Celebrating 25 years of DemiCon

DemiCon will be celebrating its Silver Anniversary May 2nd - 4th, 2014 in Des Moines, IA. I'm really excited to return to this awesome con. Great people, well organized, amazing room parties - it's a lot of fun. Even better, this year I get to participate in panels!

Friday from 6pm-7pm in the Nebraska room I'll be hosting Superheroes On Parade: Movies, Television, straight to DVD, and soon Netflix. Marvel and DC are battling it out on the big and little screens. Come discuss what works, what doesn't, what's coming...and what's up with Flash's new costume?

Saturday from 6pm-7pm come to the Nebraska room and discuss Disney's Star Wars: Jedi or Jar Jar? Disney has already made changes regarding the extended universe, and plans on releasing Star Wars movies every year! Does Disney wield enough Force to become a Jedi? Join us on the dark side as we discuss rumors, official announcements, and our new hope for the future.

Also on Saturday I'll be joining Dennis Green to share how we go about Finding Time to Write from 7pm-8pm in the Missouri room.

As always, I have a few things planned for this con! Visit us in the dealer room and you will be able to:

• Meet Cristi - gorgeous Angst spokesmodel, alpha reader, and amazing person
• Pose with the brand new, full size replica fantasy sword Chryslaenor, the giant sword from Angst 
• Purchase signed copies of Angst and Buried in Angst
• Get a free poster of Cristi with your purchase
• Sign up to win an Angst T-shirt

The Dealers Room will be open:
Friday:  2 pm - 6 pm
Saturday:  10 am - 6 pm
Sunday:  10 am - 2 pm

DemiCon 25 will be held at:
Holiday Inn Northwest
4800 Merle Hay Road
Des Moines, Iowa  50322

Be sure to visit their site for more information: http://www.demicon.org/dc_joomla_25/

How I Deal With Writer's Block

DC ENTERTAINMENT

Some days my writing comes naturally, flocking like the salmon of Capistrano, ebb and flow as smoothly as – well, you get the idea. It’s like I’m on this path and can run freely, walk and enjoy the view, or even stop to smell the roses.
When I struggle with my writing, it’s like that path becomes a tunnel. There’s a light at the end, but some weeks those tunnels are long, muddy, and that light seems far away. This is where I’ve been at for the last several weeks and that tunnel was pretty dark and cold and lonely (Where the hell were you by the way! Oh, wait…Twitter.)
With every book I write, I find there are more than a few periods of internal conflict where the story is trying to break free but doesn’t quite make it to my keyboard. When it finally happens, it’s like the world is sighing, but until it does – I’m still stuck.
These are the things I do to get through my tunnel and back to enjoying the view. Some things I do are probably obvious, but I’m hoping that by sharing, one or more ideas will help you. Maybe you’ll even share with me what you do. I’m always open to more ideas!

• Go for a walk: Honestly, I get more story telling done when I walk than I ever do typing on a keyboard.
• Drink booze: Yup, I said that. There is this zone between 2 drinks and 6 when I can play darts and write creatively. (It’s that same zone others drink themselves into so they can laugh at my jokes.)
• Ask your characters: I was pacing in my man cave because I was totally stumped what two of my characters were going to do, so I asked them. No, they don’t actually answer, no voices in my head that I’m willing to talk about. But it makes a lot of sense to try and get in your character’s head and answer that simple question, “If this happened, what would you do?”
• Clean and organize: My wife has to love this part. Sometimes, to clear my mind, I have to clear the mess.
• Music: I’ve said this before, I love movie scores. They are inspiring without distracting lyrics. (Depending on the soundtrack, my car rides are often very exciting!) This goes very well with walking.
• People watching: Not to be a creeper, but stalking, er, I mean watching groups of people is fascinating. You can learn a lot a by watching them interact, especially if you can fit some of them into your story.
• Punch my way through it like Superman fighting a horde of alien invaders! Really, sometimes I'll stay up to 2am just to fight through a chapter, beating out the idea and writing roughshod the entire time to clean it up later.
• Exercise and eating vegetables: Does absolutely nothing for creativity, avoid at all cost!

Writer’s block can be bad, and days when writing is slow can be incredibly frustrating. I like the saying “You’ve got to take the good with the bad” but for me it tends to be you’ve got to get through the bad in order to get to the good. When I get lost in that tunnel I have to remind myself what I tell friends at the end of their bad days. “It’s good you got that out of the way so you can move onto something better.”

