Comic Con 2011

How do I describe it…

Overwhelming?  Huge?  Fun!

My friend Ginny and I drove out to San Diego and got a hotel in Chula Vista that looked over the San Diego Bay.  I had a great view of the Coronado Bridge.  That bridge…it’s HUGE!!!  We pretty much just passed out the first night we got there.  The next day, Thursday, we got up at about 6am and got ready in our Garfield and Odie costumes and took the trolley out to the San Diego Convention center (it’s enormous!). 

Surprisingly, even though there were literally thousands of people there, we got through the registration line to get our badges fairly quickly.  In fact, it was impressive how organized this entire event was.  I’ve never in my life seen anything with so many people run so smoothly.

First thing’s first.  Jim Butcher!!!  He was signing a limited amount of autographs that day and I lugged one of my first edition hardback copy of Changes all the way there and got lucky in that he was selling copies of his new book, Ghost Story right at the table.  So even though I already ordered an autographed copy from Dog Eared Books, I just HAD to get one from Jim. 

 

So there I was, meeting one of my greatest literary inspirations…dressed like a dog.  I was so excited I had the butterflies.  I spent the rest of the day periodically leaning over to Ginny and saying, “I got to meet Jim Butcher!”  To which she would patiently say, “Yes you did.”

Then we went to the Exhibit Hall.  HOLY CRAP!  Stuff, stuff, stuff, stuff and STUFF!  Everywhere I looked there were statues of the iconic figures that I grew up with and loved.  Lego had a life size Batman made completely out of Lego’s and a 20 foot tall Bumblebee (the transformer) made out of giant Lego’s.  My favorite thing was an enormous poster of John Constantine from Hellblazer.  Though I did fancy the life size statue of Drizzt Do’Urden and Guenhwyvar, two of my all time favorite fantasy characters.  My favorite part of the Exhibit Hall was all the art.  There were tables and tables and tables of comic book and concept artists from all over.  I spent hours wandering around those tables and just looking over all the amazing things they’ve painted, drawn and sculpted.  That’s also where I spent the most money.

Costumes, costumes, costumes.  That part was the most fun.  I LOVE costumes and playing dress-up (never quite grew out of that).  I met a Spartan from Halo Reach, Predator, Al from Full Metal Alchemist (though that wasn’t a costume, just a statue), and one of the robots from Real Steel (also a statue).  I loved watching people standing in lines.  Be it for a panel or for the bus or shuttle, you’d see a few normally dressed people, then a storm trooper.  Then a few more normally dressed people, and Batman and Wonder Woman.  Ginny would stare at the lines and just laugh.

Panels.  We only dressed up the first day because we had to get in line so early to get to the panels that we didn’t have the time.  Next year, easier costumes.  Or at least ears that aren’t so difficult to hold in place.  We still were able to get to all the panels we wanted to, and even a few that we didn’t want but ended up enjoying anyways.  We made it to the Green Lantern panel that Conan O’Bryan hijacked.  Then to Falling Skies, Attack of the Show, Community, Being Human, Frank Miller, Joss Whedon (so awesome!), and The Guild.  Sunday, we got in line for Hall H at 6am to make sure we were able to get into the Supernatural Panel.  Which was awesome because so many of the cast was there (name the cast that showed).

I also got to meet my favorite illustrator, Todd Lockwood.  And the artist that illustrates the Umbrella Academy, Gabriel Ba (he drew me a picture!).  I also met an artist named Ron Brown (who I spent the most money on because his charcoal drawings were AMAZING!!),and John Stanko who also does D&D and  Magic art.  I looked all over for Jhonen Vasquez, Warren Ellis and Jon Cassidy (as Planetary is an all time favorite) and did not find them L.  I don’t know if they were even there.  Oh well, maybe next year.  We almost got to meet Stan Lee…STAN LEE!!!!!!!  But with about 10 people in front of us in line, they cut the line off.  How depressing.  Supposedly that was the last time he’d be attending Comic Con.  At least we got a good picture of him.  Notice the girl flipping the bird in the background...

