LibertyCon Looms Large!

I am about as ready for LibertyCon at the historic Chattanooga Choo Choo as I can be. I’m taking off from work at lunch Thursday night. I have to get some sleep before the convention weekend. I’ve printed out my schedule for the con. I know they have a schedule app for both iPhones and Androids, but I want to conserve my phone battery for my Square card reader.

I have selected the first three chapters of Hell’s Dodo for my reading Sunday. I’ve printed out a fresh batch of author cards to hand out. I’ve also printed out entry slips for the giveaway contest for a signed copy of Black Venom.

This week is the last chance to enter in the Red Shirt contest I’m running for The Daedalus Enigma. Currently, there are 16 entries. The contest closes at midnight Thursday. To enter, comment on this post or on any of the posts announcing this contest on FB or Plurk. Two vampires need vict… er volunteers to feed them.

My appearances at LibertyCon are as follows:

Friday

4pm Autograph session in the dealer room

6pm What’s New In Dark Fantasy? Centennial Theater

9pm Author’s Alley dealer room lobby

Saturday

11am Autograph session in the dealer room

7pm Author’s Alley dealer room lobby

8pm What’s New In Pirate Fantasy?  Gallery A

Sunday

10am Kaffeklatsch (coffee, continental breakfast, and mingle with the pros) Roosevelt Room

11am Reading  Gallery B

12 Author’s Alley dealer room lobby

I will hold the drawing for the Red Shirt Contest (open to anyone) during my autograph session Saturday morning. I will hold the drawing for the book giveaway (open only to convention members) during my final Author’s Alley session Sunday.

Needless to say, my blog post next week will be late, but I will give a full report of the convention. LibertyCon is one of my favorites.

The one thing I won’t be doing at LibertyCon that I had hoped to is a cover reveal for Hell’s Dodo. Between tending a sick husband, work, finishing the first portion of that fan art commission, and convention prep, I haven’t had time to get started on it yet. I do have a design for it clearly in mind. I also came up with the cover art composition I want to do for The Daedalus Enigma this past week. Maybe I will have time to work on them over the Summer shut down next week, after the convention.

Weekend Update

 Okay, this looks a lot better in person. It’s just so hard to share colored pencil art online. Photos get washed out by camera flash, or blurred by a no-flash shot  made without a stabilizer, or grainy from using my phone’s camera. This is detail from the (nearly) finished Dragon Age fan art. I just have one minor detail to alter to meet my client’s specifications.

I also finished chapter 33 of The Daedalus Enigma. One particular scene had been giving me trouble last week and just didn’t want to flow. I finally got it to cooperate with me. The irony is that it is an erotic scene that really isn’t necessary for the plot; I just had to get it out of my head. It may or may not make it to the final version of the book.

Finally, I kicked a little life into my red shirt contest by sweetening the pot. Two lucky winners will not only have their names applied to two ill-fated members of Vik Brandee’s crew, they will also receive a free .pdf copy of Black Venom.

On an added note, Black Venom received a new review from Mom With A Reading Problem. You can read it here:  http://www.momwithareadingproblem.com/2015/06/weekend-reads-33-black-venom-by-tamara-a-lowery

Morning Thoughts of Moose and Squirrel

Now that I have your attention, I shall explain this blog’s title.

Last week, I came across a video of a girl and her moose. The link at the end of the video was http://alaskanmoosemovie.com That started this line of thought. The bull moose in the video is obviously a young one and possibly raised at the wildlife rehabilitation facility the video was shot at. He’s definitely a big baby and loves attention.

A few days after watching the video, sitting at my computer, one of our ceiling squirrels casually scampered by outside the bay window behind my desk. He didn’t seem skittish. I tapped on the glass, and he came back to the window and looked at me as if to ask, “What do YOU want?” We’ve had squirrels do this to our cats at this same window in the past. Some even stand there with their forepaws on the glass antagonizing Louie. I swear, if that cat had opposable thumbs and a glass cutter….

Thoughts of these two incidents collided in my head over coffee on the back porch Friday morning. Thus, my blog post title was born.

Now, it is Monday morning, as I write this post a day later than I’ve tried to schedule myself, and I try to cram everything I meant to do over the weekend into one morning. Soon I will have to go back to bed for a nap to adjust to night shift for the week. What did I do with my time over the weekend, when I could have been productive? I waited (and am still waiting) for a reply from the coworker who commissioned that Dragon Age fan art about background details. I suppose I’ll have to get with her at work tonight. I also indulged in a hidden object game downloaded from Big Fish Games. It has been a couple of months since I’ve played one, and this one is from one of my favorite series: Dark Parables by Blue Tea Games and Eipix Games. (I probably will play a little more of it after I post this.)

I do hope to get the fan art done this week. I would really like to get to work on the cover art for Hell’s Dodo. I am losing hope that I will have a completed cover ready to reveal by the time LibertyCon rolls around. It could still happen, but I’m being realistic. There is a lot of stuff I still have to get ready for the convention.

Proof that authors are masochists: I’ve found another project that I probably should work on soon: putting together a press kit. I have to research what all goes into one first, and when and where it best comes into play in marketing my works. Given my procrastinary nature, this may be a while in the making.

I think I will close up this post for now. My mind is hopping about like a flea on Monster.