This past weekend I was at Crypticon Seattle in Author’s/Artist’s Alley. Besides seeing a few friends and meeting a few more for the first time in person (waves at author Crystal Connor!), I met a ton of awesome new people like artist Josh Monster and his wife Jessica, who had the booth next to mine. They were my first sales of the weekend, and Jessica proceeded to tell everyone who came to my booth or hers that my books were so amazing, she couldn’t put them down. (I sold a lot of books because of her!)

I also met fellow spec-fic author Nate D. Burleigh and his son. Got a free book of Nate’s to check out and got to talk about my books with his son as well. Kid cosplayed a really awesome Carrie from the prom scene.

Besides selling books, I gave away a LOT of chocolate…or my dragon did anyway. We ran out Saturday evening and a crazy clown with a trick-or-treat bag gave someone too much candy, so she donated it to the dragon to “make us honest folks.” Sunday, we replenished the dragon’s hoard.

I tweeted out that I had the “good stuff”–both good books and good candy! Word spread. I had folks stop by for the “good chocolate” who then chatted with me about my books or bought copies. It was a decent weekend for sales, but I will admit I was disturbed by the number of people who said, “That sounds like a great book! Too bad I don’t read! Does it have a movie?”

*facepalm*

Elvira (Cassandra Peterson) and the Mr. Candyman himself (Tony Todd) were both there, as was Lance Henriksen (Alien, Terminator, Millennium), who stopped at the booth besides us to pet their puppy. Lucky them!

I also met authors Raven and Tim Black, who are both gamers living close to me. I got them addicted to Puzzle & Dragons. Bwahahahaha!

At one point, an attendee came by and gave me a happy balloon, which I then gave fangs so that it would be more fitting to the horror convention. I taped him to my price listing sign and he made a happy, if not morbid, companion for the weekend.

My husband was with me for 2 of the 3 days, though he was fighting a sinus infection and generally felt like shit. (In fact, he’s still sick and fighting this crud.)

There was some amazing cosplay at this convention. Lots of creepy clowns and folks from all variety of horror movies. On Friday, I saw a man wearing a Vampire: the Masquerade shirt, circa 1994. In fact, I owned that shirt back in the day. Talk about a blast from the past. There were times where I definitely felt like I was at a goth convention, which was just fine by me. 🙂

At one point, a xenomorph walked by, complete with stilts. My happy balloon totally photobombed one of the shots.

The cosplay was incredibly complicated and my crappy cell phone photos don’t do it justice at all.

I’ll post the link to all the cosplay photos taken by Crypticon staff once it’s up.

When the convention closed on Sunday afternoon and the vendors were all packing up their booths, one of the artists across from me had a bit of an accident. Her lamp overheated and lit her tablecloth on fire. It burned straight down to the hotel’s tablecloth and sent up the burnt plastic smell from hell.

There was enough smoke that for a moment, we worried it would trigger the sprinkler system and soak everyone’s books and merchandise. I don’t think I’ve ever packed up books that fast in my life!

Luckily the fire was easily put out and no harm was done…other than to the tablecloths. 😉

Overall, the Crypticon staff and attendees were loads of fun and quite awesome to work with. I am looking forward to next year!