No one was more surprised than me...

I remember the beginning. Or more accurately, the beginning of the beginning.

There was a group of us. We all knew each other. We used the same online forum. We had attended meetups together, organized them together. Celebrated Ponies, friendship, and the unusual power of both. Together, at Australia's first Brony convention, we sought refuge from the music.

It's not that the music was bad, it just wasn't our thing. It wasn't that the venue was bad, but when something was on the main stage there was no escaping it. We sat together outside, wincing at the distortion the PA gave to the shouted metal lyrics. I've never been a fan of metal as a musical genre, and Pony metal music seems like such an impossible contradiction. To each their own, however...

It just wasn't our thing.

So we sat together and talked. reflected on the previous day. We discussed the convention, what we liked, and what we didn't like. We may have complained about how many of the vendors had sold out of stock so early (all the plushies had been sold before the opening ceremony). We laughed at how the panel room had been empty for most of the two days, and how someone had hijacked it to talk about whatever came to his head, and the fact he managed to gather an audience.

I made mention of how I had desperately hoped for a fic writer panel. I may have mentioned it several times.

As you can imagine, talk turned to what we would do differently. Gather together a group of people at an event, and they will all have some idea of what they would wish was different. It's human nature. I may have even said that I wanted to help out the organizing committee with the next con. Having come from a science fiction background, where cons have been ubiquitous since the golden age of the fandom, I desperately wanted Australian Brony conventions to be successful.

To be completely honest however, I thought we were all just "shooting the shit" as it were. A group of friends, putting voice to our dreams, with no real expectations. Just filling time until something else came to the main stage.

And then, months later, there was the leak.

Someone discovered a website. A twitter channel that had subscribed to many of the voice actors. A controversial name...

I sent off my application to join the committee as the storm raged at our forum website. I wanted to be a part of the Australian Brony convention scene so much...

I'm still surprised by it. When we sit down at our committee meetings, and there is an agenda on the screen... When I see my name, and the names of my friends in the minutes that get emailed to us... It's exciting. And nerve wracking.

Things are progressing. We choose a different name. Our website gathers page views. Our FaceBook page gets likes. We see things that are talked about in our meetings go out into the world at large...

Stuff is happening. More stuff needs to happen. We've less than a year to go.

I'm nervous, and excited. I'm not going to attempt to use Pinkie Pie's word for that feeling, as I have no clue how to spell it.

I remember the beginning. But let me tell you, I'm looking forward to what comes next...

Sydneigh website.

The Sydneigh thread in the Aussie Bronies group here on FIMFiction.

I still have story ideas I want to write, I hope you understand why I've been busy. Time is a luxury...