This little Indian has had too little sleep, and can’t shake the damned bug that’s been keeping him coughing and spluttering for a week. Dinner’s on in the background, the offshoots are watching The Aristocats, and I’m not reading. I’m also struggling to get the goddamn World Fantasy hotel website to offer the right room rate so I can get that all sorted. Not listening much either to be honest, though I have recently realised that Faces are pretty damned fine.
I’ve been reading reviews of a couple of my books of late. Good, well-intentioned reviews that made me grind my teeth. We don’t respond, we don’t engage – not because the reviewers are crazy or bad or evil, but because they are not and we know we would only look foolish. Still, we wants to precious, we really does.
There is one thing that has been brought home to me of late – it is much easier to sit back and point out what someone is or isn’t doing, than it is to do what they’re doing. This is a kharmic thing. And so we learn.
Did you get the room booked? I’m interested to know what the problem was, because I clicked through from the link on the WFC web site and it took me straight in with the booking code already registered – easiest convention hotel booking I’ve ever done. But clearly the system isn’t perfect.
I did not. Every time I’ve tried to go through snd book a room, it tells me the rate is unavailable. Given that you and Deb have successfully done this, it’s probably me, but I can not get this to work.
OK, it isn’t you. I’m getting the same thing now. Here’s what’s happening.
If I ask to book from the 29th to the 3rd I get the “unavailable” message. If I try to book for the 29th to the 2nd I’m OK.
The reason this happens is that when a convention negotiates a room block at a cut it will generally be given fewer rooms for the “shoulder” days that for the main days of the convention. The assumption is that more people will come for the core days than will want to be there for the entire con. In this particular case the con and/or the hotel seems to have assumed that most people will go home on Sunday, but in fact, probably because of the stupid banquet timing, everyone wants to stay until Monday, and the allocation of rooms for Sunday night has run out.
So what you need to do is get in touch with Randy and/or Arthur Taylor and tell them they need to add rooms to the block for Sunday. In the meantime I recommend you book for as many days as you can, just in case other days start to sell out.
Hey Cheryl – And then suddenly it *worked*. I’m getting the room rate offered, and for the full available period. According to the site *now*, the special con rate is available for the whole period. No shoulder problems at all. V.weird. Appreciate your input on it, though. See you there? Best J
Excellent news. Sometimes a hotel just gets the set-up wrong and doesn’t have the right number of rooms available, which is a very quick fix.
So yes, see you in Calgary!