Steven Mix's Blog, page 3

A Timeline of Insanity

Friday 05:41pm:

Steve Mix

Everybody be cool. EVERYBODY JUST CALM DOWN AND BE FUCKING COOL.
I found two bags of Hot Cheetos in the cabinet and the wife is asleep so there is no one stopping me from eating these.

Don't anybody ruin this! BE FUCKING COOL!

I swear to God, be cool, Facebook.

Like · Reply · Yesterday at 5:41pm

Friday 05:52pm:

Steve Mix

Bag number one is done. I have heard eating two bags of hot Cheetos while pulling out a nosehair is how President Kennedy died.

Like · Reply · Yesterday at 5:52pm

Friday 06:45pm:

Steve Mix

Shit is getting real.

Like · Reply · Yesterday at 6:45pm

Steve Mix

Dude. Do I have a lazy eye? I've been wondering what is up with my vision lately. This would explain a lot.

Like · Reply · Yesterday at 6:46pm

Friday 09:00pm:

I have a bad stomach ache. I take ambien and head to bed.

Saturday 04:35am:

Steve Mix

I just woke up from some strange nightmare and had to write it down. I'm hanging out with these people near some mountain chain and cliffs that somehow have this huge parking garage near it. Three of the guys coming up the cliffs are brainwashers for some cult called The Children of Jonathan Landis. (I got nothing.)

They keep chasing me around trying to talk to me about Crocodile Initiatives and how they will improve my life. They each have red eyes and are wearing khakis. Each time I'm like screaming and running with weird psychic bullets pinging and whizzing. Somehow I managed to get into the parking garage and lower it with folks who I think are safe. I can see the brainwasher dudes on the other side through a big metal grate that has locked us in. They get frustrated. The parking garage is totally huge. I wander off from the folks I used to know and find Christopher J Garcia. He's eating breakfast on some cafe table, kind of in the dark of the huge parking garage. I order some orange juice and food. We are chatting awhile. I ask about his kids and Vanessa. He's like, "They are doing great, but they are concerned about you."

"Oh," I ask in a confused tone as I reach for my orange juice.

Chris replies, "Yes, what's this I hear about you not wanting to talk about the Crocodile Initiatives?"

My blood runs cold as I stopped just short of grabbing my orange juice, frozen, staring down at it, refusing to look up at Chris.

Chris says in a calm voice, "It's so peaceful you know, as a Child of Jonathan Landis. You should know this peace. I've let them in. Into the parking garage."

I hear voices in the distance, echoing off the cement walls and ceiling. They are getting closer. I still can't force myself to look up from the orange juice. Finally, after what seems like an eternity, I look up slowly in Chris' direction and whisper, "You used to be a fucking God among men. A fucking God! Now look at you. Khakis and shit."

I go running back off into the darkness as Chris yells out, "Plenty of Khakis for you in the Children of Jonathan Landis!"

Chris' voice and the yelling sound farther away as I scream out, "Fucking Khakis man!"

I happen to find Derek McCaw sitting at a tiny cafe table near the edge of the parking garage. Not far off from the front. He's glowing in the golden rays of morning falling in from the sky past the parking garage security grate fencing.

He looks very official, sitting there reading his paper with a coffee in front of him. He sits up tall and shakes his paper. I run to the table and begin shouting about Crocodiles and Khakis and Chris Garcia and Jonathan Landis.

Derek is like, "Calm down! Calm down Steve. It's going to be okay." He hugs me. I finally feel like I've found a friend in the darkness.

"Now? Jonathan Landis?" Derek asks. "We should probably run to the edge of the parking garage and shout for help."

Thank God Derek doesn't sound crazy. We both sprint twenty feet and then stop for a break where we rip open packs of Disney miniatures. I had no idea that Isaac from the Binding of Isaac was a Disney miniature now. Derek laughs and says "Yea! Disney owns everything after all." We set down all the miniatures and continue running towards the fence. When we get there, I'm screaming "Help! Help!" I jump up on some weird cement block with my arms reached in between these big gaps in the metal grate. I'm begging for anyone to open the gate, and take the nightmare away. There are people camping in a forest on the edge of the cliff. They notice us and begin running towards us. I can see all these green trees in the background.

