Five Years On

It was five years ago next month that Picofarad #1 almost wasn't published. I remember clearly struggling to finish it before Noreascon 4, and not actually finishing it until I was at the con. I especially remember finally saving it to the thumb drive, starting to head out the door to the business center where I could print out the pages to take to the copy place, stopping, and thinking, "Hang on, I think I forgot to put page numbers in."

It took most of the next year to wrench Picofarad #2 into the indeterminate quantum state where it is still stuck today. But #3 came together all right somehow in time for Interaction, and after that it was more about remembering to add the page numbers and the colophon than it was about whether or not I really wanted to do this. Along the way, here are a few things I've learned:

• Movie reviewing is not nearly as fun as I imagined. I was planning 6 issues a year, originally, with two movie reviews each. Then I started taking a hard look at movie listings and realizing there really just weren't that many movies that I actually wanted to see. Thank goodness for contributors.
• You need to have your zine in the fanzine lounge, but if you really want to move issues, put some copies out on the freebie table. (Exceptions can be made for cons like last year's Worldcon, where the fanzine lounge is out by the main traffic area where people can find it.)
• There are far more conventions out there than I could possibly have imagined.
• And I didn't anticipate the psychological effects of having to read about so many of them, such as wanting to go to practically every one, developing detailed plans in case I win the lottery for going to one every weekend for a year and doing a video blog, etc. (In all seriousness, if somone out there knows someone who wants to sponsor a unique and extremely geeky new-media project, have them drop me a line.)
• Coming up against a deadline, it's still hard to remember the page numbers sometimes.
• The inevitable takeover of all fandom is proceding more slowly than I had hoped.

And: I actually like doing this. Many things sound great in the abstract but not so much in the reality. This has turned out to not be one of them. So the next issue will see you at Orycon!