Owwwww

So here’s my post for the week – OW MY FUCKING FOOT HURTS.

Thank you, and goodnight.

Nah, I’ll do better, but my fucking foot does hurt. But since I usually don’t type with my feet, it’s pretty much irrelevant to my work here, isn’t it? Yep, so you get a blog post. A boring one, but a blog post nonetheless.

I haven’t written shit this week, but I got 3-4K words done on a new Bubba story and a new YA novels about dragons that I’ve been working on most of the year. Did all that last weekend, then Sunday I jumped into theatre mode hot n’ heavy. I’m directing a Southern farce called Dearly Departed in Rock Hill, SC this fall, and auditions were this week, Sunday – Tuesday. Lots of great women showed up for the six female roles, but we’re short a few actors for the four male roles.

Like three.

So we’re working on that. Hopefully we can scrape up some guys and move forward. I gave us an extra week between auditions and the beginning of rehearsals because I remembered this being an issue the last time I directed for this company.

But at some point I also hurt my foot. I don’t know what I did to cause it, but I have an acute case of achilles tendinitis, which hurts like a bitch. Actually, I think I do know what I did – I drove wrong. I took my dad to the VA hospital on Monday to have a stitch removed from his eyeball (yeah, I said that) after his very successful cataract surgery, and I took Suzy’s car. Now a Nissan Versa is a fine automobile, and I enjoy her car quite a bit usually.

But driving it for six hours apparently causes me to hold me foot and legs in a funny position which seems to have tweaked my Achilles. A lot. It’s better today than it was yesterday, and hopefully through the good graces of Advil and ice, it’ll be almost back to normal tomorrow, but for now – FUCK.

Let’s face it kids, this is a whole lot of sexy to try and carry around on one foot.

So tonight I watched Lost Girl with my foot up and basically dicked around, so I’ll work on some word count tomorrow. In the meantime, you want a taste of the dragon thing I’ve been working on? Here’s a little nibble –

 

 

 

The ride to school gave Rachel a chance to clear her head and cool down a little after the argument with her dad. She knew he meant well, but the methods the mining company used were just so destructive. It seemed like no matter how much they fought, she couldn’t get him to see what she saw so clearly – that there’s no way blowing the tops off mountains could possibly be good for the environment. But it was definitely good for the CEO’s pockets, and the shareholders’ portfolios, and that’s all anybody cared about anymore. Some days Rachel wished she lived in a bigger city instead of the bucolic mountain town, then she could pitch a tent on the city hall lawn and protest. She could pitch a tent here, of course, but people would just think she was camping.

Rachel was still a little lost in thought as she turned into the school parking lot, so she didn’t see the taillights of the Mercedes until it was almost too late. The little coupe stopped on a dime, and Rachel had nowhere to go but to swerve hard left into oncoming traffic if she didn’t want to completely taco her front wheel on Jessica Baker’s back bumper. She knew whose car it was, of course. Not many Mercedes convertibles in the student parking lot, so everybody knew who it belonged to. But all Rachel thought about when she saw the red lights fill her vision was whether or not she could avoid putting her head through the back window of the ragtop. She swerved hard to the left, right into the path of an oncoming pickup.

Brakes squealed, Rachel pedaled hard to clear the front of the truck before it hit her, and she almost made it. The truck’s front bumper just clipped her rear wheel, but it was enough to send Rachel flying sideways off the bike to land on the asphalt. Her head smacked the pavement, hard, and her bike helmet exploded into shards of plastic and styrofoam. Her backpack dug painfully into her back and she felt a sharp burning in her left knee that told her one more pair of jeans was probably done for.

Rachel lay in the parking lot for a few seconds trying to collect herself before she managed to sit up. Just then, the driver of the truck got his vehicle turned off and made it to her side.

“Don’t sit up, you might be really hurt.” Rachel’s heart fell into her stomach at the sound of a familiar voice. Of course it’s Scott Morrison’s truck that I swerve in front of. Because the universe really does hate me. Please tell me it’s the thirteenth. I know it’s Friday, but it’s totally NOT my lucky day. Rachel sagged back to the pavement, wishing she could sink through it into the ground. When the ground steadfastly refused to open up and swallow her, she struggled up to her knees and tried to stand. Her left leg buckled under her, though, and Scott hurried forward to catch her before she fell.