Derek is standing behind me, and he asks matter of factly, "Did you know there's someone even more powerful than Disney? They own Disney in fact." He pauses to draw in a long breath before adding, "They just want to talk to you about the Crocodile initiatives."

My whole soul is screaming, and my heart feels like it is about to rip out of my chest. "You too DEREK? FUCKING YOU TOO? YOU'RE DICK DEEP IN KHAKIS?"

Derek looks like he's trying to reason with me, "Look man. Khakis aren't all bad."

"They are the clown shoes of pants. People iron creases in them that can cut bread." My voice is trembling while I whisper, "From you I'd expect the Avengers initiative. Never the Crocodile one."

Ric Bretschneider shows up wearing khakis.

"FUCKING RIC IS A CHILD OF JONATHAN LANDIS TOO?!" I start to run, but it's too late. The parking garage is filled with ping sounds, and cement popping and hissing, as I'm surrounded by the brainwashing guys, led to me by Ric and Derek.

The three brainwashing dudes have circled me. They are all wearing khakis, but they have white shirts with off white cashmere sweaters draped over their shoulders so just sort of dangle off them as they talk. They are rambling on and on about Crocodile initiatives. Their khakis are so pressed. I listen for a minute. The sound filling my ears is ringing. Overwhelming. My stomach churns. Finally, I just haul off and punch one square in the face.

He steps back nursing a bloody nose. "WHAFTH THEFH FAWKF?"

My voice is hanging somewhere between maniacal laughter and mania, "Yea you khaki wearing son of a bitch!" I raise my fist in defiance. "More where that came from!"

The brainwasher dude blinks at me a few times. His eyes don't look so red anymore. He asks where his wife is.

I hold my fist just inches from my face, staring at it. It is covered in blood. "Holy shit. My fist was the answer. All along I could have cured this. I just needed to punch all these brainwashed cultists in the face, hard."

I punch the other two brainwashers in the face. One complains that I'm hitting him, and now his tooth is loose.

I sprint through the parking garage and find Derek and Ric eating salads and talking about ordering new Khakis on Amazon. I punch them in the face. They both thank me for saving their souls. Finally, I track down Chris Garcia. He's sitting on a couch, petting his khakis.

"Chris, I'm sorry. I have to punch you in the face. It is for your own good."

Chris looks up at me and asks, "Will I still love Khakis after?"

I shake my head no. His eyes look far off, "I don't want to live in a world where I don't love Khakis and can't roll for Crocodile Initiatives. (Again. I got nothing. The dream has changed something around me.)

I punch Chris hard in the face. He has a slight bloody nose.
"Ow!" Chris protests. "Why the fuck am I wearing khakis?"

I reply while smiling, "I don't know Chris." I wake up from my dream and suddenly sit up in bed.

I took a piss. Grabbed my computer and wrote this whole thing out at 4:35 am. There's probably a lot of errors, but I'm not going to bother fixing them. I'm just heading back to bed.
There is a pair of khakis in my closet. They are wrinkled, but I can feel their evil power.


Like · Reply · Today at 4:36pm

Convolution Oct 2nd - Oct 4th

Guest Steven Mix: traumatic brain injury survivor, veteran, zombiephile, & author of Goodbye from the Edge of Never. pic.twitter.com/EHjeAEmLkq

— Con-Volution 2015 (@ConvolutionSF) August 5, 2015

Cancer makes victims of us all

If you're lucky, your biggest heroes will be your father and grandfather.

If your luck turns, they'll run up against cancer. You'll come to their aide because that's what good people do for loved ones who have helped them grow up. You'll be by their side. You'll watch your heroes deteriorate. You'll see them struggle to keep food down and decide that the pain, nausea, and cancer have beaten them. Their body will wither. Their mind will go. They'll confuse you with their brother. They may slip away in the night. Usually though the fight was given up long before. You were just around to watch cancer's victory parade as your loved ones faded from the world.

Everyone knows the personification of Death with its grinning skull and sharpened scythe. Death has cancer beaten in sheer numbers and often cruel ends but at least death can sometimes be merciful.

