I’m posting this blog five days before the start of the biggest book event I’ll have ever attended. Next week, the World SFF Convention (Worldcon) is coming to Glasgow - five days, 6,000 people, hundreds of events spread across the SEC campus, workshops, parties, and intense bar-conning (socialising in the bars). I have, for my sins, committed to quite a lot of events, and the combination of my busy schedule and the sheer scale of the event have me feeling really quite daunted about how I am physically going to endure. Particularly given that I’m going into it after a rough couple of months.
Book events are amazing, don’t get me wrong. Whether bookshop interview, festival, convention or workshop, I love them all and am unceasingly honoured to be able to do them. It is just an unfortunate truth that book events are extremely costly on my health. That cost is felt in a few different ways before, during, and after the event itself, and the bigger the event the higher the cost. One of the things I have had to learn since my first book published is how to manage this cost. I’ve been thinking a lot about this these last few weeks, for obvious reasons, so I figured I’d write about it in case it’s helpful to others.
To be honest, book events are exhausting to anyone. Writers are generally an introverted lot so the kind of intense socialising involved is tiring even for non-spoonies. But I’m coming at this from the perspective of some-one dealing with conditions that cause a mix of migraine & other pain, fatigue, nausea, fainting, heart arrhythmia, sporadic visual impairments, muscle weakness, and other fun stuff. I figured I’d first talk about the mechanics of the health cost of events, for those who might be unfamiliar, and then talk about what you can do to help yourself.
Before the event:
The trickiest thing for me in the lead up to events is trying to ‘save up’ doses of dose-limited medicines so I have as many medication options as possible during the event itself. This means the week of the event generally going without decent pain relief and having to ride out migraines untreated. It’s a nuisance.
An added challenge in the run up to events is preparation and trying to balance the prep work required with the above health shenanigans. In my case for Worldcon, I’ve had a workshop to write, a large book party to organise and my own bookish merch stuff to sort out. (And panels to at least vaguely think about, but I haven’t got to that yet!).
At the event:
Well, lol, events are basically just several dozen pain triggers in a sack. Everything from the travel involved in getting there, the disruption to my eating & sleeping schedules, the prolonged physical activity (yes, just being up and about counts as physical activity), the noise, lights, cognitive demands, and simple peopling are all enormous migraine triggers. Standing upright is also a heart arrhythmia trigger, while walking and sitting in unsupportive chairs exacerbates my endometriosis pain. But the main thing is the migraines. I can function around dizziness and endo pain, I can’t function around migraine pain/vomiting/blindness.
At weekend events in the past - like at Cymera Festival earlier this year, I was there for three days and had a migraine every day, kicking in immediately in the morning. For three days, I could take my triptans each morning which made the rest of the day mostly bearable. I can’t take triptans for five days straight. cue panicked face.
After the event:
The post-event crash is Real. I generally have a few weeks of higher, less responsive-to-drugs pain, alongside all the accompanying exhaustion, nausea etc. For a weekend event, I normally see my health return to more normal-to-me levels after a couple of weeks but if I have pushed myself harder, or am not able to rest fully after the event, that post-event crash can turn into a longer term health dip.
So, that’s what the cost looks like. This is what my schedule for Worldcon is. What can I do to prepare myself for this five day event?
Before the event:
I decided early on to pay the disability tax of staying in the venue hotel (which is more expensive than other hotels or airB&Bs) so that I’ll have the easiest possible ‘retreat to room’ option without the barrier of a walk.
For longer distances, or evening events, I would normally stay an additional night so I don’t have to travel after a day (or more) of events. This time as it’s fairly local, expensive, and finishes Monday afternoon, I’m not doing that. But it’s definitely worth considering in most cases.
I set limits on the programme planning forms for the number of events (panels, etc) I wanted to do each day and overall. I set this limit to 3 events/day totalling 6 events overall, with no events directly after each other, which seemed reasonable when I was a year out!
Long lead times. I tried (and mostly succeeded) to get all my prep work done well before the last week or so. The biggest challenge with that has been the book party - this is a fantastic event we’re hosting, celebrating the upcoming releases of a bunch of amazing authors from the Edinburgh SFF Writers Group with wine, book cakes, ARCs, merch and more fun goodies. It’s going to be a blast … but I’ll be honest, I didn’t intend to be organising an event like this! I know full well doing so would impose a steep health cost, and as of the beginning of last week, the organisational juggling for this event had reached a point where I needed to step away from it rather than carry on. Fortunately some of the other authors involved since stepped in so in the space of a couple of days, this event planning went from ‘too much, can’t afford to do this’ to ‘okay, this is under control and may even be worth it’.
This planning, in between holiday travel and other stressors, has meant my own writing has basically ground to a halt for the last month. Which I’m having to just forgive myself and not fret about.
SNACKS! I have stocked up on many snacks including basic hotel-roomable meals so I have full flexibility to retreat to my room whenever I need, without having to figure out food.
I have, incidentally, gone onto a new drug in the last few months, so some of my prep for worldcon was researching how I can combine my acute migraine medication short term just to get me through the five days.
I’ve checked the convention information to confirm accessibility things like: where the non-standing queue for registration is (answer, opposite the standing queues, find a pink high-vis person), where the quiet space is, and where all my events are.
At the event:
My normal strategy is to travel by train to an event, get to my hotel and then take an hour or two in my room to rest, recalibrate with meds etc and figure out my spoons levels before venturing out to find people. I’m arriving in Glasgow around lunchtime on Thursday so I’m hoping to check straight in & do exactly this before going to register & locate friends.
