Sked, Stuff, And Other Updatery-Doo

*unhinges jaw*

*disgorges information into your eyes, blinding you*

OKAY SO HEY.

I’m putting terribleminds on a two-week hiatus because, well, I’m gone for two weeks.

That may change if I have a steady, consistent ability to log on at a distance and make updates, but that is rarely a guarantee whilst on the road due to the way I lockdown access to the site, so it’s more likely we’ll just let the blog be quiet for a couple of weeks. It will sleep. It will wait.

It will grow hungry.

In the meantime, I’ll be at:

Los Angeles Times Festival of Books (LATFOB)!

My sked there is for Sunday, April 23rd only, and includes:

12:00 (noon): Panel & Signing, SLIGHTLY SURREAL FICTION, moderated by Kate Maruyama, with panelists moi, Paul Tremblay, Matt Wallace, and Brian Evenson. It’ll be a panel, audience Q&A, and a signing after.

2:00PM: Signing #2! This one is at the Mysterious Galaxy booth, #368, and goes to 2:45.

Then I shall kick around LA for a couple days, until it’s time for…

Stokercon!

I’ll be at Stokercon, guest-of-honoring in the shadow of mega-ultra-guest-of-honor, George R.R. Martin, who I’m excited to meet not so much for that whole ASOIAF thing, but for Wild Cards! And Fevre Dream! The Armageddon Rag!

My schedule there is:

Friday, the 28th

10-11AM, mass signing in the dealers’ room

1-4PM, sitting down to play Werewolves of Los Angeles in a Werewolf: the Apocalypse session storytold by WTA ringleader and buddy, Bill Bridges, and featuring fellow players, GRRM, Nancy Holder, Maria Alexander, Stephen Graham Jones (!).

6-8PM, Shades & Shadows open reading

Saturday, the 29th

10-11AM, Panel: Writing Fiction vs Writing Games

1-2PM, Panel: Writing for Licensed Properties

Otherwise, I’ll be at the other group events, and I’ll be hanging out, just gettin’ weird on an apparently-haunted boat? That’s good, right? I’ll try not to accidentally host any demons in the cauldron of my mortal flesh.

After Stokercon, I go on a —

Long-Ass Drive

I’m driving from CA to CO. I’ll probably be pinging my way from Vegas to Moab to Ouray, and then onward across the goodly state of Colorado to my next and final event of the trip —

The Northern Colorado Writers Conference

Yep, I’m the keynote speaker at the conference — in which I will share my dubious wisdom.

Friday 6:30 – 8PM: Dinner and my Dubious Keynote

Saturday 8-9AM: Author Panel!

Saturday 9:30 – 11AM: Character-Driven Plotting, my class

And then I fly home!

Let’s see, what else is going on?

Updates!

STAR WARS CELEBRATION was genuinely sublime. I remain filled with such gratitude not only to LFL and Del Rey for having me play in their sandbox, but also to the fans who came out — it was a non-stop love-fest, lots of joy for Aftermath and lots of geeking out over the wonderful galaxy of stories that is Star Wars. I got to be on the Star Wars show with Carboni and DeGoots. I stood near John Boyega. I got to sit in a landspeeder and give an interview to SyFy. I got to do a trivia panel with galactic bad-ass, Tim Zahn. I met Steve Blum. I saw a SEEKRIT Weird Al show at the 501st party, with bonus Billy Dee Williams sighting. I got to hang with Delilah Dawson, my spider sister from another mister, who is also writing the Phasma novel coming out in September. And I got to be Cool Dad and bring my family to the event, where my son cosplayed for his first time as Tatooine Luke. It was awesome. I wish I were back there still.

Oh, I also did this interview for Glixel / Rolling Stone, by the way. GO READ IT.

What else? I turned in a draft for my next writing book, which is less about writing and more about storytelling — that book is called DAMN FINE STORY, and should be out (mumble mumble) in the fall? I’ve seen the cover and the cover is weird in the best way.

I also got edits back on The Raptor & The Wren.

I’m writing Vultures now.

Scheming Exeunt.

Writing secret comics project.

Yadda yadda etcetera etcetera.

Ooh ooh ooh, one more thing:

I got to write a cool essay regarding Neal Stephenson’s Snow Crash, and what that book meant to me when I read it, and what it means to me even now. Go read that, too.