How’s it going Explorers!

I have written a book called Convention Adventures: Geeks going to Comic Cons. It is available on Amazon this is how it came to be.

Here is the cover of Convention Advenutres

Where does this start? Here? No not here!

Come with me explorer, tumbling back in time we shall head together, spiralling through the corridors of time. 

Thud! We are all the way back in 2016, carful now we must not disturb anything, being a Geek I am sure you are aware anything we may change here might mess the future right up. 

In the final third of 2016 I began trying to write a book, initially a guide book for Comic Cons. It was becoming very common to hear other attendees complain that its to hard or expensive to go to Cons outside of their home city. I decided I would try to help them out and set about creating a book. Early on it was clear that a straight up guide book just wasn’t interesting. To address this I added in tales from Cons I had attended to act as practical examples. As it turned out these were far more interesting than the guide book bits.

I scrapped all the early drafts and plans of 2016 deciding that the book would be about everything I did in 2017.

Quick lets leap forward, it will be far to slow and boring if I document the rest of 2016 for you. 

2017 then...I planned out a years worth of Cons, 11 in total, roughly one a month. These informed the core of my book. I wanted to keep the guide bits but these would be more restricted to hints and tips. When I read my initial guide book bits back it was so long winded for really simple stuff, it just wasn’t necessary or entertaining. 

Convention Advenutres was born!

To ensure I kept to this I set up a FaceBook page to help track my progress. I listed all the Cons I would be heading to, invited a bunch of friends to like the page and was ready to go. It is still there if you wish to see my original set up, just FaceBook search Convention Advenutres.

To add story tension and personal development I created a list of challenges to complete. With these challenges I would ensure I covered all the bases when writing about the Cons. Mostly simple things, wear Cosplay, collect something, have a celebrity photo taken and even enter a Cosplay Masquerade. 

The year went well, I documented all 11 Cons although only included 10 as one was so short and poor it wasn’t a tale worth telling. I believe it could have been an amusing chapter, regaling the disappointing escapade. Unfortunately the humour needed to convey the trash bag of a Con outing would have been too nasty. It was important to me that Convention Adventures was positive and not mean spirited. 

An ice age came and went, species evolved and became extinct. It has taken an age to finesse the tale, my finished deadline continually extended and pushed along. Finally I published Convention Adventures on Amazons Kindle Store in mid October. 

Part of the delay was the creation of Geek Explorers. When Convention Adventures was initially conceived it was intended to be a one off just for fun. As it turns out I really enjoyed the adventuring and writing and wanted to do more. I also chanced upon a YouTube show called the Endless Adventure inspiring me to develop my plans further. The Endless Adventure a couple who travel full time releasing videos of their ongoing journey, it’s really good. Now not only did I want to write down what I was up to I want to film it. This it turns out is to the sadness of my Convention team who have decided they hate being on camera which is posing some practical challenges as they scurry away every time the camera is pointed at them. 

I have spent the last couple of months setting up various Social Media’s and preparing some branding. Now everything is in place my book Convention Adventures: Geeks going to Comic Cons has been released it is available on the Kindle Store. All the Social Media’s are juddering slowly forwards. I have even decided to write a second book. Much like the first book I began writing without a plan and have now scrapped that early work. I’m in the process of laying out 2019s adventures, I will keep a log of what I’m up to here. There will be regular updates on instagram and occasional blog here with more thorough insight. 

For now Catch you later Explorers!