It’s been a busy and stressful few weeks and I haven’t posted in a while. I did get the Cult of Personality post up yesterday because that one had been bugging me for a few days and I had to get it out of my head. So what’s been going on?
Well, we bought a house and moved. That’s pretty stressful. Then I added in going to P-Con the weekend before the movers came (please remind me not to attend a con and move in the same week!) Now I’m stressing because I didn’t manage to completely unpack and settle in within forty-eight hours. Yes, I’m aware that’s completely, totally, laughably unrealistic. Doesn’t mean I didn’t want it to happen. I kept wishing I was Samantha on Bewitched and I could just wiggle my nose and have it all done. Still wishing that.
I’m also stressing because I haven’t done any significant (as in word count) writing for more than a month and there are several anthologies I want to submit to, as well as finishing Book 4 of Academic Magic series and starting in on Books 5 and 6 as well as the next series. Not too ambitious, right?
Let me start with the P-Con after-action report. P-Con is a brand new con located in the DFW area and was held on the same weekend as FenCon used to be. FenCon has moved to February 23-25, 2024. For the TL:DR version, P-Con was great and extremely busy. I was on seven panels which was fun, but meant I was too tired to do some of the other fun stuff going on. I also played the part of booth babe for the North Texas Troublemakers booth. And, the cherry on the cake of the weekend was selling five (count ‘em, FIVE) books. Woot!
The panels were a lot of fun, with discussions ranging from dragons to animal companions/familiars to why we write to AI and a lot in between. I got to meet some great authors on those panels and I’m very grateful for those opportunities. I did a reading of my first book and although only one person showed up and did so because he’s a good guy and wanted to support me, he did end up buying my first book. So, thank you once again, Marc!
The AI panel was probably the most interesting in terms of levels of disagreement and discussion. It was lively, but yet polite. I moderated that one and once I asked about copyrights, just sat back and let the panelists run.
In the fun stuff that didn’t involve panels, I did get to have some great conversations with people I’d only met a few times before. I had one person introduce himself to me and tell me that he wanted to meet me! (This could go to my head!) and got asked, demanded, that I sign copies of books and anthologies.
There were some glitches of course. You can’t put something on for the first time ever and expect no glitches. I don’t know how it went behind the scenes, but out front, it was mostly small stuff such which was/can be fixed very easily. All in all, if P-Con continues, I will certainly show up again!
For the future, I will be at FenCon in February and LibertyCon in June. At LibertyCon I will be attending as a pro which is exciting. That’s all I have on the calendar right now as I want to concentrate on writing and getting books out next year since this year’s plans went belly-up pretty quickly. In the end though, this “lost” year is all worth it. I have my own office, with a door, and lots of light, so I will get settled in and get to writing!
As always, you can visit and follow my Facebook author page if you wish. I will be posting upcoming releases, cover reveals, and other fun stuff there.
Right now I’m going to go open a few more boxes of books and put up some Halloween decorations.
Enjoy your weekend!
…I didn’t manage to completely unpack and settle in within forty-eight hours. Yes, I’m aware that’s completely, totally, laughably unrealistic.
According to my wife, that is the way things should be. We’ve been in our house 1 year as of today, and still have some things in boxes which makes her irritable. She said she still doesn’t feel like this house is “home” yet.
Yeah, it totally bugs me and I will be emptying boxes like crazy this weekend.
I was raised as an army kid and we moved every couple of years. Once in Newport we moved 3 times in 2 years, all in Newport. My parents didn’t see some things they know they packed 50 years ago and moved a dozen times until their penultimate retirement house they lived in for 39 years after my dad retired from the army, until they were sorting through all the things as they prepared to downsize to their retirement home. And they were practically pros!