Musings of a Restless Mind

I apologize to my readers, but William F. Buckley seems to have seized control of my travel-addled fingers and insists that I use obscure words in this post. I blame all that rocking on the train that seems to have scrambled my brain along with my sense of balance.

When I was last seen, I was headed out for the beginning of my summer of Cons. This year, instead of a side trip on my cross-continental train journey to and from Chattanooga for LibertyCon, I stopped in Norman Oklahoma for SoonerCon which happened to be the weekend before LibertyCon. So I packed my duffel bag with my clothes and necessities, and filled a second duffel bag with 27 paperbacks to sell. It included 6 copies of Sharon’s China Harbor: Out of Time, 8 copies of my hurriedly and poorly proofread new collection of short stories That Has Such Creatures, and 13 copies of my novel Advance Guards. Why those numbers? That is an exercise I leave to the reader for, as Sam Elliot’s character in Landman said, “That’s way too complicated for me to try to figure out this early in the morning.”

In any case, now burdened with an extra suitcase (and books are heavy), and because I’m older and smarter, I eschewed buses, and ubered my way to the train station, managing to get to Oklahoma City three hours late via Amtrak’s dubious means. (Sorry Tony, no time to look around this trip.) I then slithered my way on to Norman, which is only a hop, skip, and a jump away as my mother used to say.

So, how does The King of Bad Marketing™ dispose of 27 weighty tomes before he has to haul them home on the train in disgrace? My first effort was on panel discussions where I tried to follow my father-in-law’s advice, “Sincerity is the key. Once you learn to fake that, you’re golden.” When beautiful, young teenage girls, cosplaying all the sailors from anime (IYKYK) refrained from flocking to me after each discussion to fight over my books, I found myself frequently sitting alone at a table covered with books and being ignored. I considered grabbing for the tails of the various furries, but rejected that as impractical, given my distinct lack of agility and coordination. I also contemplated boarding the passing pirate ship.

But boredom is the font of inspiration as somebody should have said. Every Con I’ve ever been to provides authors and other presenters with a folding placard with their name printed in large enough letters to be legible to those at the back of the room.

I’m no rookie at these things, and, having fallen for the printer who missed his deadline before, I bring a spare from a previous Con. So, I took that old placard, inverted it, and wrote something on each side I hoped would be a draw.

Ask me anything elicited three queries about the meaning of life, the universe, and everything (42 of course), and one about the airspeed of an unladen swallow (African or European?). I aced those and actually got a few people to ask about my books. When I switched to “Advice $.05”, I surprised myself by being able to give out advice my customers deemed useful. Now I have to figure out the sales tax on 30 cents :). Thank you very much, Lucy van Pelt!

By such dastardly evil means I was able to lure enough people into my rhetorical clutches that I sold 8 books. Score!

Next I met up with my friend Jack on the train from Norman to Ft. Worth. Jack and I went to grade school and high school together and had only seen each other once in the many, many decades since (You do the math. We’re old.)

He was a helicopter pilot in the Marines and an airline pilot afterwards and now refuses to be a passenger on an airlines. Draw your own conclusions. Anyway, he heard about my trip (I advertise you know), and used some of his millions of Amtrak rewards to take the train up to Oklahoma City to see the college baseball world series and then ride with me back on the train from Norman to Ft. Worth. See pictures with stupid grins above.

Once in Ft. Worth, I took Amtrak’s curiously circuitous route to Atlanta (Ft. Worth to Chicago, Chicago to DC, DC to Atlanta), leaving on Monday morning and not arriving in Atlanta until Thursday morning. Forget it Jake, it’s the rails. On the train, I met a man who was commuting from Ft. Worth back to his new home on the outskirts of Uncertain, Texas. Yes, that’s its real name. Seems the few residents couldn’t agree on a name, so they put “Uncertain” on the incorporation forms, and so it came to be. Makes me think I have to come up with an origin story for Another Fine Mess, California, the site of the upcoming series, Hermit and Vulture.

I later met Jim, a model train enthusiast whom I bamboozled into buying a copy each of Advance Guards and China Harbor. I can be persuasive if you don’t have the good sense to shush me. Finally, I arrived at LibertyCon and explained to Rich Groller, head of programming that I hadn’t signed up for any panels because it seemed the Con was Mil SF themed this year, and that’s not what I write. He did offer me a spot on the Putting the Science in Science Fiction panel, which I took, but I also had a reading and numerous hours in Artists’ Alley scheduled. At the former, Nic Plume and I read to an audience of one. At least he bought the ebook version of something of mine. At the official autograph session Robert Evans and I were each graced by Dino who seems to want to be the Smithsonian of SF and who bought a copy of each of our books. Additionally, he had us sign in his enormous two-volume, hand leather-bound set of All the SF You Would Ever Want To Read or something like that, so our autographs now grace the same pages that hold such signatures as Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, Harlan Ellison, Jerry Pournelle, Robert Heinlein, and many, many more. Then he further rewarded us each with a ribbon proclaiming “I’ve been Dino’d”. Ribbons at SF Cons are a thing. They attach to your name badge and each other until they threaten to trip you as you walk down the hallways if you’re too willing a collector.

All in all, I managed to sell another 10 books, leaving me with only 7 to haul home. I’ve since pawned off one on an innocent victim that is a fellow denizen of the youth hostel I sit here typing in. I should probably order more for my trip to Son of SilverCon coming up on the 17^th of July, but I’m too disorganized for that. I should be out partying on Bourbon Street or the more highly recommended Frenchman’s Street, but I’m too worn out by my adventures, so I contented myself with a jaw detaching shrimp po’ boy drowned by bottomless mimosas, watered down mimosas to be sure, but they did keep refilling my glass.

I’d write more, but as Michael O’Donoghue infamously wrote in his classic How to Write Good, suddenly I’m run over by a truck.