The Year it really Lands

Blog Post No. 429

Last year was a strange one for a lot of reasons. It’s about this time each year that the event train leaves the station and starts building steam for the spring and summer rush. There may be a comicon or and book fair and (if we have our act together) a retreat. From there, the plans reach full swing and I’ll be booked at least one weekend (potentially two or more) a month for the rest of the year. Everything ground to a halt last year because of the pandemic, but after eight years of working on this writing thing, it felt like an anomaly. We did manage to get the retreat in before things were shut down, but the scheduled events after that were all cancelled.

One Down, Infinity to Go

Blog No. 325

The Guelph GenreCon is done, and I’m going to talk about it (here, in just a few sentences) but I want to start with tomorrow’s reading! It’s tomorrow! I’m really excited about this one, even though I was overwhelmed with all kind of things running up to it (some also exciting like GenreCon and some really stupid). Either way, I feel like it was partially in cruise-control and partially being steered by Christian while I was running around, waving my arms, as if I were on fire. Then, in the last moment, when the other stuff calmed down and the reality sinking in that this reading was just days away, I started to focus and get to work. By then, there wasn’t much more to do. I’ve practiced my reading, made some facebook posts, and delivered some copies of Thinking Machine to Biblioasis. Not much more to do before tomorrow, now. One last thing about tomorrow’s reading. You should go. It’s got Elly Blake, Brittni Brinn, Christian (if you like that sort of thing) and me! And it’s in a really cool place and we will have coffee and timbits.

Something, Something, Events and Guest.

Blog No. 228

Syndicon is over (for another year) and man, did I have a good time. There’s something about having that lanyard around your neck that says guest on it to make you feel warm inside. I’m convinced that being a guest made the day go by more quickly. That, or watching all the cos-players taking goofy pictures across the aisle from my table. As for sales, the rising tide of comicons in Windsor, tied to the fact that No Light Tomorrow is starting to get saturated in this market made things a little tough. It’s no fun seeing that hard work and proactive thinking of the folks running Syndicon fall to a crowd that is getting overwhelmed by options. I think they have a few tricks up their sleeve for next year though, so I’ll continue to wait with bated breath.

Be A Guest

Blog No. 226

April is almost here, and wouldn’t you know it, I’ve got a couple events lined up. My poor list of upcoming events (link at the top of the page) keeps shrinking. At the beginning of the year it was impressive, then (as it happens) I did a number of those events, and now the last date in June is around the corner (not somewhere in the vague, unreal future). The upcoming events happen to be exciting ones though (and not just because I get so sell some books and earn some much needed money). They are the first events where I am officially a guest.

Ben VS the Uncommon Cold

Blog No. 206

I work up on Sunday morning and knew something wasn’t right. My weekend had been the culmination of two solid weeks of work (no time off for good behaviour, or writing). Lots of terrible thing happened that had no choice but to be dealt with. Friday night was seven hours of crap that stuck to me through Saturday morning for my back-to-back shifts. While I managed to get a solid chunk of text written Friday morning, nothing was getting done on Saturday. As soon as I got home from my thankfully easier shift (minus having to mop the floors as the cleaners failed to do for the umpteenth time) I took a much needed nap and prepped all my stuff for Sundays RetroRama. No time for love Doctor Jones. I did my best to get to bed early Saturday night, knowing what was in store for me.

The Storm

Blog No. 169

I tend to start writing these on Tuesdays. It gives me time to explore what I want to write about, and I can scrap the whole things and start over when I’m not happy with it. This morning, I was sitting in anchor, sipping a coffee before heading to work. I was thinking about the weekend and what I’d like to post this week. Obviously I want to mention Syndicon. I could also talk about my current struggles with keeping up the daily work count. There are editing and Adventure World things I should mention, along with the next event on the docket. But really, I’m just tired and I want to go to bed. I can’t do that though, so I’ll mention little bits of a bunch of those things, or not. Let’s see.

Comicon Ho!

Blog No. 168

I have no idea what images you conjure in your head when you read the word Comicon. For some of you, I’m sure, you picture the type of John Hughes 80s geeks wearing suspenders, pocket protectors, and playing with huge, complicated computers. Others just read the suspenders comment and pictured hipsters. You may imagine thousands of people dressed in overly tight costumes hugging strangers and hocking weird crap. Having gone to a couple of them, the former is closest to my experience, but it’s hundreds of people, only some of them are dressed up (some in really impressive, though unrecognizable, costumes) and some of that weird crap are books.

Christian is Wrong, I am Right or Bla, Bla, Bla, Comics

Blog No. 79

I should start by saying that I didn’t read comic as a kid. As a teen I read some, but mostly at the suggestion of friends or when one was given to me as a gift. As an adult I have been tentatively wading into the comics water (I’m past my ankles now) learning lots and experiencing some. There is so much past and present, that it’s a difficult thing to commit to without going all in – and I just don’t have that kind of time in between my work and writing. I love the concept, I love the end result (in the comics that have blown me away) and I love the community. I know I will always be an outsider, or at best I may get the edge of my swimsuit wet, but writing a comic is among my long term goals as a writer.