At Can-Con over the weekend of September 9-11, 2016, we had the opportunity to meet some incredible people. Madona Skaff-Koren (Twitter, website) is one of those. She is a mystery author published by Renaissance Press (Twitter, website), and incredibly amazing to talk to! You can meet her at the Mega-Multi-Author Launch happening Oct 29, 2016.
Hello My Imaginary Friends,
Just a short break between episodes of Gladiators in SPACE!
I have officially been a father for ten days. So much and so little has happened since she was born. In an attempt to avoid rambling too much I’ll separate this into parts.
A theme this past ten days has been, “I thought I understood what was going to happen, but I didn’t.”
The birth and labour was much longer than I expected and very different. I won’t go into details, but despite all our preparation we had no clue.
When I saw the little wriggling baby for the first time I didn’t experience what a lot of people had described. I didn’t instantly fall in love, I didn’t just know, etc. I just saw an adorable baby that vaguely looked like her mother. I instinctively wanted to protect her, but I get that with all babies. There was nothing spiritual or magical.
All the love and the urge to make everything better for her came slowly over time. It started when we first learned she existed and continued to grow. It’s still growing now.
I think even if she weren’t my child, I’d find her adorable. She makes these little snuffling noises, squeaks, and mini-roars that sound just like what I’d imagine a little Dragon would sound like.
In case you don’t know what Impostor Syndrome is, it’s “an inability to internalize […] accomplishments and a persistent fear of being exposed as a ‘fraud’.”
It’s most common in artistic people from what I’ve seen. I sometimes wonder how long it’ll take people to realize that it was mistake to publish me. By the way, check out A Study in Aether and leave reviews on Goodreads or Amazon. Ahem…
I’ve found the same sort of feeling with Dragon. One moment I’ll be changing her diapers and the next I’ll wonder when her real parents are coming to take her home. It’s like my brain is unable to fully comprehend that we’ve created a human and are now responsible for her. It’s terrifying.
There’s a disconnect between understanding the principles of making and having children and truly internalizing the information.
I’m told that the Parental Impostor Syndrome goes away eventually. Hopefully the other one will as well, but it’ll probably take longer.
Everyone warned me that once the baby would be around, there would be no time for sleep or anything else. So far we’ve been lucky; she’s sleeping 2-4 hours in a row between feedings. I can’t imagine doing this and going to my full time job, but I’ve been able to do a few little things here and there on projects.
The first few days I felt utterly lost and a little panicked but we’ve been introducing elements of routine into our days and that’s making me feel better.
As she grows older, we’ll try to instill a nice routine into her life as well and we can hope that will prevent us all from having more trouble than we already are.
I’m a shameless optimist when it comes to the human race and the innate goodness in each of us. That being said, I’m extremely insecure and have as a default assumption that everyone dislikes me. (It’s unfounded and silly but my brain is a jerk.)
Our friends and family have been absolutely amazing. Any and all support we need is there and we greatly appreciate it. You are all amazing!
We thought long and hard about who and what we wanted for our little Dragon’s Godparents.
We narrowed down the criteria to someone who:
In the end we chose her Aunt Lindsay, who’s one of the most good and genuine people I know, and S.M. Carrière, who’s a wonderful person with a lot to share with Dragon. I know both will be there for her and make sure she grows up to be an awesome person.
Read S.M. Carrière’s post about it that made both Jen and I cry.
There’s a lot more I could write but I’ll stop there.
Later Days,
Éric
At Can-Con over the weekend of September 9-11, 2016, we had to opportunity the meet some incredible people. Melissa Yi (Twitter, website) is one of those. She is an M.D. and author, and incredibly amazing to talk to! You can meet her at the Mega-Multi-Author Launch happening Oct 29, 2016.
At Can-Con over the weekend of September 9-11, 2016, we had to opportunity to meet some incredible people. Derek Newman-Stille (Twitter) is one of those. On top of being a bad-ass secret monster, a PhD candidate, reviewer, editor, and artist, he runs the five-time Aurora Award winning website Speculating Canada!
Are you a fan of Harry Potter? I know of only a handful of people who aren’t. (You know who you are!)
Do you want to go to Hogwarts? Do you want to play Quidditch? Ride the Hogwarts Express and Knight Bus? Learn and practice spells?
Yeah, I really want to do all these things…
And on October 21-22, 2016, in Chestnut Hill, PA, all of this (and more!) is possible!
Enter the Harry Potter Festival and Quidditch Tournament!
