FANX 2016!

I'm pumped for this one the Fan Xperience - the spring version of Salt Lake Comic Con! I'm on five panels (as of yesterday) it was still 3 on Monday.

Here is the schedule.

My first panel at 1:00 pm today is a writing track on Pantsing vs Plotting.

I've always been a pantsing guy, but recently I have worked with outlines a bit more and I would have to admit it has made me faster.


At 5:00 pm today, I'll be a part of the Choose Your Own Apocalypse, audience participation game. Supernatural edition. I may be a t a loss here since I've never watched the show, but I did school myself on it a bit last night.


Friday, I have another writers track at 10:00 am on How we (or you) get published - again it will be with writer friends of mine and I think I have some interesting bits to add to the discussion so it will
be fun.

Saturday will be my favorite panels. At Noon, I'll be on a All Things Tolkien panel and then the last panel of the night at 8:00 pm is the Lovecraft: Not Meant to Voyage Far panel.

I've also got a booth with friends (the Space Balrogs) and I think its gotta be in the most prime con real estate we've ever had. Right in the center beside a main thoroughfare = Green 16.

I'll post some pics to Twitter, Facebook and such but will do a recap blog post soon too.


Oh and I almost forgot, the latest issue #10 of Utah Geek will be release there too and I must say I think omy ongoing fantasy serial is just getting better with each issue - this time its "The Hammer of Witches"! and I love this cover! I forget who the artist is, but I was told its the Guest of Honor artist at World Horror Con that I'll be at the end of next month.

My Candidates

My First Desk

I can't be sure how old I was when I got my first desk. It was the early 80's and I was probably somewhere in the neighborhood of ten years old. I remember being with my father in a stuffy attic in some big warehouse; sunbeams became pillars of swirling dust. He picked through a large pile of metal and wood desks, choosing different models and sizes for my siblings and I.

Being the oldest I received the biggest desk. It had a tan painted steel body with a swinging hard wood top and seat. Take my word for it they don't make em' like they used to.
I used it for painting models, surgery on G.I.Joe fatalities and my first work at actual fiction written for my own satisfaction.

I generally wrote terrible fan-fiction (as all fan-fiction generally is) either G.I. Joe and or Transformers, or even my own brand of Indiana Jones rip-offs,
BUT...

I did work at things that were embers of my own original voice too. I had thoughts on my own Tolkien inspired epic fantasy that would have a nation of werewolves within it~that were the good guys! Haughty kings and naive if not noble princes, world striding conquerors who wrestled with fate and defied the gods, tragic death and glorious triumph.

These things came to me when I was a child and I wrote them at my first desk.

My eldest son (7) is now writing his own books. I went and took the desk out of storage at my parents house and brought it home. My brother used it for a time too, so it has more paint than when I left it behind. It was the last of all those desks my parents bought for us from some nameless warehouse in Billings, Montana.
I dusted it off and put it in my sons room. I told him how I used it and what it helped me start doing. I think his fan fiction is better than mine.

And I may as well share the desk where I have written all of my pro sales.

Strange Sights of the Week

Strange Sights of the Week

FEANOR'S TWO HANDED MEDIEVAL SWORD

“And Fëanor made a secret forge, of which not even Melkor was aware; and there he tempered fell swords for himself and his sons…” The Silmarillion, Chapter Seven: “Of the Silmarils and the Unrest of the Noldor,” p. 71

My brother John and his wife Erin designed this sword and won the 2010 Sword Buyer’s Guide Designer Contest at Darksword Armory. I like it even more now that I'm seeing it finished ( I did vote for it)

Now...to write more stories and be able to afford that Damascus version.