So, September was a downright bad month for just about everyone I know. Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong: hurricanes, power outages, deaths, sickness, Wall Street crashed, etc., etc. Now, I was really hoping that October would start off a little better. And, in many ways, it has, but since Mercury is still in retrograde for the next two weeks, things are not going to be smooth and crisis free (if you’re not an astrology geek this means that the universe is still going to be bucking like a bronco on crack for the next two weeks so don’t sign any contracts, make any large purchases or do anything at all in general that you’ve really got your hopes up for…because more than likely it’s going to blow up in your face…YEAY!!). I haven’t read my October horoscope over on Astrologyzone.com yet (mostly because if there’s bad news then I really don’t want to hear it right now), but October has not exactly started off in a groovy mood…

This past weekend I traveled up to Dallas for FenCon 2008. While I had an absolute blast hanging out with fellow horror authors Kim Paffenroth, Lee Thomas, Christopher Fulbright and Angeline Hawkes, the conference itself was just downright frustrating for me. This was the first time I had ever attended FenCon so I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I was assured by several people at ApolloCon this year that FenCon was going to “rock”. It was far from a “rocking” conference. The organization of the conference itself was rather clumsy. I showed up on Friday to find out that they had printed the wrong name on my badge. Minor detail so I shrugged it off…at first. It took them till Saturday afternoon to print another badge for me even though I was seeing them print badges for people while they waited in line outside. Then, previously, I had been told that I would be on at least one panel, but no one seemed to have recollection of ever telling me this. Very irritating. And then when I requested a simple schedule of existing panels they acted as if it were this huge favor I was requesting of them that I didn’t deserve. What the hell?? On top of all of that, the attendance was extremely low for this year’s conference and not exactly overly receptive to horror people being there hocking their wares. Kim and I sold a few books to some very nice people (of which we are VERY THANKFUL), but on at least two occasions we had rather large, angry-looking people approach our table seemingly with the express intent of informing us that they “did NOT read horror” and then stand there glaring at us for a few moments before moving on. This really took Kim and I aback, but also made us laugh nervously a bit. Very strange aura to the con, indeed. It probably didn’t help my mood that we were sitting next to a overtly “friendly” erotic comic book dealer that insisted on coming over to make comments on my boobs and then tell me tales of how the only thing that saved him from living in his mother’s basement was strip clubs (both attending and then later managing)…and, no, I am NOT making this up. I couldn’t make that up if I wanted to. LOL! Overall, I’m not planning on attending next year’s con. Perhaps this was just an “off” year, but if this was a preview I think I’ll save my pennies for other cons…


So, needless to say, by Saturday evening I was just about out of pleasantries and smiles and desired nothing but to go to have a whiskey, a nice dinner with the Dallas HWA chapter and then retire to my room for a good long sleep. Before dinner I went down to the bar to grab a drink and chill for a moment when my cell rings. It’s my dad. Dad never calls unless it’s an emergency these days so my heart fell through my stomach. It was about my aunt Neith. She apparently passed away on Saturday morning after a long battle with lymphoma and then two rounds of intense chemo and peunmonia. I have to admit that I was not all that close with Neith and had actually been wondering how she was doing since I hadn’t heard from her in at least a couple of years. However, hearing the heartbreak in my father’s voice, coupled with the still raw loss of my friend Hunter from last week, it just crushed me. I did my best to pull myself together for the dinner, but after that I was just ready to crawl into bed. However, some of the con attendees a few doors down from my room decided to throw a massive room party and spent until 3am getting trashed and standing out in the hall screaming and laughing. Now, I know that parties go on during cons, but damn it why stand out in the hall and party? It’s called a “room party” for a reason!! The hotel would do nothing to quiet them and so I got about 4 hours of sleep before giving up and just packing up to head home to Austin…


So, here we are, Monday midday and back to the grindstone. I’m doing my best to make it a better week. I went and picked up my gown for the vampire ball from the tailors and it fits perfect so that’s one good thing that’s happened so far this week. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for a few more good things to happen…although my coworker just told me that they just shut down all the banks in Costa Rica and they may be shutting down banks here in the USA pretty soon so he’s running to bank to take everything out while he can… Hmmmm…isn’t that one of the things that caused the Great Depression in the first place? The fact that everyone tried to withdraw their money all at once? Ah well. That’s one good thing about being on the poverty line as an artist…you never have great amounts of cash you have to worry about disappearing.

Tags: convention, fantasy, FenCon, Science Fiction

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