Vampire vs. Werewolf

You’ll recall that the other day I suggested Gabrielle Faust and I might have something on the burner. Well, duh, it wouldn’t have been mentioned if there wasn’t something cooking. If you check out my Appearances page you’ll see that it’s been updated with several things, some past and some future … but the one I want to bring to your attention is what’s going on July 18.

Eerie Books of Wylie, Texas, will be hosting a Vampire vs. Werewolf smackdown. No, Gabrielle and I will not be mud wrestling, boxing, or trying to bite one another. But we are discussing making this a competitive signing. Details on that will come later. For right now, just mark you calendar and plan to be at the best bookstore in Texas on July 18.

In completely unrelated school news …
Today was the senior assembly at school. The real countdown is on for the class of 2009. Graduation on Sunday, then they take their final high school benchmark tests the three days after the holiday. And then … they’re gone. We have had our frustrations, no doubt, but overall this class if bursting at the seams with good kids. I have had some of these kids in class since the semester I started teaching here and I have to admit I’m pretty sad to see them ready to leave. Sad but proud. Proud that I was a part of their lives for a while.

They asked me to play a part in the senior assembly. From what I can gather, it is incredibly rare for any teacher to actually be in the assembly. Typically the kids do a skit in which they mock certain teachers (in a playful way). They did that this year, then did a second skit in which “teachers” and students were about to brawl and I came out and provided fake weapons.

I had all my English IV and AP students write an essay evaluating their performance and mine during this class. It was an enlightening assignment for me. Mostly their comments were favorable, but a good majority believe I am too lenient in class, and some offered some very valuable insight on what they expect from a teacher and a few (mostly my Jr. ROTC kids) had tips on how to achieve it. I’ll be using that information.

Another thing many commented on was that they knew I cared about them as more than just kids in my room, and that is very important to me. I have cajoled, begged, threatened, cursed, and punished them in an effort to get them to work harder. In the end, though, I hope each and every one of them know that I am proud of them and wish them huge amounts of success.

Interviewed by a vampire

What have we here? Vampires and werewolves, Okies and Texans working together again! The inimitable Gabrielle Faust has just posted an interview she did with me for the Austin Literary Examiner. This is for promotion of a big group signing that will take place in Dallas this October. You will NOT want to miss that.

If you are not a fan of Gabrielle yet, you should be. I know, I know, it’s all vampire stuff, but good books are good books.

Besides that, there are rumors flying that she and I might be doing more tag-team terror.

Finally!

Ya see that? I finally, finally broke the 50,000 word barrier on The Girls Nobody Wanted to Date this morning. I’m on page 207, chapter 21, heading into the climactic battle between Ashlie and her ex-friends Jenn and Anna. The final 9,000 words can’t be that hard, right?

Little Graveyard auction, and eye issues

Shocklines has a PC (publisher’s copy) of my novelette Little Graveyard on the Prairie up for auction at eBay. Bidding is just a little over $20 at the moment. The book, you’ll recall, retails for $50.

Speaking of LGOTP, Issue #62 of Cemetery Dance magazine will have a nice review of the book in it. That’ll hit stands in June.

I. Am. Old. I have been having eye issues. The last eye doctor I went to kept insisting on giving me contact lenses and glasses that made me far-sighted. I finally got tired of dealing with that, and waited until my insurance would cover another visit. Plus, the previous contacts had begun to really irritate my right eye. So, off to a new eye doctor today. He says I need … can I even say it? He says … bifocals. Ugh. That’s for the glasses. For the contacts he gave me a lens that makes my right eye far-sighted and one that simply corrects my left eye. This is supposed to have the same effect as bifocals. Supposedly my brain will adjust to this and it’ll be okay. At the moment, though, it seems as though my right eye is simply working harder than the left. It’s quite strange.

I don’t like this getting old and breaking down thing.