 

It was a fantastic experience that I have every intention of repeating again next year.  It was worth every penny.

I got to meet JIM BUTCHER!!!!!!!!!

Then I double fisted hamburgers.

Tractors and Angels Don't Mix

I finally decided to share a bit of my work with the world.  This is a short story I wrote about two years ago as an assignment for a course I took through the Long Ridge Writers Group.  I enjoyed writing this piece, though it was challenging.  I don’t usually write short stories and find it difficult to keep it simple and small.  I always like to add so much detail and I like to build and build.  I had to think of it as a scene in a movie.  One that doesn’t give away much but can work as a synopsis in and of itself of the movie so it can be used in the trailer.  Not that I plan for this to be a movie, but I do plan on expanding on the concept of it later and maybe making it into a trilogy or something. 

Anyhow, please read it.  Feedback is very, very welcome so long as it is constructive and helpful.

Enjoy

Tractors and Angels Don’t Mix

            Myra crouched in the dark beside large piece of machinery.  She didn’t know where, exactly, she was and she didn’t care.  Her gray eyes tracked a shadow through the warehouse in which she hid.  Her breath frosted up in white plumes that framed her pail, slender face and her heart pounded against her ribs.

She only hoped he couldn’t hear it.

For a moment, he was visible in the illumination cast from an orange street lamp outside.  His short, dark hair stood in fashionable disarray.  His strong, square jaw looked gaunt in the shadows, and his eyes, the color of sapphires, were soulless.

Myra had to fight an urge to bolt.  Running away had never done her any good.  If she was going to survive, she needed to keep still, and be patient.

            Her hands worked with a surety and confidence that comes with practice as she slid the spent clip from her Hi-Power Browning 9mm.  The new clip slid into place with a little click that she hoped wasn’t as loud as it had sounded.

            He didn’t see me.  She told herself as she brushed a strand of blond hair from her eyes.  She squinted at him and nervously wet her full lips with the tip of her tongue.  He was good, a real fighter.  Better than the others she had encountered.  And worse of all, he was intelligent. 

            I underestimated you, Michael.  She thought.  I didn’t expect much after the other dimwits I’ve met.

            The black cloak over his shoulders swayed as he stalked silently into another patch of light that refracted off the great sword in his hands as though it were a prism.  As she watched, he swiveled it as though it weighed no more than a dagger.

“Show off.”  She whispered, as he moved behind another stack of crates.

            A nervous tickle ran up her spine when he didn’t reappear. It was the only warning she had.

            She shoved herself into a roll, scrapping her knees though her muddy Levis, only seconds before the sword came down, tearing through the back of her leather jacket and nicking her shoulder.  It bit into the floor, slicing through concrete like butter. 

The sword swept at her again and as she dodged back, time seemed to slow.  She watched the gleaming tip whistle through the air and she barely turned her head in time to keep from loosing an eye.  But that tip still brushed her eyelashes and nicked the bridge of her nose as she rolled over a stack of crates, squeezing off a couple shots that went wide.

            Her feet hit the pavement on the far side of the crate and time sped up just before the crate was cleaved in half. 

She aimed and fired, but his cloak suddenly unfolded into a huge pair of black wings that gracefully maneuvered him out of the path of the bullet in half a second. 

“Can we talk about this?”  Myra called out to him.

“I have nothing to talk about to a Gray!”  He snarled

“I have a name.”  She said.  “It’s Myra.”

“The body you took had a name.”  He circled around a piece of machinery, moving closer, swiveling his sword again.  She stared in awe at the brilliant, blue of his eyes and the fantastic spread of his black wings.  She wished things didn’t have to be this way.

            “You’re wrong.”  She said sadly, watching him down the barrel of the Browning.

“You have no idea how it works.  This body was dying.  The original…owner, couldn’t fix it.  But I could, so she gave it to me.  This one is rightfully mine.  And my name is Myra.”  She said, circling toward a tangle of pulleys.

