When Worlds Collide 2016 is almost here!! I’m registered to attend this year, and I’m really looking forward to it. It seemed like it was so far off in the distance when I initially bought the ticket and booked the hotel room, and now all of a sudden, BAM! It’s right around the corner!

I am super excited about this–firstly because I’ve never been to a writing festival or conference before, and secondly because this will be my very first solo trip since before I was pregnant*. I’m going to miss my family a lot, but I also miss uninterrupted sleep**.

There’s a couple things that are different at WWC compared to similar events I’ve attended. First of all, the sheer scale of the event–there’s ten separate things going on at once! I’m used to having to pick between two or three things that interest me (and another one or two that don’t), but there’s some tight competition for a bunch of the slots at this one, so I’ll probably have to throw some darts at the page to figure out what I’m actually going to attend. Second of all, I’ve never attended a conference that was almost exclusively panel-based before–so I’m curious to see what that changes about the overall experience for me! (Luckily, you don’t have to wonder, because I’ll blog about the whole damn thing.)

Luckily, I thought ahead when I was getting everything booked, and gave myself some extra cushion in my schedule. I’m planning to drive in Thursday morning, after I dump the kid at daycare, and then I’m free to wallow in writing and art until Monday morning, when I head back home***.

It’s funny. I was really apprehensive about even going. When I first heard about it, I was like “oh, that’s lovely. Maybe another time.” But I couldn’t stop thinking about it, so I talked it over with T, and he was supportive of me going. Initially, we weren’t sure how we were going to handle it–whether I would go alone, whether he and the kid would join me mid-event, whether they would just travel with us–and we were keeping all our options open. But as the event got closer, I realized that I wanted to be focused on writing as much as possible, and I broached the possibility of going alone, and we figured out how to make it work. (Apparently we make it work by me leaving. Very straight-forward.)

So…it’ll just be me! And I’m very excited. It’s only a few days away now. I still have to pack, print business cards, etc … but hey, that’s not so bad. The important part is that I’m going!!

Oh, and my word count goal for the weekend is 10k. I’m looking forward to seeing whether I absolutely crush my wordcount, or whether I gleefully ignore it because I’m having too much fun doing other stuff. Either way, I’m looking forward to a great weekend.

 

 

 

*Hilariously, my last solo trip was also to Calgary, but that was back in 2014, and it was mostly for work.

**I predict this will be the most uninterrupted sleeping I’ll have had since, oh, mid-2014.

***Honestly, the only thing this trip is missing is a divided highway between Saskatoon and Calgary. >.<