This week. I'm hauling myself down to London this week for the Young Adult Literature Convention ,at London Film and Comic Convention. How has it sneaked up on me so quickly when I'm writing about it every week? I haven't even started packing. Or narrowed down my books.
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YALC is the UK’s Young Adult Literature Convention:
a celebration of the very best young adult books and authors.
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So what am I packing?
Well, clothes. And books. Obviously. I'm going for the whole weekend and it's a book convention. They're kind of necessary things. Oh and toiletries and makeup, because they're kind of required too. And a hair brush if I can find one (does anyone else's go missing all of the time?).
But what about the wee bits? The extra bits that I'm squeezing into my suitcase? Let's have a neb.
- A portable charger and cableLast year I only went for a day and took a single charge bank, and thank goodness! I was constantly checking Twitter and Instagram to see if I could find people and that drained my battery pretty quickly.
- A plain white kindle coverI am not going to take a lot of books down, mainly because I know I'll buy plenty. But a kindle cover is small and light and as it's plain I can get authors to sign it! Plus I read a lot on my kindle nowadays.
- A poster tubeI ended up with about ten posters last year from just one day, and by the time I'd dragged them around in my bag all day and then 300+ miles home they were pretty rough around the edges. Not this time!
- Permanent markersOK, so there are in my bag pretty much all of the time anyway for literary graffiti in pub toilets (shhh) but they're pretty handy for when you stealth attack authors unofficially and get them to sign stuff.
- Ear plugsOK, so these are mostly for the accommodation. I live in a pretty rural area with not much noise apart from a few planes overhead, so I pretty much always need ear plugs to sleep in London. Noise makes my eyes hurt (I'm weird) so I'll probably have some in for part of the event too.
- HariboIf you meet me at pretty much any bookish event ever, I'll have a bag of Haribo Starmix stashed somewhere about my person. Sometimes I just really need the sugar. And yes, I share.
- A paper fanIt was BOILING last year. I'm from proper up North where the hottest it gets in summer is 18 °C and you don't wear a coat out even in winter, so these Southern climes really don't suit me. I'm hoping this will prevent the Melting Makeup which afflicted me last year.
- Print outs of EVERYTHING in triplicateThis is because I will lose something. I always lose something. Like that time I bought my tickets for the train at the station and had lost them by the time I got to the ticket barrier...
I'm still debating on whether to take a flask, as I didn't last year and I was gasping for a cuppa by the end of the day. But this year I am also staying right around the corner, so I can pop back to base to replenish my tea needs. Hmmm...
What are the little extras you take when you travel?