“I don’t care what your name is.  Your kind never chose a side.  You ruin everything.  Just when we are about to prevail, you cause destruction and pain…”

“And when evil starts to prevail, I give hope.  Don’t you get it?  We were never supposed to choose a side.  Michael, the Grays were meant to keep balance!”  Myra protested, knowing he wouldn’t listen.  Angels are so stubborn, just like their dark cousins. 

            She was afraid that she might not be able to take Michael down.  He was, after all, an archangel.  One can’t simply drop a piano on his head. 

But a tractor might do.

Myra suddenly spun her gun away from him and fired on the tangle of pulleys.

            A tractor that had been suspended right above his head plummeted toward him.  His wings heaved as he tried to dodge aside but the metal beast still took him down in a scream of crushing metal. 

            Myra stood, breathing in the cold air as feathers and dust filtered down around the broken tractor.  Why someone had decided to suspend a tracker, of all things, was beyond her.  But she silently thanked whatever loon had done it.

            She found Michael pinned.  The sword lay out of reach on the concrete floor, inches from his outstretched fingers.  Silver blood stained his perfect lips and the sapphire radiance of his eyes was beginning to fade.

            She knelt beside his head and his eyes focused on her.  He smiled.

“This isn’t it, you know.”  He said softly, pain straining his silken voice. 

“I know.”  Myra whispered.

            He closed his eyes and winced.  “So clever.”  He breathed, glancing at the tractor.

“You keep killing Grays, but you don’t understand.  We are the keepers of balance.  And when you kill us, it’s for good.  We aren’t just banished like you are.”  She explained.

            Michael’s expression suddenly seemed so gentle.  “I know,” He whispered.  “But it is necessary.” 

            Her jaw clenched and her eyes narrowed.  Leaning in close to his angelic face, she looked into his eyes and said, “I’ll be waiting for you when you come for me again, Michael.”

            She stood and picked up the sword, hefting it with both hands – and trying not to tip over from its weight.  Michael’s eyes hardened as she did; an angels sword is a part of him.  Or her. 

She gave him one last look as she limped toward the exit. 

“See you ‘round…Myra.”  Michael’s silken voice whispered behind her, just before a brilliant, white light filled the warehouse.  Myra knew that if she turned around, Michael would no longer be there. 

            She stepped out of the warehouse and stood in the large snowflakes that drifted lazily from the night sky.

“…Beautiful…”  She breathed, as she adjusted the heavy great sword on her slender shoulder, and limped into the night.

-LRB-

This Place…What’s up with the Food???

I’m in Missoula Montana at the moment.  Why, you may ask, would I be in Missoula Montana?  Work, of course.  I’ve been temporarily exiled so that I might learn some new material and bring it home to my own people where I might spread it like a disease.  Luckily, it’s a disease worth catching. 

I’m staying in the Hilton Garden Inn.  The Hotel is pretty, but I think there’s a monster up to shenanigans in the elevator shafts and the walls are so thin I had the pleasure of listening to the couple in the room beside mine fight with a screaming passion that I’ve never myself known.  Seriously, that was the kind of fight that, were I back home, would probably end in a few gun shots or multiple stabbings. 

I’ve only had about 4 hours of sleep since I awoke on Saturday and I’m past the stupid, giddy form of sleep deprivation.  I’ve moved on to half catatonic, half pumpkin (a catatonic pumpkin who still has writing skills).  So yeah, I’m horribly tired, which puts me in a mood that’s teeter totting on a fence of apathy with despair on one side and rage on the other.  It’s a bad place to be, especially for a Taurus who cannot find any descent food. 

Oh god the food!  It’s not even food!  It’s a blasphemous bastardization of gruel at best.  I thought McDonalds would be safe, but noooooo.  Chock full of yuck.  The kind of putrid vomit that only humans whose taste buds have been mutated after a lifetime of eating things that starving boars wouldn’t even eat.  So today I decided to try the Ihop (not one of my favorite places in SLC but I was starving).  IT WAS WORSE!!  I shudder and my skin crawls just thinking of it. 

