A Short Little Post for my Birthday

Blog No. 290

Something came up at the day job recently where a coworker had to go away for a last minute emergency. With a little scramble/planning we were able to free up the shifts (mostly by having me take them). Since I was taking this person’s shifts for two weeks, I thought it would be nice to give her some shifts of mine now. She would get some of the hours back, and I could finally get some free time to really focus on writing. Plus, the time would happen over my birthday, so bonus if I decided to do something about that (which was very doubtful). The thing with plans is that they don’t always work out how you like and I got pneumonia. So, since last Thursday I’ve been either in bed, in the bathroom, at the clinic, or half conscious in a chair with an old movie playing in the background. So, no writing getting done. Doing this post has been tough enough. I am, I think, finally on the mend. I’ve managed to sleep thought a full night and I actually ate something. Hopefully I can be better in time to go back to work. Yay.

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Hard to Top

Blog No. 289

The First ChiSeries Windsor of the year was last week. You should already know because you should have been there and because you should have read last week’s blog post about how I was going to cover it this week because I didn’t want to write the post on Wednesday night for Thursday morning. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, it was awesome! I was hopeful before the event, but it really turned out to be a great night. It stormed like the dickens right before we finished, forcing folks who did come out to brave the rain to get to their cars, but it was right near the end, and I can’t control the weather (yet) so I’m taking myself off the hook and assuming they all thought it was worthwhile.

The Slowdown

Blog No. 288

Just like a couple of weeks ago, this post is going up a matter of hours (like 11, but still) after last night’s event. Since I write it on Tuesdays, the rundown from the first ChiSeries Windsor of 2018 will go up next week. You can assume it was a huge success with a monster turnout. I’m betting the readers were excellent and the music was top notch. Hopefully you were there to see it for yourself. Thankfully, I can tell you about some other things. Starting with the Downtown Windsor Farmers’ Market. If you haven’t been, the only downside is parking. Since it’s on a Saturday, you will have to pay for parking, but if you’re creative, you should be able to park fairly closely. There were a ton of different vendors for the opening weekend (including me) varying from food and coffee sales, to produce, and various other products. Food is the most common, but the variety is pretty impressive.

ChiSeries Sandwich

Blog No. 287

Driving to Toronto is old hat for most Windsorites. I think. It’s certainly not a big deal for a lot of folks I know. Sometimes I take the train, when prices are reasonable and it’s just me. It’s gotten to the point where the cost of gas and parking is about the same as a train ticket anyway, so it’s all dependent on scheduling and specifics. Since I was going to the ChiSeries reading with Christian, and we could split the gas, driving was the way to go. And let me tell you, it’s not always as smooth a drive as it was last Wednesday. Construction was minimal, traffic was reasonable, and the inevitable movie and book conversations makes the time go by. The only part that could be considered a challenge was getting to the hotel and figuring out where to park.

Driving Wile You Read This

Blog No. 286

I think this was from last year’s ChiSeries Toronto. Or it was SPCS?

I’ll have a more in depth post about last night’s ChiSeries Toronto reading next week, but as this is being posted, I’ll be on the road, guzzling coffee. That’s the weird thing that happens when you have an event the day before a blog post day. I could possibly stay up late and write the post for the morning, or I could push the post back. I could even just guess at how everything will go and write the thing as if that’s what went down, but I won’t. I’ll do this instead. I’m going to vaguely write some stuff about it and save the real post for when I can sit down and appropriately convey the essence of the event. I can tell you that I am super excited for another Toronto reading, especially with the ChiZine folks. As it stands, though, I am unsure of how the reading went.

Toronto, I Hardly Knew Ye

Blog No. 285

The list of events is dwindling rapidly, but boy, has it been worth it! I’m not going to lie. While rushing to try to get The Thinking Machine released, the long list of events was a miasma of promise and stress. Now that I’m down to three left and I’ve sold more than half of the initial run of The Thinking Machine, I’m feeling pretty good. I may even have to order more copies by the end of the month. That does mean another big dump of cash, but if I’m at that point, I should be close to getting back what I spent on the first batch. My only big concern about that is saturating the market, but Cristian and I sold a good 800 – 900 copies of No Light Tomorrow over its run, so I still have some ways to go before I max out on Thinking Machine. Just having some solid sales at the last few events has been encouraging, though. Most were sold at Shock Stock, but I did manage to get a few sold at the Biblioasis reading.

Shock Stock 2018 & Biblioasis

Blog No 284

Shock Stock is over and I’m still reeling from the experience. It was my third time there and I was still pleasantly surprised with how friendly and considerate everyone is. That’s not to say that I’m surprised horror fans are good people (I already knew that) but sometimes at conventions, people get tunnel vision and don’t think much of others. At the booth across from mine, a man was selling some really cool laser cut acrylic pieces. Every time someone wanted to take a picture (over the three whole days) they asked if it was okay. That’s awesome. That’s the type of people who go to Shock Stock. That and people who love to watch other people get eviscerated in movies.