Countdown to Tucson Comic Con

I've been antsy. Holed up in my office, sucking down coffee as if my life depended on it, revising until I feel like my eyes are going to bleed from reading. Seriously, I've actually gotten dizzy a few times when standing up 'cause I've been staring at my computer screen too long.

I need a wee bit o' break from my manuscript H.A.L.F. before the final push to the glorious, amazing, blow the reader's mind ending. It's so close I can almost taste it. But I'm feeling tired. Sluggish even. I need reinvigorated. 

I need a comic con.

Lucky for me, Tucson Comic Con is around the corner. Just three days in fact.

I'm feeling a *squee* coming on.

My blood starts pumping as soon as I begin stacking the boxes of books in the back o' my guy's SUV-ish pukeiferous (yeah, I just made up that word) green car, aka "The Pickle." By the time I wheel my cart to the 6 feet of table I'll call home for two days, I'm giddy.

Cons and festivals are like home to me. While there, I'm surrounded by things I love. Comic books, novels, art and the artists and writers that create them. And of course I also get to spend time chatting with people who also love these same things.

Two days of communing with the tribe. Doesn't get any better than that.

And come next Monday, I'm gonna kick that manuscript's ass!

If you too are heading to Tucson Comic Con this weekend (November 8 & 9), make sure to visit my table at G17.

When Real Life Follows Fiction

If you follow this blog, then you know by now that I've had been holed up writing my third novel, Emily's Heart. Emily's Heart is set in an Apocalyptic America. To get a grip on the world building for the book, I began to write short stories. I play with different ideas, all a variation on the theme "What if?" Like, "What if a growing number of people were psychopaths?", or "What if the police stopped caring?"

As I make the mad push to get this story out by February, I've shunned most media. I came up for air today and saw this story in the news.  Strangely, it contains the essence of one of "What ifs" that sparked one of my short stories. And even weirder, it happened in my home town of Tucson, Arizona!

Check it out:

And here is a snippet of the short story that relates to this video. Is it art imitating life? Or life imitating art? Do you see the correlation? Or have I just been spending too much time in my cave?

From Emily's Heart, arriving February 1, 2014!

.     .     .

Sophie felt tears well in her eyes. What should she do? What had my dad said? Why hadn’t I paid closer attention? There was something about getting the driver’s insurance information. But that would require her to get out of the car. Fat chance!

Call the cops. Yes, she was supposed to make a report. That she could do. She didn’t need to leave the safety of her car to dial.

Her fingers shook as she pressed the three numbers, 911. She put the phone to her ear and heard it ring three times, then five, and six. Isn’t anyone going to pick up? I have an emergency here!

Finally an operator came on the line.

“911, what’s your emergency,” he said. The operator sounded as bored with his job as she was with folding clothes at her job.

“I was just in a car wreck,” she said.

“You and half of L.A. Welcome to the club,” he said.

Sophie didn’t know what to say to that. He doesn’t even seem to care!

“Okay,” she finally said. “That’s great, but I really need a cop to come here and help.”

“What’s your location?” the operator asked.

“Ummm . . .” What’s my location? She hadn’t paid attention to street signs as she texted and listened to music and otherwise tried as best she could to pass the time in the traffic jam without being bored out of her skull. She looked up and around for exit signs or other markers, but she was in a spot without any signs. Shit, I don’t know where I am.

“I’m not sure exactly. I’m on the 405 between Culver Boulevard and Santa Monica Boulevard.”

“How the hell am I supposed to dispatch someone to you when you don’t even know where  you are?”