Anton Strout's Blog, page 168

Sneak peek!

Here is the cover for Dead Matter, book three in the Simon Canderous series (2/23/10). Enjoy!

Updated Gencon Indy Schedule

I recently absorbed a few more panels at Gencon next week.  Here is the most up to date list of what I'll be doing.
For those of you attending Gencon this year, I hope to see you there.  We shall eat, drink, and be geeky!

Please note all events are scheduled to be held in the Marriott meeting rooms listed below.

Thursday, August 13

3 p.m.- LINCOLN
Dry Spells and Survival Tips
Dry spells, poor salesmanship, frustrating editors, and day jobs are the bane of writers. We’ll offer you advice on how

I've got four hours to kill and no, I'm not in the Dead Rising mall

Just a friendly reminder that this event is coming up THIS Saturday, for those of you who can make it.  I like to feel loved, as I'm sure my fellow authors there do, so please come on out and show your support, buy some books and chat us up!  And, as always, standard rules apply:  pants optional!
MULTI-AUTHOR SIGNING!AUGUST 1st, 2009
Noon-4pm @
Borders Express
Paramus Park Mall
600 Paramus Park
Paramus, NJ 07652
including:
S.C. Butler; Barbara Campbell
Laura Anne Gilman; Jackie Kessler
Joshua Palmatier;

Two things, both of them in-mah-phone related

1.  What podcasts should I be adding to my iPhone, peeples?  Inquiring lower mid-list fantasy authors want to know!

2.  I want to do some podcasts for the upcoming book.  Hook a writer up, yo!

I know why the bipolar bear weeps

Being America's Favorite Lower Mid-list Urban Fantasy Author is a burden, but one I lovingly accept.

That said, I'd like to talk for a moment about what it means to be a writer nowadays.  When I was a kid, I remember hearing about Stephen King when he published Carrie.  It was his first gig as a novelist, got a nice advance and BOOM, he was a full time writer who could suddenly afford food and to not have to another job anymore, in his case teaching.  That still happens these days (Mr. Rothfuss,

Recognizing the universal

As a writer of contemporary work, I try to keep an eye on what I like to call writing the universal.  What is that exactly?  Well, for me it's like trying to tap into the universal hive mind of my readers so I can hit a trigger with them without lengthy explanation and keep moving forward. For instance, if I mention using chewing gum and a paperclip to MacGyver my way into hotwiring a car, I don't have to explain who MacGyver is or go on about the intricacies of how I'm exactly hotwiring the car

Signing books with some awesome authors who aren't me

Since my brain doctor thinks it's apparently good for me to get out of my basement mole kingdom fortress every so often, I would like to inform y'all of my next appearance which be this:


MULTI-AUTHOR SIGNING!AUGUST 1st, 2009
Noon-4pm @
Borders Express
Paramus Park Mall
600 Paramus Park
Paramus, NJ 07652
including:
S.C. Butler; Barbara Campbell
Laura Anne Gilman; Jackie Kessler
Joshua Palmatier; Anton Strout

If yer near the Dirty Jerz, stop on by and get a little dirtier by association.  Or just harass som

The restless mind iz restless

One thing I need to keep in mind to mitigate my frustrations with the creative process and being published:  My road is not anyone else's road to building a career.  I can analyze things to death... wonder if my sales are holding up, wonder if people will like book three, fret about starting book four, compare my sales to a million others, worry about the new series idea I have... all these things that are outside of actually writing the damn books... but I have to remember that no matter what,

Achieivements

As of last night, Dead Matter, book three in the Simon Canderous series, is finished and ready to go back to my edit.   We made it better, stronger....

To celebrate, I loaded in the $5.00 Guitar Hero Aerosmith I found over the Fourth and got all the achievement points for playing it in medium all the way through in one sitting.  Next up, Hard!

My fourth consisted of:
about 8 lightsabers
several swords
a delicious, delicious slow roasted pig
tasty Cuban cuisine too numerous to mention
many fine drinks,

Boy Meets Water

For no reason that I can really think of, I started thinking back to mah youth.  And then I started thinking about my early days with D&D.  And then I tried to remember my first encounters in the game and all that, but I have trouble remembering the early days.  I can remember the epic high school and college adventures pretty readily, but not really my beginnings.

However, I do remember the first monster that kind of hooked me in.  It wasn't even in the game.  It was one of those Choose Your Own