Pacing myself! As folk make meet-up plans, I usually factor in needing to crash in my room before and after events, particularly more taxing events like workshops and this book party. Panels, I don’t find too taxing, so as long as I’m generally doing okay, I may not need this leeway but it’s helpful to have. I also set myself a loose bedtime - It’s easy at events like this to just drift with your friends because you’re loving being with them and even if you’re feeling ill it can still be easier to stay than be the one leaving early. I can’t afford a late night though, or a ‘pushing on through’ if I’m flagging, so sometimes I have to be my own mum and send myself to my room! I have events on every day, so I need to give myself the best chance of being vaguely human-shaped each day too.
Keep track of pain meds! With routine being non-existent it can be easy to forget when you took meds &/or can take another dose, so wee phone alarms or the like can help keep on top of this.
Remember to ask for help if needed! Convention/festival volunteers are Good Folk and will help find a chair, a quiet space, water, etc if you need it. I know Glasgow Worldcon have dedicated accessibility support staff, which is a lovely and very welcome addition. I also need to remember to sit down before my heart starts playing silly buggers rather than after & if that means being ‘the nuisance’ asking for a chair then so be it!
Fuel. Hydration isn’t normally an issue for me - I can’t drink alcohol so end up drinking A Lot of lime and lemonade throughout cons! But I do forget to eat, which is … not helpful. Those snacks are going to come in handy here.
While all peopling is a pain trigger, peopling with strangers, large groups or in busier/noisier/brighter surroundings are higher pain triggers. So where I can, I am going to try to hang out with smaller groups in calmer areas, and mainly with friends. I know cons are for meeting new people, but also it’s okay to take time away from that to chill with folk who you’re fully comfortable with. I don’t need to perform wellness quite so much with these friends either, which can also be a huge relief.
Remember that if at the last minute I really can’t do something, the world is not going to end. I hate pulling out of events, and I have so far never done so at very short notice even when I’ve been in considerable pain, because I hate messing folk around. So barring unmaskable acute symptoms like temporary blindness, I think pulling out of events is going to be more about weighing up my overall health capacity and perhaps reducing my load to prioritise the more important events. The only event that can’t happen without me is the workshop, so I’ll prioritise this and the book party (as it’s taken so much work, I want to eat the book cakes!), then the panels. If something needs to give, it’s likely to be the signing session. Possibly the Table Talk if need be, although I’ve been talked into how worthwhile these are! I really don’t want to get to Monday maxxed out on safe doses of medication & my tolerance for masking pain though, and unable to attend or even just enjoy my last panel.
The biggest thing is going to be regularly checking in with myself and making decisions for endurance, not for the fun vibes in the bar at that moment. That will mean missing out on some friends’ panels, or some late night fun, but I’d rather be able to enjoy the parts of the event I’m present for than push myself until the whole thing becomes torturous. I also cannot afford to push myself to breaking point - I have a family and some work to come back to!
After the event:
Omg the crash is going to be deep. I’m assuming I will be doing nothing at all useful for a solid two weeks post-worldcon, and then the gentlest of possible dipping-into tasks for the next couple of weeks. If I want to avoid a longer term health dip, I will need to take the latter stages of this rest period seriously and not push myself too quickly back onto word targets. This is however uncharted territory for me so I am going to be playing it by ear somewhat.
I’ve obviously made sure the calender is clear for the months after this event. I then have several book launch events around the start of November to celebrate Ghosts, so I need to let myself crash and rest, so that I can start to recover resilience in time for these.
I will also have edits incoming for The Salt Oracle in the Autumn, and want to have a new book drafted perhaps by the end of the year. But once I have a better sense of the post-event crash, I am going to reassess all my timelines and make sure I am communicating any concerns I have with my editor so deadlines aren’t adding to my triggers.
To prevent complications from taking lots of medication over a short period, I will need to be careful about regulating safely. Which in the short term will mean having less flexibility over how much I can take, at a time when I’m going to be needing it a lot. Ugh, fun. But that’s something I will just have to weather with as much non-medication support as possible.
So what do you think? Will I survive??
I am like a Schrodinger’s spoonie at the moment. Simultaneously both incredibly excited to experience this wonderful time, and actually quite daunted by how hard it is going to be, and how much damage it is going to do to me.
I know I will love the events I am part of, and love hanging out with my friends. I will feel inspired and challenged and uplifted from being part of this amazing community, and am so looking forward to all the conversations I will have with authors, readers and publishing folk of all stripes. But if you see me and I am looking a little vague, that means I’m either about to pass out, in blinding pain or slightly out of my tree on drugs, so please be patient!
And if you are a fellow spoonie/disabled person in need of a safe space, an escape route or an advocate*, feel free to ask me for help. If I can, I will.
[*Adding a wee note here to say that convention folk are almost universally lovely, but there are creeps everywhere, including amongst the big names. And these guys use the relaxed atmosphere of conventions to invade AFAB folks’ space in ways that can make us feel distinctly unsafe. If you need support navigating a situation like this too, then I am more than willing to be your mama bear.]
Thank you for reading & supporting this blog. I’m sure I will be writing about the Worldcon experience after the event, although less sure about when afterwards! I hope you are all finding time to enjoy this fleeting summer, and creating beautiful things. More soon…
What a beautiful, thought-provoking, helpful column. xx
I have lupus and should be watching my spoons as well but frequently let “excitement carry me away”, as you’ve described so it was very helpful (and positive) to see how you manage for a series of events like this. Thank you for sharing!