ConFinement 2026 AAR

Well, we went away for a few days and after we get back I find out there was a war. Something like this always happens on a trip. A few more coincidences like this and when people ask why I stopped leaving my house, I shall rear back, swish my cape, and say, “A road trip!? Nay! I dare not!”

ConFinement is a science fiction convention. It was started in the Year Without Conventions by people who are bad at obeying experts. It’s usually a small convention with a bit over 100 attendees.

First, the Bad

I have little Action to Report After. I didn’t attend many panels or hang out much. Much of the trip was me and my daughter running around the hotel and/or swimming in the pool. This was lots of fun, but we could technically do that in a closer hotel with a pool and no convention.

…but if we had gone to some random hotel, Mike Williamson’s kids wouldn’t have been there, and my daughter might never have learned about NERF Super Soaker Megaforce Battle Tanks. This is exactly the sort of thing my daughter needs to learn about. And the ComfortSuites in Lebanon, TN has a fantastic, indoor, saltwater pool.

My daughter enjoyed turning all the lights in the hotel room on and off, which was great until she tripped and hit her nose on one of the drawers. Luckily, it wasn’t broken or anything, just a new color.

Either my wife and I both got a mild infection the day we arrived that went away on the trip home, or we were allergic to something—no, wait. This is a SF convention. I must do this properly: In the hotel...I sensed...an alien miasma...as if some...THING!...caused...an allergic reaction.

Writing for the Ear

This panel by David Bock and Michael Farnette was mainly about reading out loud, making audiobooks, etc. I’ve been to panels about reading out loud before (one of them by David Bock!), so it was mostly the same advice: reformat the manuscript for reading, don’t try to act, good audio equipment, not too fast, not too slow, not monotone, not-quite-eye-contact, etc.

I was hoping for advice on how to make my dialogue sound the same in other people’s heads as it does in my head, and I even asked a question about that. I’m not sure such advice exists.

Spells and Shells

This was the one panel I really wanted to attend, but as always seems to happen, I missed it in favor of being a target for NERF Super Soaker Megaforce Battle Tanks. Allegedly, it was about mixing guns and magic.

Writing for Impact

There was supposed to be such a panel, but there wasn’t, so I sat in a room by myself of a few minutes. Which was nice.

Based on not reading the book with the same title, it looks like it might be targeted more for non-fiction and marketing, but there could still be good advice in there for fiction writers.

Logistics in Your Stories

Rich Cartwright, David Bock, John Arpin, and Michael Farnette discussed how to handle logistics in stories. How do your space marines get resupplied?

I wasn’t originally going to attend, but as Mike’s daughter was basically babysitting my daughter at the time, I had time.

It covered many topics, which I mostly didn’t write down. However, it did give me several story ideas, which I did write down.

Flint Knapping by a Dummy

Julian Thompson hosted this panel on flint knapping. There was less flint knapping than expected. More geology. More animal parts being passed around.

I did flint knapping once before, way back in Boy Scouts. I cut myself, which is why I haven’t done it again. One of my world-building projects is trapped-in-the-stone-age-due-to-the-atmosphere, so I was hoping to see more knapping to remind myself what it’s like so I can describe it without having to cut myself again.

Even with less knapping, it was an entertaining panel with lots of trivia about rocks, stone tools, and all sorts of unrelated diversions. It was even entertaining for a five-year-old. My daughter particularly liked playing with the squirrel hide.

Marketing with Facebook Groups

Rich Cartwright and Dan Kemp hosted this panel on using Facebook for marketing.

As a social media hermit, I hadn’t planned on attending, but as my daughter was occupied, I figured it wouldn’t hurt.

I might ought to set up an author page on a few sites.

Many author-related groups are defunct and/or just data-mining for scams (fake publishers, fake editors, that sort of thing), so you need to be careful which ones you join.

Ads may or may not work these days. “Facebook ads CAN pay off. The problem is, you don’t know WHY they did.”

Never put a link in the main body of Facebook posts, because the Al Gore Rhythm will assume its spam or marketing (I mean...it isn’t wrong) and hide the post.

Don’t be that guy who sends out lots of friend/group requests and then immediately pitches something and never interacts in any other way. This is easy. I can be that guy that doesn’t send requests and also doesn’t pitch anything.

Facebook doesn’t tell group owners if posts are pending/spam, which seems like it ought to be a setting.

Vendors

It was a good convention for consuming products. Given the size of the convention, it seemed the dealers room did pretty well.

We got some candles from Dogwood Farms (https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100087007582358), the same person who made us a whole loaf of spearmint soap a year ago.

We picked up more physical books than usual. I can’t get ebooks anymore through the usual channels (ahem, amazon), so it’s all used bookstores and conventions, and we usually only go to 1 or 2 conventions. On the bright side, my stacks of books to read have actually shrunk.

A Story of Signatures

When you buy books at a convention the author often signs it. I don’t care if they sign it or personalize the signature or put the date on it or whatever. This sometimes gets awkward...but the reasons are due to deep personal trauma.

See, a long, long time ago, at a convention that no longer exists, I got a used copy of Wild Cards I signed by a couple people. One of the missing authors (Melinda Snodgrass, IIRC) was at that very convention, so I managed to up the number of signatures to 3. And over a decade of extremely infrequent convention attendance, I got a few more signatures as a kind of personal joke.

Then I was petsitting for someone and the dog at it.

I learned a valuable lesson about the impermanence of the material world.

After hearing this woeful tale, my (then-future) wife gave me a Wild Cards I with a different set of signatures, which I thought was very thoughtful. But it didn’t cure my lack of interest in getting books signed.

If I ever manage to actually get the middle and end of a novel right, I may have to perform the signature ritual myself. That will be even more awkward.