I actually lost my appetite.  “I” actually lost my appetite!  That just doesn’t’ happen.  I LOVE food.  I like the way it smells and the way it tastes and the way it feels between my teeth and on my tongue (most food anyway).  But I’m suddenly in a place where I don’t think I dare eat anything that doesn’t come out of a can that was manufactured in China. 

So I decided to see if I can find a grocery store.  Which is quiet a trek, you see.  As my company didn’t see fit to give me a rental car, even though I’m stuck out in BFE Montana.  So what do I do?  I put on my walking shoes and start hoofing.  I walk and I walk.  And I walk and I walk.  I pass a train yard and a bunch of warehouses.  It’s warm and the air smells like dirt (not as in yuck dirt, I mean the amazing smell of fresh soil and spring flowers).  The sky is a lighter shade of blue here and the big hills that surround Missoula (they call them mountains) are bright green and covered with these patches of little, yellow flowers and are sparsely speckled with evergreens.  Looks like a scene out of a 1920’s painting…I can’t remember what the style is called.  I’ll add it in later if I can find it.  It’s pretty…

The closest store that I could find that sold anything even remotely resembling groceries was Target.  How sad. 

Something else I noticed too, this is a place of many empty sidewalks.  No one walks anywhere.  As I strode proudly along, I noticed that everyone who passed me in their cars stared as though I were some kind of freak doing a jig.  Well, I’ve always been stared at like that.  I guess I kind of stand out.   But it’s different here.  Then I realized that no one was walking.  I’ll bet that if those sidewalks were removed, no one would notice. 

Well, I’m just rambling now.  I need to put this hungry pumpkin to bed.

Germs can be our friends too…right?

I’m sick.

And I don’t mean got a little cold kind of sick.  I mean gross kind of sick.  Fever, sore throat, headache, chills and all kinds of yuck.

So I’m sitting here, working through the painful and exhausting process of building up antibodies to some random strain of sick that I somehow didn’t get as a child, eating dirt in the back yard where the cats poo or drinking out of the hose.  And I’m watching reruns of Six Feet Under on HBO GO…and knitting (yeah I knit, and I’m good at it.  I also make jewelry, book marks, crochet, sew and cook.  And I’m good at all of it.  So don’t look at me like that).

I haven’t been sick in over two years.  I’ve even been exposed to swine flu twice now and never got it and have been coughed on, sneezed on…never got anything.  Then here I am, just turned thirty last Saturday.  I’ve been taking care of myself, eating right, working out.  And SICK happens!

Well I guess this is the best time for Sick to happen.  I strongly believe that people define their lives by comparisons.  You know, we know what light is because we’ve experienced the dark.  We know what happy is because we’ve cried through sadness.  Blah, blah, blah.  So I haven’t been appreciating life very much lately.  Not because of the big 30 though.  That was actually kind of exciting.  Getting older doesn’t bother me.  I guess I’ve been getting board and lonely a lot and I’ve started going through long periods of apathy.  I haven’t been appreciating the feeling of being well like I usually do.  So I guess it’s good for me to come down with the plague for a little bit.  Get it out of the way before it really warms up.  Because as soon as I’m better, I’m going to go frolicking or something.  Outside, in the sun.  I spend too much time home alone and it’s getting depressing.  It’s just been so cold and my car is still broken down and I only get two days off a week and my schedule sucks (seriously, I’m never going to meet someone with this schedule.  But what does is matter?  Everyone I know who has someone would rather not.  And everyone who had someone lost them.  We all die alone anyways so who gives a crap)…whoa.  Sorry about that.  My inner Emo just flopped out.  Oops.