Chestnut Hill College will be transformed into Hogwarts, there will be a Quidditch Tournament, and a festival taking up 10 city blocks over the course of the two days.
There is also a Harry Potter Conference happening October 20-21, 2016!
Surprisingly, Chestnut Hill is in the Northwest corner of downtown Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
If you are interested in booking a trip to Philadelphia to visit Hogwarts.Jen has retired from working as a travel agent. Hope you’ve enjoyed Fandom Travel.
Hello My Imaginary Friends,
Dragon is taking her time so I’m back at work this week (until I get the call, text, etc.) That means the super awesome story I have planned for you will have to wait for Thursday. It will hopefully not be postponed again.
This past weekend, despite being Dragon’s due date, we decided to get a table at Can-Con. It’s our favourite convention and is totally awesome.
One of the highlights of my weekend was selling coffee to authors I respect. It makes me feel all fan-boyish. The other was seeing old friends and meeting new ones. Can-Con people rock.
Not wanting to be too far away from Dragon, or the table, I only got to see one panel and give my first reading.
The panel I went to was about antagonists, it was incredibly interesting. The panelists were great (as usual).
Next year I plan on being on more panels. (I was asked but didn’t want to risk the chance of a Dragon hatching pulling me away).
To all the organizers, panelists, volunteers, vendors, and visitors to Can-Con; thank you so much for making it another great convention. I look forward to doing it again next year!
We’d both like to thank everyone who made sure Jen was ok and checked in on her throughout the weekend. You made her and I feel extremely loved and cared for!
The reading was a lot of fun. Cait Gordon is a spectacular performer, Madona Skaff was fantastic, and Caroline Fréchette gave an impressive reading despite having bronchitis.
I learnt an important lesson about reading. Double check the passage before you read it. I just chose a random one and went for it, but didn’t account for how much extra set-up I needed. Seriously, I think I chose the part with the most characters in the entire book. I was sweaty, mumbling, and awkward, but people said I did okay. Next time I’ll prepare a little more.
Speaking of next time…
This October 29th, Jen, I, and 6 other fantastic authors will be launching books and a game. It’ll be amazing. There are prizes, readings, food, and costumes!
There will probably be a baby Dragon there, in an adorable costume. (She’ll hatch by then right?)
This is the best place to get my book and some of my favourite reads from the past few years.
That’s it for now.
I’ll either be writing a new post on Thursday or you’ll get a story as I cuddle a Dragon.
Later Days!
Éric
Luna is one of my absolute favourite characters, and I love that this cosplayer included the Quibbler and the spectrospecs in her costume!
When you go to Can-Con, you get to meet some pretty fantastic people. The attendees are fun and intelligent, you get to listen to panels by experts in their field, and you get to meet some amazing authors. I cannot speak highly enough about this convention. Seriously, our favourite of the year. (And that includes the one that *I* organize – CON Creative Ottawa Nerds!)
This is one of the amazing authors I mentioned in the above paragraph. Kevin Johns has written several books, including as a ghost writer (I didn’t know those existed on this plane!) and he is a writing coach. He hosts free webinars occasionally, of which I have had the opportunity to attend quite a few, and he really knows what he’s talking about. And he has a new book coming out soon – M School! I was one of the fortunate few who got to Beta read this book, and OMG is it ever good!
You can meet him, and many others (including us, barring circumstances), at Can-Con 2016, happening Sept 9 – 11, 2016 at the Novotel in downtown Ottawa! I saw a sneak peek of the schedule – it’s going to be even better than last year, which I didn’t think was possible!
Somehow I missed posting the pictures from Can-Con 2015! This is one of our absolute favourite conventions of the year, which is kinda obvious if you know that our due date coincides with their convention THIS year. (Sept 9-11) Seriously, go check them out and then buy a ticket. The writing community of Ottawa is incredible.
A red shirt, author Éric Desmarais (Follow him on Facebook, his blog, sign up for his newsletter through his website, and buy his book here) is about to get bitten by a vampire, author S. M. Carrière (Follow her on Facebook, her blog, sign up for her newsletter through her website, and buy her books here) and is pleading for the Doctor to help!
Fleur Delacour stopped by our table at Ottawa Comic Con. She’s an adventurous spirit, or else the Goblet wouldn’t have picked her for the Triwizard Tournament.
I adore her hat!
Have you pre-ordered The Cursed Child? Are you planning on going to a midnight release party? We’re going to Pinecrest Chapters. I’m going to have to take a nap so that I can stay up so late! Will we see any of you there?