Cancer is never merciful.

If we are to imagine cancer as a personification, it won't wield a sharpened scythe that could cut people down quick. Cancer would use a knobby oversized club that wasn't accurate at all. Just brutal. Brutal in that every hit never quite kills, but it bruises and hammers the life out with every strike. Cancer would have a fang-filled mouth. It's face would be blood stained face from sucking blood, flesh and marrow from everyone it affected. Cancer would glow brightly from all the helpless, sick, irradiated victims he dragged to their demise. The eyes of cancer would be sinister beady blood red things that held gaze on the whole world but possessed pity for none. I'd want to believe that cancer would be covered in tumors that spit blood and puss with every step. Given how cruel the disease is, I'm almost certain the personification of it would have flawless skin and form. The attractive devil that smiles even as it is offering damnation. That's how I imagine cancer. Since he seems to visit my family members all the time, I imagine he'll arrive in my home one day. He'll stand across the room pointing an accusing finger at me and tell me that he's finally come knocking.

I hope science sucker-punches the shit out of you one day, cancer.

I hope it knocks all your teeth out in one shot, leaving you hungry and in pain. Cancer, when science knocks you out, I hope it robs you of every bit of dignity you've stolen from the rest of us.

I'm out of breath but nobody else sees it

Cancer has my dad and won't let go.

Neither will I.

Unfortunately, cancer cheats at everything and curls its grip around all the parts of him I can't hug.

What type of bat does Ashley use?

In my novels one of my main characters, Ashley, uses a baseball bat to fight the undead. She is a modern day swords-woman. She will often switch between wielding the bat with one or two hands.

So what bat does she use?

It has to be a bat that would be light enough to be flourished, but heavy enough to crack skulls. Too heavy and the bat would become less of an asset and more of a burden against zombies.

Here it is, Ashley's weapon of choice: The Easton F4 Fungo baseball bat.

Why this bat?

For starters, fungo bats are used by coaches for baseball practices everywhere. They are held with one hand as the coach lobs and hits balls with the other. They are light and easy to swing. Their tough aluminum alloy makes them durable enough to fight off the undead.

This particular bat is special though.

It has a great balance to it. If you hold it just above the knob and flex your wrist to spin it, you will note that it feels like you're swinging a light sword or even a... lightsaber? ;)

So there, you have it. Ashley's choice of weapon and, in my opinion, the best blunt weapon you can use during a zombie apocalypse.

The Easton F4 Fungo bat.

Rise! (Chapter from Book Two)

Pavarotti. Pavarotti was the only real way I could explain it right now. It wasn’t much of an explanation. It wasn’t much of anything.

I stood there, smelling copper and biting flesh. Tasting the song of life that gushed forth and into my being. I felt Luciano Pavarotti, holding a long bassy note, its tone echoing off the walls of every opera house in the world before depositing that energetic burst right here, into my being.

I'm standing in an alleyway devouring the face of a transient but somehow, I hear Luciano Pavarotti echoing into the world. The music, I'm feasting on, becomes weak and then tastes acrid. Death and infection are taking hold. It no longer tastes like song. Letting go, I threw aside the spasming man and stepped back to watch him struggle violently with his fate. The dark shadows of the alley grew, surrounded by the fading sunlight of the world. I didn’t know how long I had stared. Just that the man was now standing before me swaying slightly, parts of his cheek and neck ripped away. I couldn't take my eyes off the large gashes and blood stained clothes. The street lights kicked on, and I needed to be somewhere else. Turning away, I stepped away from the alley. The newly dead man followed. A few steps later I spun around to face him under a streetlight. The man swayed and looked back with hollow eyes. Another step away and the man stepped forward again.

This was new! There is two of us. Car tires squealed, and Pavarotti’s note echoed past. I followed the scent of it down the street. None of this made sense to me. The note grew louder as something danced in my lungs. The man behind me lumbered along. I could hear him sniffing the air. He’d found the note too. There was clearly something here. We trampled an old flowerbed, sprinting across a parking lot until we finally found the source of the night’s music. Bright floodlights angled down, piercing the darkness. Shades of deep green and earthy browns filled my vision from somewhere. Is that applause? What is this?

