Another week has come and gone and I’m at the halfway mark between two expos. You already know of my experience at the expo two weeks previous, as I spent a lot of each week’s blog going over the event.

This time around the expo I will be going to is Comicpalooza in Houston, Texas. This particular event is not as large as Calgary’s (which if I haven’t mentioned it already, is now the third largest in North America).

The fact that it is significantly smaller is going to be a relief. Dealing with the crowds and not having much time to speak to any of the celebrities is a drawback, of that it is certain. So a smaller venue will have its advantages to be sure.

Oh and before I forget – which I am apt to do, Happy Mother’s Day to any of my readers who happen to be moms! I hope your children and significant other treated you great today!

Another week has come and gone and I’m at the halfway mark between two expos. You already know of my experience at the expo two weeks previous, as I spent a lot of each week’s blog going over the event.

This time around the expo I will be going to is Comicpalooza in Houston, Texas. This particular event is not as large as Calgary’s (which if I haven’t mentioned it already, is now the third largest in North America).

The fact that it is significantly smaller is going to be a relief. Dealing with the crowds and not having much time to speak to any of the celebrities is a drawback, of that it is certain. So a smaller venue will have its advantages to be sure.

Oh and before I forget – which I am apt to do, Happy Mother’s Day to any of my readers who happen to be moms! I hope your children and significant other treated you great today!

So back to the usual news. Work was hectic! That’s a good thing, although it was a bit of a pain in the ass on Friday due to a fatal accident that really messed up one of the roads myself and the other driver had to take. Of course I feel horrible about the fatality, that is never something I want to hear, but it does unfortunately happen far too often.

So I was able to finish that short story ‘100’ at long last but I was not able to get around to editing it. I had hoped to edit it and cut it into two pieces to post this week and next, but due to being so busy yesterday and today I was incapable of getting to work on it. I’ll try to do that next weekend, as I want to start my 4^th short story entitled ‘Hunt’ tomorrow.

My fellow authors and the various staff members from Skirmisher are preparing for Comicpalooza. I, on the other hand, need to read over one rules set and make sure that I understand what’s going on so that I can help with the game. The rest of the time I will be manning the booth, or either wandering the venue or checking out the city itself with my wife.

But for those of you who will be there and any that wish to meet me, I will be spending four hours a day at the booth, when I’m not helping with the one Little Orc Wars game demo.  I just hope that they will have Wi-Fi in the convention hall or in the hotel so that it’s easy for Michael Varhola to get hold of me when I’m finished my four hours and I’m enjoying the convention.

As my regular readers already know, since the beginning of November (or was it the end?) I have been posting conversions on a daily basis. I’m getting close to being finished this particular project. I did a quick count and I have just thirty conversions left to post. This does not include the conversions that I will continue to write, so essentially I have just over a month, maybe two to go and then I’m done.

This does not mean that I will finish writing the conversions however – it just means that I will be posting far less often, maybe only a few times a week at the most. I need a break from this! Also that means that when I take this break I will be able to concentrate on the numerous incomplete projects and my short stories.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing? I can’t answer that; each of my readers will have a different take on it.

Last week I finished off two post-apocalyptic novels. The first is called ‘Countdown City’ – it is the second in a trilogy called ‘The Last Policeman’ by Ben H. Winters, which deals with the end times. An asteroid is only months away from impacting Earth and wiping out all life and it deals with how civilization is handling this and how it is slowly but inevitably collapsing as the result. A very excellent read! I can hardly wait to get the last book in this trilogy.

The other novel is called ‘Wool’ by Hugh Howey and is about a massive silo that is home to over a thousand souls, who have lived their entire lives in the confines of this underground facility. The outside is still incredibly toxic and deadly to anyone who is sent out to clean the lenses of the sensors.

It provides a very neat premise for an undiscovered group of survivors who are sheltered in a high-tech underground environment that is totally self-sufficient. Worth a read!

Typically I post this at the end of my blog, but this time around I will refrain from doing so. I would like to invite my many readers to ‘like’ my personal author page on Facebook. I’m still sitting at a meager 88 and would like to see that number grow.

Now the reason that I am doing this is because I would like to share my thoughts on a trend that I have seen when it comes to many of the ‘groups’ that are available for joining on Facebook. These are groups to help promote an up and coming author as well as his or her works.

See, here is the problem that I have seen with many of these groups. They appear to be run by petty little dictators. Why am I being harsh like this? Simple… the rules!

Oh I totally understand that some rules are needed, however some of the rules that I have seen posted are absolutely ridiculous! Such as ‘you can only post about your personal page on day so and so and between the hours of so and so.’ That is the worst!

I’ve seen admins get angry and remove people for not following these draconic rules. Ok I get it, you don’t want people spamming your page day after day with their book or their personal pages. I try to only post about my work once every few weeks as to avoid any issues.

Still, lighten up, ya Napoleon wannabes! Yes ban the spammers and those who post photos that have nothing to do with your page, but when it comes to authors who just want to post every few days or even weeks, leave them be.

But then again the world is filled with control freaks.

Another thing that I was thinking about earlier this week. Fan fiction and artists who like to draw, paint, etc. characters from existing books and other forms of media.

No, this is not going to be me bashing these people – much. =)

Heh, in fact I am one of those people. After all I did write and post a short story based on Aliens, and I have the Aliens novella that I mentioned several times.

Let’s face it there are going to be excellent fan fiction out there, excellent artwork, you name it. I hope that someday I will have someone write fan fiction about my characters and will be happy to draw them.

But with the good there is always the bad. Fan Fiction is notorious for this. So much so that – correct me if I’m wrong here, authors like ‘Anne Rice’ have waged open campaigns to have them removed from various sites. The reasons are too numerous but I know it has happened and I can sort of understand the reasoning behind this action.

A lot of the fan fiction is just plain terrible!

Now for the reason I’m bringing this up. I recall seeing – and this has happened numerous times – where someone has fallen in love with characters in novels. I’ll use R.A. Salvatore’s Drizzt books as an example. Yes, the characters are enduring and there have been sub-plots such as the possible relationship between everyone’s favorite Dark Elf and the Dwarven-raised human woman Catti Brie.

Some of the pictures that I’ve seen are worth more than a thousand words. Particularly the possible ‘offspring’ of these two.

Hey I know, it’s only fiction and pure speculation, but come on people! The one image that I still remember to this day that really irked me (god only knows why) was a grown woman that was supposed to be their ‘love child’. This character had one eye like the fathers, one like the mothers. *Rolls eyes*.

Stuff like that just bugs me. And that’s my opinion and mine alone, if you agree with me, fine, if not, so be it.

And don’t get me started on the various ‘part elf, part dryad, part demon, part whatever-was-in-the-woodpile.

Good grief!

Anyhow, that’s it for this week, I have one more regular blog next week and then I’m off to the great state of Texas and Comicaplooza the following week!

And yes I’m on Twitter now. Feel free to follow me. The more followers I get, the more I will eventually post on that particular form of social media.

Until next time, peace!