I am back from Atlanta, Georgia and Dragon Con! I had an amazing time, and it was maybe one of my favorite visits that I have ever had to this convention. Years ago when we first went, it was all about seeing some celebrities and going to some live podcast shows. Now it’s all about seeing my friends and being the live podcast show.

This year, I had the pleasure of moderating or being a participant in five different panels.

- Digital Confluence: Where Creators and Fans Unite
- Imposter! Getting Over Yourself
- Neighborhoods: Building Better Communities
- Digital Media Shark Tank
- Parenting in the Digital Age

Each one of those gave myself and our panelists an opportunity to share things we have learned over the years, and take questions from the audience about their own creative endeavors. I’m super grateful that I had the opportunity to share in the Digital Media Track with so many other amazing creators.

The big thing that comes out of it all is a surge of creative energy. This desire to start putting out more stuff, or to at least put out the things that I’ve been thinking of for years and just never did. I spend a good deal of time telling everyone to do that and I don’t even follow my own advice. I decided to rejoin twitter (x?) and start posting there again. The unfortunate bit is that a lot of the eyeballs never left and if I want to drive any attention to the stuff that my friends and I make, I need to be over there to do it. I’m not great at social stuff, but I do know that putting things out on Mastodon was not doing the trick. The people I need the attention of just aren’t on that platform in the numbers I would hope for.

I also picked back up TikTok and started posting some encouraging notes to other creators. At Dragon Con, I found that I was mostly enjoying telling people that they could do the thing they were thinking of and that there wasn’t anything stopping them. We’re so often getting in our own way. Having someone just tell you that you can do the thing you want to do is really refreshing. I think maybe that’s a place I can fill. So many folks like me who have high anxiety over all this stuff just need someone else to tell them it’s okay.

It was well worth it to go again this year, and I’m already making plans for next year. Here’s to it being another fantastic trip, and maybe I can keep up with my goals this time around and keep producing cool stuff for people to enjoy.