A softball game?

Middle-aged men sprinted around the bases. From the stands, someone shouted frustration. After a minute of running someone slid into a base and the flexing movement of the crowds cheering and jeering settled down as we approached a chain link fence on the darkened side of the field.

People passed around hot dogs. Some tugged at shared blankets and dug out sweaters from backpacks. Others argued over stats and teams as they watched the players face challenges from the field below their bleacher seats. The song is coming off the crowd. You can feel it. You can smell it. You can taste it. It is life and technology breaking through the darkness. Somehow these things are finding beauty and excitement. A moment of safety, which the universe rarely knows. It is all so beautiful and hey…

Where the fuck is he going?

The newly turned undead had climbed the chain link and began sprinting across the field towards the game. Doesn’t this asshole realize I found them first. This is my song, not his.

Spitting and hissing, I climbed up the chain link. It’s difficult to scale a fence when you’re no longer fully conscious of how your legs feel.

I began chasing after my newly turned friend we found ourselves running into the lights of the field. We shuffled towards the shocked players. The crowd laughed at first. I suppose we looked amusing. Two strange individuals with obvious muscle control issues. The smell of the song engulfed us both and our steps became more sure-footed as our engine gathered steam. The right fielder approached asking if we needed help, inviting me to leap first, sinking my teeth into the man’s face. Drinking deep of the song, I glanced up to see the crowd screaming and scattering off the benches. Some holding their place behind cell phone cameras, others throwing objects in our direction. My friend leapt at the player swinging a bat in his direction. Amateur hour in the land of the dead. The newbie dusted himself off pounced again, finding his proper place on top of the batter’s struggling form. I hadn’t realized it, but I had left the field and was running towards the people rushing out of the bleachers. Vaulting over the dugout chain link and clacking my teeth, I found myself between two people. A teenage girl and an overweight middle aged man. First-world undead-problems. Both have their arms up between them defensively, frozen in fear. Their eyes are pleading for safety. Hey, that fat guy has a beard and looks like Pavarotti. In fact, he tastes like Pavarotti should!

Police and fire sirens rang out. Smoke wafted through as I chased neon lights. The song carried me up one street and down another. The feeling intensified. Sometimes I snapped a chunk of flesh from the masses. Other moments, I snapped my teeth and hissed a warning, culling the crowd. Shoving it away from me, and into some newly minted friends. They're forms screeching delight while rending flesh.

I remember standing next to a muscle bound, fresh faced undead man as he roared rage and destruction. He was probably still slightly pumped from steroids and protein shakes. A second later he was cut down by a hail of gunfire.

I bet he misses the gym.

It turns out old ladies don’t seem so old when the song found them. I observed one wearing a blue wig screaming, gnashing her teeth and climbing a street light to leap through a second-floor window.

Suddenly I was up on a roof watching a mass of undead tumble down a chimney like they were Santa Claus chasing the holiday spirit. Such a clatter.

A flash shuffles past, and I’m sprinting up a wide street, leaping up and onto a windshield. My fists are hammering down, trying to unleash the music hiding inside of the parked car. The glass flexes and resembles the white pattern of a spider's web before shattering. The screams surrounding me are pulsing with excitement.

I could hear the beat of chopper blades long before I felt the whiz of bullets. By this time, though, our mass was pulsing into and through buildings. Smashing windows and splintering wood wherever we found it. Sometimes we were beaten back… But the band played on. The night belted out hit tunes, and as it turns out, I loved to dance.

Electricity surged somewhere. I'm screaming at the moon while struggling to hold a man beneath my knuckles. My brothers and sisters latch on and begin the process of ripping him apart. I have never felt so powerful. The world has never felt so right. Confidence is trampling through here. Enlightening the masses. Liberating a beat.

I might be dead, but I have never felt so alive. Another blink and I’m standing in the seats of Yankee Stadium, just up from the third base line, gnashing my teeth into a man wearing a security jumper.

Hey, look at me! I’m in Yankee Stadium! I made it to the big show!

Intel Extreme Masters

I played Pong.

