Outlook Unclear; Try Again Later

I said I was crazy busy, right? That’s why I’m not even going to try and dress this up: Look! It’s my new Time essay, this week about political conventions and comic conventions. It’s another one of those that turned out being written multiple times; the first time I wrote it, I ended up going out on an entirely different journey than I’d intended to and, more importantly, than what I’d pitched to the editors. It wasn’t a bad journey, but it wasn’t what I’d promised, and that was a problem. Sometimes, such things happen, and occasionally they’re a good thing – I love the happy accident of writing, I promise – but I always wish that they’d take less time when they do happen…