So this past week, I remembered that hey, wow, Worldcon is coming up! And the only reason I remembered was because we realized that the trip to Nova Scotia is rapidly approaching, and Worldcon starts the day before we come back. This tells me something important.

Now, we didn’t buy our memberships ahead of time; money was tight, and since we were going to miss at least a day we figured we’d buy weekend or day passes. And then we waited because I wanted to see what the schedule would be like, so I’d be sure to buy the pass for the day I wanted most. And the schedules were only recently finalized, which drove me nuts, although I’ve participated in large-event organization before and I know how hard it is to pin this stuff down early.

Except now the time’s almost upon us, and I’m slowly realizing something. The only reasons I want to go to Worldcon are:

1. The biggest damn F/SF industry party is going to be IN MY TOWN and to miss it would be just stupid. I’m never going to get to travel to one anywhere else.

2. I want to attend signings of a handful of authors.

And really, that’s it. And can I really afford to pay for passes when I’m not going to really do anything? (Really.)

I was much more excited about Worldcon last year. The excitement has really faded until now, a couple of weeks before the convention itself, I’m at the point where I can’t be bothered about it. And I feel guilty about it, because, well, see item 1 above.

As a corollary, I present opposing arguments:

1. I hate large gatherings of people, with a biting, burning passion.

1a. I hate meeting new people.

2. We have no friends coming into town for the event that we’d be wanting to spend time with there.

3. My areas of writing have moved out of F/SF and into mainstream, specifically YA mainstream. (Okay, there’s the Pandora book which is urban fantasy, but it’s the exception that proves the rule.)

It’s kind of telling when the workshops/panels/ sessions that interest me the most are two or three of the signings, the knitting circle and the spinning workshop, the bookbinding/conservation workshop, and a panel on YA or folklore or music here and there. I don’t absolutely need to go to these; I’d be going to them because they’re being offered and I’d need to do something because I’d paid to get in. That’s the wrong reason entirely.

It’s a lot of money for something I’m not passionate or excited about. And it’s hard on the heels of driving home from NS, too. I know what my decision is going to be, unless something major happens to change it.