It's been five years since I've attended AC for the first time; that's five furry conventions under my belt (yes, for you math-inclined people out there, that does mean I've skipped one - 2010). In that time I've gone from having never commissioned art to commissioning ten pieces (all from the extremely friendly and easy-to-work-with Rov). I've gone from two journal posts to...this makes three. I've gone from posting no art and stories to...posting no art or stories. Alright, clearly I need to work on my involvement.

However, I've gone from being curious about the furry fandom to considering myself a furry. I think that's more important progress than art or writing. Granted, it's selfish progress: I'm helping define my identity, but that doesn't give the community much to enjoy. However, after this convention, I feel far more galvanized (there's a good word!) to contribute to this site than I have in the past. There are two people I feel contributed to this in a large way: Kyell Gold and Larry Dixon.

Hitsukun, my husband, and I opted to plan out our panels from the online schedule instead of after we got there to capitalize on our time away (we have a puppy to take care of and didn't want to leave him home alone for longer than ten hours, something he's proven he can handle). While Writing is the last category in the alphabetical schedule, it's the one we're both most interested in, so it took little time to get to it. I noticed Kyell Gold was participating in several of the panels, and I remembered purchasing his Out of Position two years prior, though I never read it. Figuring I should read a sample of the work of a panelist I was interested in, I sought out my copy. And I sought some more. And then more. I scanned all the bookshelves on all three floors of our condo to no success. I checked in bags stashed out of the way (finding a sculpture Hitsukun and I had purchased on our honeymoon that I'd completely forgotten about). Hitsukun was pretty convinced that we had opted to pick it up at a later point in time and never bought it. I was beginning to think I was going insane. I hopped on to Sofawolf's website, looked up Kyell Gold's work, got incredibly confused, found the filter to show adult content, looked at the cover, and vividly remembered Tempe handing me my copy. I searched for another half hour but at last went to bed defeated. After waking, I found it within five minutes inside of a plastic bag inside of another plastic bag on my bedroom floor. Go figure.

I began reading it Friday, and I found the writing very inviting. I attended the first of Kyell's panels and found him organized and insightful, with a knack for keeping the panel on topic. I've enjoyed almost every panel I've attended at Anthrocon, but despite my relative inexperience with panelists, I can still tell when someone really knows what they're talking about, has organized their thoughts, and can stay focused throughout the slight deviations that the audience introduces. I even found myself wanting to attend the Adult Writing panel (something I hadn't done since the "skin ditch" incident of 2008), but alas that would have put us beyond the ten hour time limit with the puppy. The panels on Saturday and Sunday also went well, and I was granted a brief opportunity to talk to Kyell one-on-one when getting my copy of Out of Position signed Saturday and again when I had him sign my freshly-bought copies of Isolation Play and Divisions on Sunday. Here was an individual who was 1) friendly, 2) insightful, 3) enjoyable to read, and thus 4) an influence to live up to. Aside from a few pieces of erotica I've written as gifts to Hitsukun, I've never actually tried writing anything furry, but now a character has hooked his claws in my brain, and I'm curious to see where this will lead.

And that brings us to Larry Dixon. Don't get me wrong: Mercedes Lackey is a great writer and was a wonderful panelist and great person to talk meet, but Larry's philosophy is incredibly inspiring and contagious. He said in a panel that he is always willing to take twenty minutes out of his day to talk to someone who's a fan, because that's the event that catalyzed his own career, and he believes in giving that back to the community. And he made good on those words: Hitsukun sended up waiting in line around forty-five minutes to get his book and pictures signed, and he was the third person in line when he started. Between Larry's humble attitude and his genuine belief that any one person in the audience can become a great writer, I felt encouraged.

When I failed to pass my graduate preliminary examinations, had my funding cut, and dropped out of the program with just an M.A., I considered that the greatest failure of my life. Granted, the institution I was at wasn't doing any research that I found interesting; the exams were in fields of mathematics that I was weak in; the only prospects I had after completing the degree was finding a teaching position at some liberal arts school. I can rationalize it with the fact that my true passions don't lie in math: they lie with scripting code (a passion I wish I had discovered in undergrad) and in writing. However, the preliminary exams, at a 10% passing rate, have much better odds than getting published; I believe Ashe cited that a 4% acceptance rate for writing was extremely high. I've only submitted one short story since graduating undergrad, and while Hitsukun seemed envious that my rejection letter was more personalized than the letter he got for the same anthology, it left me with an unpublished short story that didn't really fit any other publishers' themes. However, both Larry and Kyell, independently, stated that someone who can do something well and be consistent is preferred over someone who can do something brilliantly once, so maybe I have a chance at something afterall. Time will tell.

And in that meantime, I'll try to be more active within the community. Given my record thus far, that shouldn't be too difficult to manage.