I was a Pacmaniac. I loved Super Mario Bros. I owned a Turbografx16. I sank more quarters into Street Fighter arcade machines than I care to admit, and I am pretty sure Quake once made one of my eyes bleed. I am not the best gamer, but I would say I am one of the faithful, ancient ones. Even I surprised by E-Sports.

Don't get me wrong, I had waited my entire life for gaming to come into the spotlight. Growing up I didn't know a single gamer that hadn't dreamt of getting paid to game, or having fans because of it. I still never imagined this.

I was lucky enough to attend an ESL Intel Extreme Masters event recently.

A stadium full of big screens, bright lights, and fog machines. A demo floor filled with games. This was my heaven.

The cyber-athletes involved in these events are amazing. If you were expecting Geek Chic, you wouldn't be disappointed because there's plenty of that style in this crowd. However, these kids come from all walks of life and backgrounds... and don't underestimate them, when they saddle up behind a keyboard and a mouse, you are in for a show. Just like any other athlete, they will scream, cheer and sometimes shout in frustration.

The rest of the events are so just as visceral. The announcers are wound up, and the audience has a level of energy that is spiking nuclear. It's infectious.

In other sports, we wait all year for the draft. Each of these games begins with a draft. If you're in the crowd, you'll see players choose fan favorite champions alongside loud cheers. Sometimes it is to counter another team's draft. Other times just to win over the audience.

Then the game starts and a battlefield unfolds. An actual battlefield! Battlelines get drawn up as players push lanes. Sometimes hiding behind armies and often leading charges. They'll plan attacks, stage ambushes, steal kills and all the while plot away trying to figure out what item is going to give them enough of an edge to overwhelm their opponents. Is it time to attack? Should they stage an ambush? Who is in enemy territory right now? Charge that damn machine gun! Kill that *@#&ing dragon!

Except the machine guns are towers.

And the dragons are dragons.

The digital age birthed something majestic.

It is the child of electricity and rock n roll.

These players are rockstars for a digital age. Each of these matches hit with a level of excitement that will feel like Christmas when you were five years old.

You need to see this for yourself!

Watch one of these events. Just pick a color, red or blue. Then choose a team simply because you like their name, or figure out who your home team is and cheer. You'll taste the pop and excitement in these events that you will find an e-sports fan inside of yourself... Then you will agree,

you have waited your whole life for something like this.

Jae's Story

“I’m not usually one to thank God,” Jae thought as she came upon the square, two-story cabin in the moonlight. The muscles of her legs ached. One of them was spasming as she crossed the driveway and dragged herself up the front porch.

The forest behind her screeched. Deeper screams echoing behind that. She didn’t even know which of them was causing that mist to hang in the air. She had just ran the other direction.

“Fuck sound discipline. They know I’m here.” With lungs full of fire and head full of fear, she began kicking in the front door.

The wood splintered on the second kick, and she tumbled into the room. A snap and a shake later, green neon light spilled across the room from a glowstick. Jae immediately noticed the stench.

Waving the glowstick in front of her defensively, she scanned the room trying to find the source of it before it found her.

The green light flooded the floor revealing two rotten, shriveled corpses, laid side by side. Jae held her breath. A scream outside reminded her why she was here. Whispering, “ Gun please?” she stepped up and let her hands grasp old, dead flesh, shifting the corpses around, trying to find the source of their death. A pill bottle skittered out from under one of them.

She cursed as she stepped past the dead bodies. With an unsteady hand, she waved the glowstick around the room trying to find something she could use. A blender, vitamins, supplements, a bowl full of rotten fruit covered the counter of a half kitchen. A fitness bike and a rowing machine on the far side of the room next to a stairwell. Everything covered in a layer of dust still somehow managed to seem tidy. The echoes of fitness nuts in a dark world. Jae was willing to bet they wished they had lived their life a little more before the dead arrived.

There! A set of heavy, metal free weights stacked against the wall by the front door she’d walked through. There was her salvation.