Underworld DVD

Other than the fact my copy is laying right here beside me on the desk, how do I know Underworld: Rise of the Lycans was released on DVD today? Here are the 10 most recent searches that led people to my site:

1. spells on how to become a werewolf
2. i want to become a werewolf spell
3. how do i become a werewolf
4. how to become werewolf
5. how to become a wearwolf
6. monster librarian
7. steven e wedel
8. boobzilla, okc
9. fencon
10. become a werewolf

Double Con Weekend Recap

It’s been a busy weekend, starting on Friday, when I took the day off work to go to the OWFI annual conference. This is really the only strictly writers’ conference I go to, and it’s … different. The organizers have tried doing separate tracks of programming for the beginners and the intermediate/published authors, but invariably you’ll find yourself in one of the more advanced tracks and the speaker can’t finish his/her program because of the newbie questions. Well, that hadn’t really changed.

That aside, I got some good ideas from Dian Curtis Regan, who talked about “Writing for Tech-Savy Young Readers.” Lunch with Vicki (minus her Conestoga Klingon outfit) and friends was good. Finally getting to see Gayleen again was very good (she finally wrote her first bad review … though in typical Gayleen fashion it’s still pretty kind). I also got to talk to Wayne Wyrick more than usual, which was good. Wayne is one of the few speculative fiction writers to attend OWFI regularly.

Now that OWFI is over, I guess it’s safe to announce that I was the judge for this year’s Science Fiction/Fantasy/Horror Novel contest. After turning the entries back to the category chair I worried that I might have judged them too harshly. I don’t know. I tried to look at them as an editor would. My scores on several of them were pretty low. Hopefully all the writers will remember that judging is very subjective and what didn’t work for me may be considered brilliant by somebody else.

One of the best things about the OWFI conference is the Friday night buzz sessions, but I didn’t get to stay for any of those since I had to get up early Saturday morning and head to Texas.

It rained on me almost all the way to Texas Frightmare Weekend. I have to confess that this is the con I’ve been really looking forward to. I love Conestoga, SoonerCon, FenCon, etc., but those all focus more on science fiction. Texas Frightmare is all horror. Like Horrorfind Weekend, it is geared more toward movies, with a lot of actors and indie film companies, but the writer contingent is growing. Hell, the whole con was huge compared to last year, this despite the swine flu and horrible weather. The place was packed. Anyway, besides me, there was Charlee Jacob and her husband Jim, Brian Moreland, Kim Paffenroth, Gabrielle Faust, Angeline Hawkes and husband Chris Fulbright, and Joe McKinney.

It was great to finally see those people again. I hadn’t seen Dr. Paffenroth in close to two years. Gabrielle was very open to having her brain picked about promotion stuff. I realize now I did not get to finish my conversation with Angie about her barbarian stories (expect an e-mail on that). Chris will have a new book out soon, so ya’ll want to look for that. It was my first time to meet Brian, but he seems like a very cool guy and the cover of his book was very enticing. Charlee and Jim are two of the nicest people you could ever hope to meet. Jim and I had a nice talk about how women age. Charlee … to read her fiction, you’d expect her to be incredibly demented, but that isn’t the case.

Lots of books were sold. Many more than last year. Zombies seemed to outsell both werewolves and vampires, but maybe that’s because there were three zombie authors. There were lots and lots of things to spend money on, but I mostly resisted.

Because of the whole thing with God giving a warning to the Dallas Cowboy rookies … er … I mean, the weather destroying their practice “bubble” (who the hell calls it a freakin’ bubble?), I decided I should cut out early and missed going to dinner with everyone in an effort to get close to home before it got too dark. It rained on me most of the way out of Texas, somtimes so hard I could barely see the road, but I didn’t have any trouble getting back.

So, yeah, busy, busy, fun weekend. Here’s one photo, just to prove that vampires and werewolves can get along.
This is me and Gabrielle Faust. I interviewed her for Horror World a while back. She interviewed me for Fear Zone last year (can’t find the direct link to that one anymore). Despite being about vampires, you should pick up her Eternal Vigilance series.