Mar 30
2009

Coast Con coolness

My poor neglected blog. (Yeah, how many times have I said that before?!)

CoastCon was more fun than I could have ever expected. The convention staff was awesome and treated me quite well. My reading was surprisingly well-attended, i.e. there were several people there who I did not already know! My panels went very well, and the audience was absolutely fantastic–asking terrific and well thought out questions that really kept the topics moving along. I met several new people: the very lovely and nice Jeannie Holmes, who also has books coming out from Bantam; Mark van Name, an incredibly interesting and fun author; as well as Raymond Boudreau and Randolph Allen who were instrumental in making my con experience a delightful one.

I also had the chance to hang out with old friends, including John Picacio and Chris Roberson. Through them I was able to meet Michael Moorcock, and when we all went out to dinner I had a bit of a “Is this really my life?” moment when I realized I was hanging out with a writer whom I’d practically idolized.

Anyway, I had a great deal of fun, and I very much hope to be invited back next year!

***

In other news, I’m now looking ahead to the Romantic Times Booklovers Convention, in Orlando, April 22-26. I’ve never been to RT before, and I’ve heard many interesting things about it.

85 days left until the release of Mark of the Demon!

The sequel, Blood of the Demon, will (hopefully) be turned in quite soon (right now I’m just waiting for my agent to approve the rewrites,) and I’m currently at work sketching out the plot for the next book, as well as the details to the series arc in general. I’m super-excited at where these books are going to go, and I think that the readers are going to really enjoy it as well. Yes, there is a definite end to the series (right now I think it will be ~6 books in all,) and it already makes me cry (in a good way!) thinking about the final outcome of it all.

But, in the meantime, be sure to check out the great group blog that I participate in: The Magic District ! Lots of really great content there, and we’ll be having some nifty giveaways fairly soon, so be sure to bookmark it!

Mar 19
2009

Coast Con schedule

I’ll be at Coast Con 32 in Biloxi, MS this weekend! If you decide to stop in, you can find me at the following times and doing the following things:

Friday

4:00 pm: Reading (Panel Room Two)

6:30 pm: Function - Meet the Guests Party (Hotel Ballroom)

8:00 pm: Panel – Crime Scene Investigations For The Writer (Panel Room One)

Saturday

11:00 am: Panel – Writing Urban Fantasy (Panel Room Two with Jeannie Holmes)

3:00 pm: Panel — Adding A Little Dixie Into Sc-Fi (Panel Room Three with Michael Moorcock and Jeannie Holmes)

I think I’m also doing a panel with Mark van Name on Sunday, but I’m unsure of details. At any rate, I hope to see some of y’all there!

Mar 18
2009

It wasn’t stolen!!!

We’re still not quite sure what adventures my beautiful banner went on during Mardi Gras, but apparently it turned up again after the festivities were over! (See earlier post for more details)

Mark of the Demon banner

::happy happy dance dance::
This banner had been made for me as a gift from one of my husband’s friends who is part owner of a print shop. He had a stage near Gallier Hall during Mardi Gras (and the week before), and he had offered to have a banner made and then hang it at his stage–where it would be seen by a few hundred thousand people. And then it disappeared, and everyone assumed it had been stolen.

Obviously it simply decided it wanted to go and party down in the French Quarter. I hope it got a lot of beads!

Mar 4
2009

Perhaps someday I will cease to feel like a babbling idiot

For all of my talk about how to network, and how to make friends, and how to work a room, I have to confess that I still tend to come away from conversations with people I admire/respect absolutely certain that I’ve said something that has convinced them that I’m a socially inept boob whose presence is something to be endured and whose departure is a reason for sighs of relief and high-fives of celebration.

Seriously, I’ve never claimed to be sane.

Anyway, Gena Showalter was signing books at the Borders in Metairie on Monday, and since I happened to be on that side of the lake for my writer’s group meeting I decided to swing by and meet her. Besides, she’s been high on my list of authors whose work I want to read (especially lately since I’ve been on a paranormal romance bender), so I figured it was fortuitous. She turned out to be a truly delightful woman with a great sense of humor and I had a marvelous time talking to her. I told her that I had a book coming out this year, and I was even able to show off my awesome cover art (since I’d brought a couple of flats to my writers group.) She oohed and aahed, we chatted briefly about writing (oh my god, the woman writes a chapter a day! I’m in total awe of that kind of production!), and then I bought one of her books and headed on home.

And, of course, the entire way home (45 minute drive) I agonized over our conversation, utterly certain that any number of my various comments had been insulting, or that I shouldn’t have mentioned my forthcoming book, or that all of things that I’d thought were witty and interesting were, in fact, boorish and dull… So, Ms. Showalter, if I did happen to say anything that was offensive or just plain uncool, I sincerely apologize!

Hello, my name is Diana, and I’m ridiculously neurotic! *g*

Mar 3
2009

Back to routine

Last week was Mardi Gras, which also meant that the Kid was off from school for the entire week.

Thankfully, her kenpo school had a day camp from 9-3, which worked beautifully to keep her un-bored and allow me to continue to get work done. I’m already looking ahead to this summer and trying to figure out what to do with her. Staying home with me is simply not an option (and I’m still somewhat gobsmacked at the number of people who blithely assume that since I work from home and have a ‘flexible’ schedule, that having a five-year-old at home all summer long would not be any trouble at all.) Not only would it be impossible for me to get any writing done with her home, but she would also be bored out of her little skull by day three. Fortunately, between the three-week day camp that her school is running this summer, two other week-long camps at her karate school, and a day camp offered by a local health club, I should be able to keep her safe, occupied, and un-bored for the summer.

Drawback: it’s gonna be ’spensive. Sigh. Plus, there’ll be a couple of weeks in there where I’m going to be out of town, so I’m probably going to have to upgrade our usual babysitter to part-time nanny status and have her pick the Kid up from day camps when I’m not around (since Jack won’t be out of work in time, most days.) It’s going to be an insane amount of finagling and scheduling. (And check-writing!)

But, other than that, at the moment life is fairly comfortably routine. :)