I’m in Austin for the first time in…25 years? Something like that. I think it was 1993 the last time I was here, so yeah, that’s 25 freaking years. Good lord. Time flies. Except that it doesn’t, because in this case, 25 years feels like a lifetime ago 😛

I’m here for the Smarter Artists Summit, and I’m going to get my learn on. It was this time of year last year, after the summer and fall of listening to 1,000 podcasts on writing that I heard about this conference for the first time. Everyone I listened to or interacted with online seemed to be coming. That’s less pervasive it seems this year in terms of the only people I know of in the indie world all coming to this conference, BUT…that’s easily explained: I know a lot more people now in the indie community 😛

The next conference to attend seems to be NINC, which goes down in Florida. I’m going to check that one out next.

Anywho, travel was exhausting, but easy. I checked in, I went down to the bar and had dinner, met some fellow writers, went to the mixer shindig and met some more fellow writers, watched the trio of Johnny, Sean, and Dave podcast, which reminded me SO MUCH of Josh and myself and how we run our own podcast. They just enjoy each other’s company.

Okay, it’s time for sleeps. Early morning tomorrow. That is the ONE thing about traveling east that sucks ass: mornings are horrible. Night times are dope. Can stay up till 2 or 3am like it’s nothing. But mornings…uuuuggghhhh.

Night 😉