Captain’s Log: Chattacon 49

My table set up this year.

What have I learned this year? Tea blends are a BIG seller. I do not carry tea blends. One of the neighboe booths did.

I sold one copy of Blood Curse: Waves of Darkness Book 1. My only sale the whole weekend, but that made this a successful convention in my mind. Thank you for the pity purchase, Rich. I’ll take any sales I can get! I did get some interested browsers, and author cards were taken. Hopefully some audiobook and ebook sales will come out of this weekend.

I had one panel on Saturday; Homegrown: Writing from Our Roots, along with Louis Herring-Jones, Phillip K. Booker, Mel Todd, and moderated by William Joseph “Hillbilly” Roberts. It was fun to learn I wasn’t the only one who participated in bottle rocket battles in the woods as a kid. The panel was about how we use our experiences, aspects of places we grew up, and people we know or knew in our writing.

Late Saturday night featured the “Chattacon Choir,” a very hammy group-sing of Bohemian Rhapsody and Paradise by the Dashboard Lights. Both singers and audience participated in the performance while in varying states of sobriety or the lack thereof, over emoting, heckling, and pantomiming lyrics.

Think if MST3K did this live with a large group.

I finally got to hear how this tradition got started many moons ago when the convention was still held at the Chattanooga Choo Choo. The first time was a spontaneous event which spread throughout almost the entire convention. Now it is contained, for the most part, to the consuite.

I did get to talk with my second cousin, Mary Robinette Kowal (this year’s Literary Guest of Honor), before the convention ended Sunday. Took having to say which side of the family I’m from before she could finally place me. As I pointed out previously, we haven’t seen each other since we we little kids, several decades ago. We had a nice, if short visit. Both of us were getting ready to leave.

I plan on doing a table again next year, though I still have to pre-register for it.

I got some progress made with various projects while manning my table. I made a good start on writing episode 45 of The Adventures of Pigg & Woolfe. I also finished my first round of edits/revisions on Maelstrom of Fate: Waves of Darkness Book 7, which I plan to release in October. I moved that up from November, because I hope to attend HallowCon this year.

I also did a new pencil sketch of Belladonna. It felt weird drawing real world again. You can’t zoom in on a screen to fine tune details with real pencil and paper like you can on a drawing app. Since the sketch involves full frontal nudity, I will not share it in this post.

I might put it on her character page. I haven’t decided yet.

Convention Season Is Now Open

Chattacon is coming up this weekend!

I only have one panel at 4 pm Saturday. The rest of the time I will either be at my table in the Dealer Room or wandering around the convention.

I’m looking forward to meeting a second cousin I haven’t seen since a family Christmas get-together at her grandmother’s (my great aunt) when we were kids. (I’m talking late elementary to early junior high ages here.) Mary Robinette Kowal is this year’s Literary Guest of Honor.

While I do have them ordered, I will not have copies of Pathway to Downfall: The Adventures of Pigg & Woolfe Season 3 available at this convention. I have yet to find a way to get Amazon to expedite delivery service on authors’ copies of books. The best they would tell me is between the 10th and 20th. I ordered them the last Tuesday in December.

I will have a full allotment of the five titles currently available in my Waves of Darkness series. My restock order from Ingram Spark is out for delivery. In fact, the UPS truck is currently at the house across the street from me as I write this.

I also have a new 4-tier book display rack! I’m finally going to look like a professional book seller.

If you’re going to be in the Chattanooga area this weekend, stop by the Doubletree Hilton and join the festivities!

Pathway to Downfall

Pathway to Downfall is now available on Amazon.

I do offer this caveat. The between-the-episodes segment is strictly adult content/erotica that just happens to advance the plot of the overall story. So, NO KIDDIES PLEASE.