OK, Armadillocon was a blast!  Austin is awesome, if a bit weirdly planned in the road department. (EX: "The Loop" is a straightaway....)  I recommend it wholeheartedly.  Some of the best parts were:

-Hanging with Josh and Kristen Rountree, Sam Henderson and soon to be in the Austin newspaper daughter Gennie, Abby Goldsmith, Eric Marin, Mikal Trimm, Dave Duggins and Ann.  Deb Layne and Patrick Swenson and Nancy Jane Moore and Ellen Van Hensbergen and so many other writer types that I am sure to be forgetting a boatload of names.

-Read part of Alamo Rising and it seemed to be a crowd pleaser.

-Got to meet many fine, cool folks from the comics-writing side of the house. Paul Benjamin, Alan J. Porter, Chris Roberson.  These fellows were all super nice and gave me a couple pointers about where to start looking for info about the comics business and adapting some of my stories to comic scripts. 

-Learned many nuggets of Solomon Kane goodness from renegade Robert E. Howard guru Mark Finn.  Oh yes, there will be subscribing!

-Sat in on readings by Josh, Sam, Rob Rogers (DEVIL'S CAPE sounds like a pretty enthralling superhero novel!), Mikal, and also got to hear Alan J. Porter read and discuss quite a bit from his upcoming 007 pop-culture book.

-Listening to Joe Lansdale pontificate in his trademarked folksy way about the influence of Westerns on SF.

-The characterization panel I was on went well.  The only other author on the panel I had read before was Stephen Brust, but as ever, I took home a few new ideas to try.  My three C's went over pretty well too.  Wish I still had the original article from the long lost journalscape blog.  It'd be worth reposting.

-Moderating the Lovecraft's Legacy panel was a bit of a minefield.  Of the seven folks up there, it seemed like only me (the moderator) and William Browning Spencer (whose RESUME WITH MONSTERS is now on my list) actually liked Lovecraft, or at least could get over the archaic prose enough to really get into what he was about.  I threw my handgrenade out there connecting HPL to fanfiction, but no one jumped on it.  William Spencer read a hilarious send up: "The Love Song of A. Abdul Al-Hazred".  Luckily, there were two pro-Lovecraft guys in the front row ready to pinch hit and balance things out with some insightful comments about why HPL still matters.  (Thanks again, Robert Read and Don Webb.)

-Austin is known for Live Music.  Bills itself as the live music capital of the world.  Rightly so.  Deb's son brought his axe as did a double handful of other folks and there was an awesome jam session of classic rock standards till well after midnight on Saturday.

-Looking at the list of attendees and some other folks' con reports, It seems I missed out on meeting a whole lot of other folks I wanted to, or at least of getting to talk more to.  Had to go all the way to Texas to catch up with near-neighbor John Scalzi; Joe and Gay Haldeman were there, but I didn't get a chance to chat about THE ACCIDENTAL TIME MACHINE, or get it signed. I finally met Sheila Williams, and was startled that she recognized my name.  Also present apparently, but I failed to meet:  THE SPEED OF DARK author Elizabeth Moon (MAN! I should have mentioned this novel on the Characterization panel!!!),  Martha Wells, Patrice Sarath.  Wish there had been more time to talk to everyone, but I guess there'll always be another con--or this one again next year.  I'd definitely come back, if my real life time constraints supported it.

-Last thing I did before heading out to the airport was attend the panel on challenges of writing for younger audiences.  Cynthia Leitich Smith and Paul Benjamin had all kinds of stuff to say that I should have written down, and the other panelists were no slouches either.  Only down beat was the moderator let the panel get co-opted by an audience member asking the tired off-topic basics like "How do you find an editor to buy your work?" and so on.  Sigh.  I suspect the answer will never be, "By attempting to rudely derail a conversation about something else" but whatchagonnado?

LET THERE BE BOOKS!
While in Austin, Josh took me to a local book store where I finally laid my hands on a copy of F. Paul Wilson's JACK: SECRET HISTORIES.  Also picked up the second volume of the Waldrop retrospective (featuring longer works) and some of Ken Rand's writing books from the Fairwood press table.  Sam gave me a copy of her new soon to be released novel HEAVEN'S BONES, which I cannot recommend enough to fans of weird history, gaslight gothic terror, and just plain morbid fun.

When I got home, I found in my mailbox contributor copies of ABOMINATIONS and STARLINE, plus the Shirley Jackson fundraiser-cum-murder-party JACK HARINGA MUST DIE.  Also, an ARC of the aforementioned HEAVEN'S BONES by Samantha Henderson. (Which again, is made of grue and win, and worthy of your bookbuying dollars!)  Another issue of Mental Floss trickled in as well.  (I am so far behind in my reading!!  Is it winter yet?)

BETTER READ THAN DEAD
Over the course of the week, Josh introduced me to Y: THE LAST MAN in trade softcover.  Truly impressive first volume.  I'll be hunting down more. 

Y dovetailed nicely with Cormac MacCarthy's THE ROAD, which I finished this evening and, yes, it did get a couple rolling tears at the end, I am not ashamed to admit.  Wow.  What a story, what a storyteller.  That said, though, it took me a while to get used to his minimal punctuation style.  Some of the conversations I had to go back and re-read because I lost track of who said what.  In the end, I liked what the style did for this particular end of the world story.  It amplified how everything was running down and wearing out.  I have to say, though, that if what I've heard about his other novels all using the same style is true--well, I won't dock points from THE ROAD, but my PretentiousTwaddleometer(TM) will probably prevent me from checking out those other books.

Also read Ken Rand's FROM IDEA TO STORY IN 90 SECONDS on the plane.  Finding ideas has never been my problem.  But converting the idea into story has occasionally given me pause. This little book gave me some solid, practical advice on bridging that gap, and also put into perspective what it is new writers are really asking when they say "Where do you get your ideas?"  Some of his concepts about the Cosmic Soup really hit home, especially since I realized how similar one of my YAs is to a YA written by a much more successful author, and the likelihood that they were both written about the same time. 

Oh, and I got some good writing (and reading!) news, but I am not sure if I can mention it yet.  So watch this space!