Jae leaned her weight forward as the wooden steps out front thumped. The window broke sending glass shards cascading into the room. Jae had tucked the glowstick behind her and backed away. A moonlit silhouette of something scrambled through the window. Screams of hunger and rage joined it as black shapes filled up the window’s frame. The cabin’s wood was aching as the creature's siblings came to feed. Bodies flooded through the open front door as Jae sprinted back and up the stairwell. Panicked breaths danced with flashes of emerald light.

She sprinted off the stairs, down the hall and into the first open door. Jae could hear them scrambling up the stairs. Shoving and clawing over each other to get to her. It took her a moment to realize the tiny room had no windows, a toilet, and a small sink.

Turning to find another escape route, Jae found herself facing a bald man. Pockmarked skin and sunken eyes standing in the doorway, glared back at her. Jae gasped, and time seemed to freeze. Shadows shifted behind him. Like a snake, his form lurched forward, and his jaw snapped in her direction. Jae placed the heel of her sneaker in his stomach and shoved full force, slamming the thin wooden door between them in the process. She had dropped the glowstick. It lay on the bathroom tile; it’s light flooding out across it, leaving half shadows bouncing off the sink, toilet and walls. The health nuts that lived here must not have been claustrophobic. Jae leaned into the back wall; tears began rolling down her cheeks. The monsters screamed and clawed at the door. Jae spun around as her feet fell out from under her. Sitting up against the wall, she let one elbow resting on the toilet seat, her other arm on a knee staring down at her hands. A crack of wood echoed into the room. How had the world become like this. A year ago she was dancing in a club, surrounded by laughing friends. They called her Princess Jae then. A nickname of honor amongst close friend. Her head had been dizzy with alcohol. Now she was just dizzy. Everything had collapsed so fast. Sirens and alarms had only added to the fear and confusion for the living. One panicked sprint after another. Sleep stolen in hiding. She’d seen the worst things. Parents were devouring their children. Police shooting people over canned goods. Lovers were murdering each other out of both insanity and pity. When the world fell in on itself, it was sudden, and dark. No one saw it coming.

The top part of the door was ripping away, and hands stretched into the room struggling to grasp and rip flesh. Jae’s eyes focused on the metal looping drain pipe under the sink. The weight of death and the world falling in on her lifted. Jae whispered to herself the quote, “I intend to live forever, or die trying.” Her sneaker connected with the metal pipe as the bottom part of it broke and pinged against the tile floor. A second kick and she’d ripped off the other half of the pipe.

She sent the glowstick skittering across the tile as she fumbled for the two pieces of metal pipe. Rolling over onto her back Jae was suddenly very conscious of how cold the tile felt. It matched the iciness of the cold steel she was holding in both hands. Looking up at the shadows of hands and gnashing teeth through gaping holes in the door she began to giggle.

The giggle gave way to a full blown belly laugh as the dead screamed and struggled violently to fall in on top of her. In a swift motion, Jae brought both of her arms up, clapping the two pieces of metal together. A small spark flickered then fell between Jae and the dead. The spark warped the night. Glowing red characters hung in the air near it. Resembling alphanumeric digits they stretched and floated through the air. Their forms flickering and changing. It was difficult for Jae’s eyes to focus and track them. She held her breath. The steel fell from her hands, clattering on the ground next to her. Raising her right hand, she let the tips of her fingers extend into the shifting pattern. The pattern flickered around her fingers leaving trails around them in the air. Her entire hand went numb as she flexed it then pulled, redirecting the flow of symbols. The last of the door collapsed forward, undead bodies fell in toward Jae. A short-lived fault in the system of existence ripped through the room. Reality tried to correct the error and a loud whump erupted into the room. The cedar walls of the cabin flashed bright white and vanished, replaced with cold lake water. The walls of water crashed in on themselves. Pain and the sudden change of pressure caused stars to dance across Jae’s vision.

Coughing and sputtering, Jae shoved aside the tile and mud. Jae limped away from the site and the struggling undead whose feral minds were trying to come to grips with what had just happened.

Village House of Books and Convolution

I spent a month rushing around to events and then I injured my back about a week and a half ago and the recovery has sucked. I was an overdose level of painkillers and muscle relaxants but I think I might finally be crawling out of it. So here is an update from some previous events.

I had an amazing time at Village House of Books in Mountain View!

