We’re back in Buffalo and mostly recovered from the wild weekend that was Anthrocon. For anyone who stopped by our booth, thank you for spending a little bit of time with us. And for those who weren’t able to make it, there will be more chances too.

Conventions are a big deal for us. While we’re still finding our footing in the online retail space, cons are a reliable way for us to get ourselves out into the world. We want everyone to know about The Delver’s Guide to Beast World! But that is much easier said than done, and there’s no handy guidebook on making it happen. Conventions come natural for us, I think. We get to meet folks, shake hands, and show our stuff to folks who’ve never seen it before.

Conventions are also our best opportunity to sell books. This is important because it means we get to keep creating new things, and we get to keep going to cons. They’re our biggest source of revenue outside of crowdfunding—cons are a cornerstone of our business, a very necessary part of what we do (and quite a bit of work). Luckily, they’re also fun.

Furrydelphia, August 8th to 11th (Philadelphia, PA)

Ixrin and I will drive from Buffalo down to Philly to run this con, a repeat appearance from 2023. This time, we have a corner booth! Which is good news. It will also be the first time we’ll have the new playmat and washi tape at a con, plus a second run of engraved dice trays.

IndyFurCon, August 23rd to 25th (Indianapolis, IN)

This is a new con for us. Right now, the plan is for Lyra and myself to attend this one, and it’s within driving distance too (about 8 hours from Buffalo). I’m not sure what to expect, but I’ve always wanted to go back to Indianapolis. Many years ago, when I played trumpet in the University of Nebraska’s Big Red Express, we attended the Big 10 basketball tourney. Our team promptly lost and we drove back to Lincoln early the next day. Not much time for sightseeing.

Maybe this time I can visit the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library! It’s been on my mind for a decade.

Fursonacon, August 29th to September 1st (Newport News, VA)

This is the big one, folks. Delvercon! We’re the guests of honor, we’re running events, and the whole con is themed after The Delver’s Guide.

You might also notice that Fursonacon is the immediate weekend after IndyFurCon. It’s gonna be something of a marathon, and I don’t think Lyra and I will even return Buffalo between. It makes more sense to just drive from Indianapolis to Virginia; tacking on 8 hours of return drive to Buffalo seems like a recipe for disaster.

From there, I’ll have to fly from Virginia to Kansas for a wedding, which takes place the immediate weekend after Fursonacon. I’m just now realizing that I won’t be home in Buffalo for over a month.

This is going to be a wild ride.

Long live love, delvers!

Did you know this was here? To think, I could have been talking at you this whole time… I mean, I wasn’t. But I could have been.

Let’s change that, shall we?

This is new ground! We’ve done plenty of Kickstarter updates and promotional emails in the past, but nothing quite like this. I’d love to do more short-form, casual, and untethered kinds of communication. If even one of you reads it, that’s a win in my book. Plus, I can share pictures. We have lots of pictures. So many pictures.

To be honest, I don’t even know if anyone will see this. Does the website send notifications for blogs? Can folks follow it? Will this even publish correctly, or will it break the site? I do not know the answers to any of these questions. So, let’s find out together. Will you join me on this wagon ride? Or shall I simply be shouting into the ether?

It’s a new website, and it’s a new era. Let us begin again.

Blogging has always been tough for me, even when blogging was the hip and cool thing to do. I have a half-dozen very fancy bullet journals and diaries and little notebooks that deserve to belong to someone more keen to record their daily thoughts. However, I want to try and reach out to anyone who cares to read this.

I’ve often read outpourings of developer honesty during the making of projects I care about. I’d often see the term ’emotional roller coaster’ used. Before starting this project, I really thought I understood what it meant. After all, I have my Bachelor’s degree. I know the stress of deadlines, and I have done the slow grind toward a distant goal. I know thrilling highs and crushing lows.

What I didn’t understand before starting is how the process of presenting your creative passion to the world puts you in a vulnerable place that you then spend every moment in. I am a fairly anxious person on the best of days, and the uncertainty of all this has weighed on me heavily. What will you all think of The Delver’s Guide to Beast World when it’s released? Will there be anyone in the seats when my work hobbles out on stage to give its solo? These questions repeat in my mind all day.

Another thing I didn’t understand is my own reaction to getting unsolicited support. Throughout the process of making this thing real, there have been so many people who have reacted with enthusiasm. At first, I was able to come up with excuses for why they acted this way. ‘Oh, that’s a personal friend,’ I told myself. ‘That’s a friend of a friend. This is an artist who is trying to get commission work, so their support isn’t sincere.’ During my worst days, these excuses still creep up in my mind.

However, these excuses have thinned out. People have come from every corner of the internet to take a look at what we’re doing here. Every new person who expresses some interest in the project leaves me with this energy and motivation that I didn’t know existed before I started all this. It’s what keeps me coming back to my desk on the days when I’m filled with doubt otherwise.

These two conflicting energies, uncertainty and support, have become a filter for every setback and every achievement on the road so far. Minor inconveniences kill me on some days, because what if this is the first domino that dooms all this work to obscurity? Conversely, when things fall into place and we make new friends in this space, I’ve never felt more like I belonged somewhere. When it goes right, this experience is gratifying on a level I don’t have a word for. I can foresee some disappointments or successes, but because of the vulnerable place in which I live, I can almost never foresee exactly how they’ll affect me.

It’s a real emotional roller coaster, I tell you.

What I do know is that this is silly book is important to me. It’s melodramatic to say, but to speak my voice in this way feels like a culmination of what I’ve spent my life doing until now. Win or lose, popularity or obscurity, I am glad to have tried at this. Soon it’ll be available, and you can decide for yourself whether the ideas worth your attention. In the meantime, I hope you’ll come on the rest of this journey with me. You make it all the better.

Long live love, delvers.