See what I mean?  I need to be sick so I can better appreciate life when I’m better and, hopefully, get out of this doom slump I’ve been in.  Cause I can’t get any writing done when I’m like this.  Not anything good anyways.

Stupid doom slump.

Mrs. Dirty-Coat

194 single spaced, typed pages, countless had written pages more drawings and doodles than I can count.  I’ve been through about six packs of post-its and the timeline alone takes up an entire wall in my bedroom.  I know that smacking my head against bricks is something that all writers come up against but for crying out loud, I spent at least about 6 hours pacing in front of my Time-Line-Wall yesterday and all I came up with is question after bloody question.

Why is this guy so mad all the time?  What is it that he’s looking for that he can’t find?  Why does this dude hate that dude so much?  Why is that girl so scared all the time.  Why is this woman so sad?  How do you get through catacombs full of illusion spells, strange creatures and still make it to dinner on time? 

I know these questions are important.  If I’m asking them, the reader will defiantly ask them.  There cannot be holes in the story and if there’s one major importing thing that acting has taught me, it’s that the greatest way to make a character believable, is to give them history.  Give them a life.

If I’d known this little tid-bit a just a bit earlier in my life, I probably wouldn’t feel that my progress was so slow.  I’ve had to break down the story by the people.  By the protagonists and antagonists.  The heroes and villains.  No one’s a bad guy just because they choose to be and the same goes for the hero.  There is always a catalyst.  Most people are pretty content to live out a mediocre life.  But those who’ve experienced something profound are the ones who end up with greatness in one form or another.  Weather one becomes a great hero or a great villain, depends on the mind set, string of events and company that surrounds the individual after said profound event. 

Now, this isn’t just something you have to consider for the main character and villain.  You have to take care to create lives for the supporting characters as well.  Or else you have the problem I’ve run into.  They seem hollow.  Empty.  Boring.  They’re no fun to write about and if you’re getting board writing about someone, I promise the reader is going to get board reading about them. 

For instance, if you have a supporting character who vehemently hates the main character, just saying they’re a bully and describing their actions against person A isn’t enough.  WHY is person B a bully?  What made him/her that way?  Was it mom?  Dad?  Both?  Maybe it’s a lack thereof altogether.  Maybe mom and dad are wonderful people and the anger issues are due to mistreatment from another source.

Here’s the thing, even if you will never actually share these juicy little details with other readers, it makes person B far more interesting to write about and therefore, more interesting to read about.  That way you won’t have random “Crewman #6” who gets killed and no one cares.  You have someone with a name who lost their ‘life’.  This person, no matter how annoying, stupid, rude, infuriating etc, played a part in shaping person A into the hero/villain that he/she is today.  Therefore, no matter how small the part, the character is important enough to be given a LIFE.  Because their life is a part of the lives of the main characters. 

I realized much of this today while I was sitting at the bus stop (the bus was almost 30 minutes late), watching the snow begin to drift down from a gray sky.  A young woman came walking up with a huge, heavy looking backpack and an old, blue coat that was badly stained on the front with some kind of blackish smear.  She had bright eyes and a ready smile and she was more than happy to tell me all about the classes she’s taking at the community collage, about her husband who took the car to work today, all about how teaching 3^rd graders is more difficult than 2^nd graders (guess what she’s going to school for…). 

I’m not the most social person.  In fact, outside of work I usually avoid human contact as much as possible simply for the reason that I find most humans to be irritating, annoying, stupid, rude, irrational and completely without common sense…see where I’m going with this? 

While I was sitting there wishing Mrs. Dirty-Coat would go away or at least decide to stop speaking to me, I suddenly realized that she might be shaping some part of my life.  And sure enough, even though her part in ‘Leah’s Daily Story’ was small and seemingly meaningless, she’s the part that stuck with me through the day.  She’s who I remember.  She reminded me that I needed to give LIFE to my minor characters. 

So, whoever you were, Mrs. Dirty-Coat-At-The-Bus-Stop, thank you for talking to, and therefore, annoying the crap out of me.  You made my day, darling. J

Knock, Knock, Whine-Wheeze…Crunch!