The owners Cheryl and Steve are wonderful folks and we had a really successful event. I can't thank them enough. If you find yourself in Mountain View, you need to swing by one of their two locations. They are spectacular stores with a real level of class in both service and presentation.


I also need to thank P.I.C. Photo for taking such amazing pictures. There's so many that I'm going to link them on a separate page here:

Photos from the Village House of Books Appearance

I also appeared at Convolution.

I saw the usual suspects of Chris Garcia, Vanessa Applegate, M. Todd Gallowglas, Setsu Uzume and A.E. Marling. Also my publisher, Carlos Moreno, flew in from Tulsa, Oklahoma for the event! Huge thanks to Carlos and author Stephen Shumaker for helping me with the vendor table that weekend. I couldn't have done it without them!

The first day I had Michael A. Stackpole and Tanya Huff come over to my table and check out my book.

I was blown away that two Sci-Fi superstars were looking at my book. Mr Stackpole wrote a huge portion of the Star Wars novels, including the New Jedi Order and Tanya Huff has written a giant amount of books about every Sci-Fi topic you can imagine. That night at the Guest Meet and Greet, Susie Rodriguez dragged me over to Todd McCaffrey and left me there fumbling over my words as I tried to not look hysterical. The Pern novels were one of my obsessions when I was growing up so it was amazing to meet him and he is a really funny and warm fellow. Go meet him if you ever get a chance!

The next day I was on a panel with Todd McCaffrey, Michael A. Stackpole and J.L. Doty.

I had met Mr. Doty the night before. He is a really entertaining and successful author but freely admits he has no idea how he sold 40,000 books on one of his novels! If you haven't heard of him yet, you need to clear your schedule to read his work.

I'm not sure which day it was, I wound up on a random questions and answers panel with Tanya Huff, Tyler King and Carrie Sessarego. Tyler King does a podcast with his friend Matt called, Your Book is Why Daddy Drinks. They discuss terrible novels while getting drunk. So of course, Tyler is hysterical. Tanya Huff is quick-witted and really fun to be around.

The showstopper on that panel was Carrie Sessarego.

Her answers to the random audience questions were wonderful and very thought provoking. Carrie is an author who is also a part of the website, Geek Girl in Love which is filled popculture, romance and positivity.

At the end of the weekend Tanya Huff rushed up to my vendor table and said, "Oh good, you haven't left yet! I need a copy of your book!"

I fought back the urge to pass out and hit my head on the table, signed a copy and thanked her. Michael Todd Gallowglas made the moment even more perfect by shouting, "Is Tanya Huff buying your book?," high-fiving me, and then flipping me off. Todd's awesome for stuff like this.

I almost forgot! I wound up on a panel with Emerian Rich from HorrorAddicts.net! How cool is that? She even had her hair dyed SF Giants colors.



That's it.... from now on I'm using iframes for all these event photos. God help the poor bastard who is viewing this from his 3g cell phone! So many photos.

The most exciting part of the event though was that I was able to meet my writing coach Lauren Sapala.

In the digital age you can have friends and mentors that you've never met, but it was nice to finally shake her hand in person. Thanks for everything Lauren! :)

Thanks to Susie Rodriguez and Convolution for inviting me out! I don't think I could have had a better time. It was so amazing! I need to stop gushing about it here though or this blog post will never end!

Oh, and Convolution had a better ballpit than Dashcon.

All trolling aside, my son loved it.

Convolution 2014

September 26th through the 28th.

Come to Convolution! SciFi/fantasy conventions are so much fun, and I have heard that this is the best one in California! If you can't make it all weekend just come for a day. I promise to bait you in with collectible postcards and free stickers.

Just look at these stickers!

Here is a list of my scheduled events:

Friday 2-4 Writing fiction and breathing characters and new worlds to life (M)
Friday 4-6 Questions and Answers and Things That Go Bump In the Night
Friday 8-10 Hosting a Fan Moderated Chat on True Ghost Stories
Saturday 10-12 So you're published... now what?
Saturday 12-2 Merging Genres
Sunday 10-11 Autograph Session
Sunday 12-2 Social Worldbuilding