“Hey! You really shouldn’t be standing.” She looked up at his brown eyes full of concern, and her knees went weak all over again. Scott helped her back to a sitting position on the ground and started to look her over for injuries.

“Are you all right?” He asked. “You seem a little …I don’t know. Did you hit your head?”

“No, I’m fine.” Rachel replied. “My helmet did its job. I think I’ve just got a little road rash on one knee. Just help me up and I’ll be fine.” As long as I don’t smell your cologne or look in those eyes again.

“Are you sure? Holy shit! You’re bleeding!” He pointed at her left knee, and sure enough, the fabric was shredded and soaked with blood.

“It’s not a big deal.” She said, trying to wave off the crowd that was gathering. “Just a little scratch. Don’t worry about it. It was totally my fault.” She saw Scott look at her out of the corner of one eye and held up her hands. “No, really! Look, you didn’t even bend the wheel of my bike. Much. Shit.” When she looked closer she could see that the wheel was just enough out of true that she wouldn’t be able to ride it until she got it fixed.

“Look, I’ll take care of the bike. I promise.” Scott said. “And I’ll give you a ride home today. You’re Ben Hampton’s daughter, right? Your dad works with my dad. I think I know where you live. I’ll take you home after school, then give you a ride to the bike shop and pay for the wheel. Okay?” It was more than okay with Rachel, who was getting a fluttery feeling in her stomach at the thought of that much time with Scott Morrison. Maybe today won’t be a total suck-fest after all.

DragonCon, again

Today I’m over at Magical Words talking a little more about DragonCon and a little more about the concept of “true fans.” And no, this has nothing to do with cosplay and whether girls who like to dress up are real geek girls or not. I’m not in a position to judge anyone’s geek street cred, and anyone who wants to dress up as anything they like can feel free.

Except maybe furries. Furries kinda creep me out. But that’s just me.

Anyway, go to Magical Words. No furries.

DragonCon Trip Report, Part 1

I dunno how many of these parts I’ll actually get done, but hell, it’s still better than I’ve done posting here in months, so let’s accept the baby steps, okay?

We got down to Atlanta about 6PM on Thursday, since I’d told the wife that I wanted to be rolling out of Charlotte around 10 or 11AM.

Yep, I know it only takes 4 hours to get from Charlotte to Atlanta.

Nope, we didn’t get rolling by 11AM.

No, it didn’t matter in the end.

Because loading into the AmericasMart was a clusterfuck! Of colossal proportions. I dunno what type of trade shows that place typically hosts, but it was not in any way prepared for the number of vendors that were trying to get into the doors for DragonCon. We parked on the street, offloaded onto the sidewalk, and walked our stuff in once they told us that the wait for a spot at the loading dock was 5 hours.

At 6PM.

You do the math. Once we got to the booth, everything went fairly smoothly. Our location was good, except for the huge column blocking a couple of feet of our booth from the aisle, but it was still a good location. And I sold an amazing number of books (although not as many as David B. Coe) over the weekend.

I also did a bunch of panels, including a Men of Urban Fantasy panel with David, Kevin J. Anderson, Jim Butcher, Jonathan Maberry, James Tuck and S.M.Stirling. That one was awesome, and  I was seated between Maberry and Butcher, so I got to thank Jim Butcher for all his influence and inspiration. Later on I fanboyed out and gave him a copy of the Black Knight Omnibus. Probably unprofessional, but fuggit. I also got a chance to sit on a Pulp panel with Tuck, Bobby Nash, John Ringo, Van Allen Plexico and D. Alan Lewis.

Those experiences solidified for me that being on panels at cons is pretty damn instrumental in selling books. David and I both had people coming into the booth all weekend saying that they saw us on that panel and wanted to pick up our books because of it. It makes me even more convinced that just attending cons and sitting behind a table is kinda pointless, it’s getting in front of people that makes them want to read your work. And that’s what we’re all working towards- getting people to read our work!

Next up for me – Atomacon, a first-year convention in Charleston, SC. This one isn’t until November, so hopefully I’ll have enough time to get some work done on a few other projects, including a new Bubba story and finishing up this dragon story I’ve been cooking on.