This past weekend I attended Kidlitcon, a middle grade book bloggers conference in Hershey, PA. Everyone was pretty pumped to be there, and the panels were a lot of fun. I was on a panel on the second day regarding Middle Grade Villains. There were five of us, and we took turns explaining why today’s villains are so much better than the cardboard cutouts of our own youth.
It’s always great to meet other authors and hear their stories. Some of them are success stories, some are stories of perseverance. All of them are stories of writers. It’s always good to hear other people going through a lot of the same things that I’m going through. Makes me feel less alone. Misery loves company.
The conference was held in The Hershey Lodge. As in Hershey chocolate. As in the entire town of Hershey is basically a huge company town. Of chocolate. The Hershey Lodge had little bowls of Hershey’s Kisses on every table, in every room. You couldn’t turn around without knocking a mass of Kisses onto the floor. I didn’t stay in the Lodge, but those that did told me that they found Hershey Chocolate Bars on their pillows, as well as chocolate soap in the bathroom. I imagine true chocoholics walk into this place and never return. They just consume so much chocolate that they become a permanent addition to the lodge.
But I didn’t stay there. I stayed at The Comfort Inn down the road. There was no chocolate bar on my pillow.
When I checked in, the woman at the desk said, “Don’t worry about the noise. It looks like the teams are all well-behaved.”
Well that raised a red flag.
“What teams?” I asked.
“All of the high school cross-country teams here for the weekend’s tournament.”
“Ah. Those teams.”
Yes, my hotel was filled to bursting with high school runners. These runners seemed to be very dedicated to their craft, as they were practicing running up and down the hall right outside my room until just past midnight.
My room which was DIRECTLY across from the elevators. Like three feet away. So that any time anyone did something silly like arrive on the floor, I knew. Oh yes, I knew.
All in all, it was a good weekend. I even got some writing done. At a writing conference. Well, OK, a book blogger’s conference. But bloggers write. And they blog about writing, so it counts, right?
The official website of author and storyteller David Neilsen! 