot rabbit that kept hiding under my car) entreats you to buy Generation V!