Now that I've shared, it's your turn. What do you do when you are in the tunnel?

Visioncon 2014 in Branson MO was Awesome!

I had concerns this year about going to Visioncon this year. The venue moved from Springfield, MO to Branson due to the old hotel shutting down, and some who attend last year announced they wouldn't be able to make it. I was also worried about the weather. Basically, we've been at war with ice elementals and white walkers for months and another attack was imminent. (The forecasters thought we'd get 12" of snow in Kansas City.)

I arrived at 11:00 Friday and spent an hour scrambling to get checked in and set up my table before noon. By the time I dropped luggage off in my room, a line had formed for registration. In spite of the oncoming storm, and the new location, people showed up. Visioncon has some faithful attendees, and for good reason. This con is run very well and the staff is exceptional, great to work with, and well prepared. My sincere thanks to them for putting together such a great convention. I should also mention that the Raddison in Branson was a great place to host Visioncon. Nice rooms and a friendly staff. Next time I visit Branson, I'll stay there.

Cristi and Brandon arrived Friday evening and were, as always, awesome! I couldn't do cons without their help. Needless to say, Cristi rocked the new costume. I'm pretty sure more people are coming to visit her than me these days, I think they just tend to buy the books by accident.

One of my favorite things about Visioncon from last year was the costumes, and this year didn't disappoint. While there are always a few duct tape warriors whose crafting talents are still better than mine ;) you can tell that everyone goes all out for Visioncon. So many great costumes, and some that look like they came right out of Hollywood. From Game of Thrones and superheroes to Doctor Who and Star Trek, you'll find a great representation of all genres at Visioncon.

Saturday night was just an awesome time! Hanging out with some new friends, we made the rounds - starting at the always amazing Mojo room party and ending with some dancing. (Okay, let’s be honest, everyone else was dancing while I sorta stood still, smiled, and rocked back and forth. I'm pretty sure I rocked in time to the music. I think.)

Sunday was the return of the scramble. Shortly after I got back from my very, very important Starbucks run, it began to sleet. We packed up and got out of there fast so we could spend the next five hours driving slow (the trip down took me about three.) Quite a few cars ended up in the ditch, and I was glad to make it home without incident.

If you haven't been to this one, I highly recommend you put Visioncon on your list of cons to visit. I know we will be back in 2015!

You can see pics I took on Facebook or Google+

You can also see pictures from the official Visioncon photographers Just Shoot Me (great people!) on their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JustShootMeArts

A Look Forward - Could This Be My Future?

Facebook recently produced a feature that compiles highlights of images and posts users have made since joining into a video montage called A Look Back. If you use Facebook, and haven’t watched your video, it can be created by going here: www.facebook.com/lookback Personally, I found my video to be touching. Some of my friends’ videos, maybe not so much.  Fortunately in those cases, a recently added feature allows you to edit your video, removing some of the less desirable images.

This gave me a fun idea. What if you could Look Forward? Since that feature isn’t available (yet), I had to make the video myself, and came up with my own collection of daydreams and what-ifs, including some events that probably will happen, some that could happen, and a few that are highly unlikely (to be very optimistic.)

Being both color-blind and artistically challenged, you’ll be able to spot the edited photos pretty quick. A good example is the before and after of the J.J. Abrams and Joss Whedon picture at the San Diego Comicon. (Hey, I think they’d make a pretty good Angst movie, don’t you?) I stretched out the table, the background, and even made myself a name badge! (Insert nerd snort here.)

Needless to say, most of the pictures were adjusted in some way. The image of me holding a baby was actually a recreation. That's me looking old today, but the baby is my son James from 20 years ago.

I also cheated a little; most of the pictures in the original Facebook version don’t include titles. I included some to help the pictures make sense to those who don’t know me. At times it’s a little bit of a challenge to read all of my “future posts” without pausing the video, but I hope that if you do, you find them to be fun.

A lot of thanks to Angie, Joanne, James, Cristi and Brandon! By now they’ve got to be more than a little warn out from my requests to “come take a look at this one” or “what do you think of this picture”! I also have to thank Facebook for the Look Back video; it was well done and much appreciated. Finally, a shoutout to Gage Skidmore for letting me hack up his great picture of Joss Whedon and JJ Abrams. You can find Gage’s great work on Flickr here, and his Facebook page here.

A direct link to the video can be found here! If you like it be sure to share with your friends!