Comic-Con starts down in San Diego a week from tomorrow evening. I have friends who are panicking and saying, "I'm not going to be ready in time." What they don't get is that nobody is ever ready in time for Comic-Con. If we postponed it three months, they wouldn't be ready for it a week before the new date. I'm sometimes not ready for a Comic-Con until it's been over for several weeks.
Each year without fail, I hear from someone who erroneously (a) thinks I'm part of the convention staff in some way and (b) thinks there's still time to do things that there's no time to do. This morn, I awoke to an e-mail from a fellow back east — a guy I barely know — who wants to know if there's any way on this planet to get a panel he wants to do added to the Comic-Con schedule.
That's the Comic-Con schedule that was filled by June 1…the Comic-Con schedule that went to the printers weeks ago and is probably all printed by now…the Comic-Con schedule that is up on the Comic-Con website…the Comic-Con schedule that has probably filled every available room and meeting space…
That's the Comic-Con schedule to which he wants to make an addition today.
He sent his phone number so I gave him a call and, as nice as nice could be, I explained to him the basic facts of reality. He sighed and said, "I expected that answer but I thought it was worth a try." That's what just about everyone says when it wasn't really worth a try. He explained to me that he's starting a new web-based school for writers and he thought it would help the launch if he did a sample lesson at Comic-Con.
I asked him what he wanted to teach and he replied, without a scintilla of irony to be heard, "Oh, things like the importance of meeting deadlines!"