I just got back from the convention myself...the saturday session at the bar was amazing!
That session was supposed to be a reading, but (long story short) Jim gave us the option of either a reading or a Q&A session, and we went with the session...it was a lot of fun.
It was a lot less formal setting than the session today. You didn't have to go up to a microphone to ask questions, and Jim could see you easily.
Yes, he announced that he'd finished book 5 of Alera at 5am this morning. What you're leaving out is the fun we had that morning (of course, I'm guessing you weren't there for that Ruadh). For those of you who weren't there...
Those of us staying at the hotel had an early wake up call when the fire alarms went off at 6am! Most of us hadn't been to bed due to parties and the like (while Jim stayed up and finished book 5). At that time the alarm was of the "be ready to evacuate" sort. We didn't have to leave the hotel but were supposed to be ready to. I did what most people did...made myself decent enough to leave and then went back to bed.
Later on, at about 8:30 (by this time I was up...I volunteered at the con) the fire alarms rang again...this time it was the full "evacuate" signal! Everyone had to march down several flights of stairs and go outside. After a while outside (and a visit from the Fire department) we all went back in. People were slowly taking the elevators up to their rooms. For some reason only one, the "fire access" elevator, was working. At the same time as the others all reactivated the alarms started up again! This time we didn't have to go outside...we were allowed to stay in the lobby. Of course this happened just after the fire trucks left and we had to wait for them to come back and deactivate the alarm.
Eventually we got to go back up, and I was on the elevator with a bunch of other people including Jim and Shannon. None of us was in particularly good spirits as we lost about an hour to this. Jim was in the elevator with his laptop bag and clutching it closely to his side. Later on (after his talk) I asked him about this, confirming that as he'd just finished writing book 5, there was no way he was going to lose it in a fire! By that point in the day we could joke about it.
Incidentally, a short in either an alarm or a sensor (one or the other) is apparently what caused the problem. Nobody was in danger from a fire. Still, it gave us something to talk about!
For the moment I'll finish off by saying if you get the chance to meet Jim, make sure you take it. He and Shannon are both great people and were really receptive to all their fans! I could say a lot more, but in truth I'm dozing off here at the keyboard. I'll write more later and post some pics!