My car finally broke down.  I was on my way home the other day and I barely made it into my parking spot at home when it gave a whine and wheeze.  The  CV axel on the right side has been knocking for a while and I just didn’t have the money to fix it.  So when it gave a final crunch I wasn’t surprised.  Oddly, I was relieved.  I’ve been waiting for it to do this for so long.  The last couple of days have been light and happy.  Like there’s this huge weight off my shoulders that I didn’t even know was there.

It was funny, really.  In retrospect I see myself pulling into my parking spot and hearing the car give a whine and an awkward crunch just as I put it into park.  I threw up my hands up and hollered “SAFE!”  with a huge grin on my face (even though the act of throwing up my hands resulted in some bruised fingers since the roof of my car is not that far from my head…)  I found amusement and relief in a situation that would usually cause alarm or stress (no, I’m not always the “glass is half full” type.  In some matters, the glass is rather empty and maybe cracked so any liquid leaks out the bottom when you least expect it, leaving you looking like you’ve wet your pants…or since it’s my glass, maybe it leaves me looking like I’ve wet my pants.  That would be embarrassing.  For someone else.  That’s actually happened to me before and I couldn’t stop laughing).     

Anyways, luckily, I live close to work and within walking distance of everything I need.  I’m really in no hurry to fix the car.  That doesn’t mean I won’t fix it.  This actually gives me the time I need to really fix it.  I’ll get to spend some quality time under the hood this summer (though someone else will have to replace those CV axels cause though I’m pretty awesome, I’m not awesome enough to lift my own engine block…I know, sad is the world). 

Lets see…so how’s the writing going?  Well, slow.  I’ve been feeling particularly uncreative lately, which is actually kind of depressing.  I think I need some sunshine.  A good friend at work has this sunshine lamp and I always feel so good around it.  I want one.  I’m not saying that I think it will improve my writing or anything, but I did write more than 15 pages while sitting at a desk near my friends sunshine lamp, all the while keeping up on all of my work related duties.  Then again, I always come up with loads of good material while I’m at work. 

Well, I’m watching V on ABC now.  I loved the old one when I was a kid and I love the new one now (Go reptiles!!) J

Another year...goodie!

This year, I will publish my book.  I'm not going to bother with any other resolutions.  I already quite smoking and stopped drinking coffee every day, stopped drinking more than once a month and started eating better and working out. 

Okay, now that the resolution part is over I'll tell you what I've been up to this year (I know, it's been so long).  I no longer have a roommate (YAYAYAYAYAY!!!!!!!!!!).  I love living alone.  I love solitude.  I get my place all to myself now and I've been writing every day without interruptions.  I think I've pulled off at least twenty pages since the first.  I doodled around a little with watercolor paints (I'm not very good at it but it is fun).  I pulled muscles working out on Sunday while watching Starship Troopers, now my ribs hurt something fierce.

Now I’m sitting here watching Lie to Me and feeling my blood sugar drop.  It’s an interesting sensation.  First your ability to comprehend simple things starts to go (Like that sentence, it seriously took me about 10 minutes to write!!).  Then your muscles start to feel kinda fuzzy and your hands shake and your teeth start chattering….I must eat immediately.  Be right back. 

Alright, I’m back and I’m fed.  I had a big bowl of cream of rice cereal covered in butter and smothered in strawberry syrup (rice wouldn’t have helped by itself).  Now I’m sipping a huge cup of Vanilla Rooibos tea (yum!) and feeling somewhat sluggish (typical reaction).  Hypoglycemia…the result of a high metabolism.  Some people hate me for it…

Anyways, so I really don’t have much to write about.  There will be more later on.  Right now I’m just looking forward to completing 50 more pages of my book and having my sister down for the weekend coming up (two days of good food, shopping, gossip, good wine and good company), and now I even have a guest bedroom to put her in J. 

Till next time!