Hi folks!

I'm back home from a fun week and a half in San Jose! I flew over to the west coast on the 9th for the first ever RAWR (Regional Anthropomorphic Writing Retreat). What followed was an intense few days of writing, revising, and critiquing the work of the other attendees. I was lucky enough to get feedback from some talented writers, including  kyell, who led the workshop, and Ryan Campbell, author of God of Clay and Koa of the Drowned Kingdom, among other books. I even had one-on-one meetings with Kyell Gold and Ryan Campbell. The best part was becoming closer with my fellow attendees and knowing we can count on one another in the future for honest critiques. If you want to improve your writing, I highly recommend RAWR. It opens applications sometime in late spring. If you have any questions about RAWR, feel free to ask me.

The last day of RAWR was the Thursday of FC. I didn't go to as many panels as I have in previous cons, but I spent more time hanging out with people. I tend to wander on my own a lot during cons, so spending time with others was great and made me feel closer to the fandom. I got commissions from  rukis,  louvelex, and  mitti, which i'll upload once I find a scanner that will cooperate. Louvelex uploaded the pic she did for me on Twitter, which is here: https://twitter.com/truffke . I got to take a bunch of fursuit pictures, which is helpful since I want to select a fursuit maker and put a downpayment on a fursuit this year. I got to see/meet  kour,  kenket,  -lofi,  karwood,  kamui,  rikoshi,  ishaway,  gully,  foxpaws-zupe, and  donryu (if I forgot your name, I apologize!). There were also a lot of places to eat nearby, which was good. I also successfully bid on an original Rukis and Kenket interior art piece for Kyell Gold's Over Time for a RAWR attendee who couldn't make it to the convention. Art show bidding and auction are stressful, but quite the rush! Speaking of art shows, one of the art show workers happened to be someone I went to college with, so it was cool running into her like that.

Nothing is set in stone yet, but since I'm so close to it, i'll most likely attend FtM this year. It's also less expensive than flying out for TFF or FWA, which are both fun. I also plan to attend AC this year. I wish I had a Chester fursuit since the theme is Roaring 20. It's too soon to tell what other cons i'll be at, but i've thought about MFF or potentially RF or Furpocolypse. Part of this will come down to what job I can find.

RAWR and FC have helped me realize that I want to give more of myself to the fandom, so I want to upload more writing here on FA. These will mostly likely be little stories featuring my characters or longer continuing works.

I've also thought about doing editing commissions for folks who want some help improving their stories. I'm not opening for these yet, but would anyone be interested in this? I still need to figure out how much I would charge for this.

-Skunkbomb