On the road again: Balticon, day 4

It's late, and I'm exhausted, so I'll keep this shorter than it probably should be.

After going to bed very late, I was up late and out to a quick lunch at a local Panera. I was nervous about the stand-up show, which I still hadn't finished.

I returned to lead the Liars Panel, which packed the room and entertained everyone. We all had a very good time, and we raised a decent amount to buy books for local kids. The only bad news was that we failed to complete even half the questions, because a lot of the panelist stories ran way long, and so we raised less money than last year. Should I do this panel again, I'll restrict people to a max of 90 seconds, with a goal of one minute. Still, everyone laughed a lot, and some kids who can't afford books will now get them.

After a little time checking out the dealers' room and the art show, I retired to my room to finish the stand-up show. Printing in the hotel proved to be more challenging than it should have been, but in the end I found a way, so I had the show's notes ready in plenty of time.

I attended the masquerade, which started late and ran late but was otherwise a nice show. A surprising number of entrants were genuinely humorous, which was nice to see.

The ripple effect of the masquerade running late, however, was that my midnight show didn't start until almost 12:30 a.m., which led to a far smaller crowd than I had last year. (Best guess from friends watching was about 75 folks.)

I have to call the show a mixed performance. I started slower than necessary, and as happens with new material, some of the bits fell flat. On the other hand, my physical comedy worked better than before, the highs were higher than last year's, and everyone stayed to the end--and laughed a lot. So, on balance I have to call it a success--but I can definitely improve on the weak bits.

With almost two hours of material I've now written and tried, I think I have 80 to 90 strong minutes, which isn't a bad result.

Of course, all that stays with me is what I did wrong, the failure moments, and all I can do is beat myself for not doing better, but I'll get over that and continue to work to improve my stand-up.

I was gratified to have everyone laugh so much. Making people laugh is a wonderful thing.

On the road again: Balticon, day 3

Morning came way before I was ready for it, but I got out of bed anyway and spent a half hour on the hotel's treadmill. I discovered that with the right distraction--in this case the Daniel Craig version of Casino Royale playing on a TV channel I could get--the time on the treadmill just vanishes.

I'm way past ready for the next Bond film.

Work, shower, work, and then off for lunch to a place I try to visit yearly in Baltimore: Cafe Hon. The food is good but not great, but I still love the joint because it's just such a great little diner.

We then walked through a few shops in the area. Two are worthy of mention.

The first is Squidfire, which in addition to having one of the best shop names ever also offers some amazingly cool t-shirts and hoodies.

The other was perennial favorite, Atomic Books, where once again I bought nothing despite wanting to own more than half the stuff in the place. I think I'm afraid to buy one thing lest I unleash a flood of expensive purchases.

After a little more work, I headed to my first offical con function: a reading. I expected no one to show up, but to my pleasant surprise I ended the session with ten people in the audience--and only two came with me. I read from Children No More and talked about upcoming books, etc.

Dinner was at the same place I go every Friday night of Balticon: Cindy Wolf's Charleston. The food was, as always, perfectly executed--until the desserts. Once again, those, while decent, fell short of the rest of the meal. The service quality has also slipped considerably there, something I hope they address in the future.

I'm working on the show now--and, yes, it's only about 22 hours away as I write this. Plenty of time. I hope.

Actually, I'm quite terrified that I'll blow it, because I should have cast it in concrete weeks ago, but so it goes; shoulda, woulda, coulda, etc. I will do my best, and I'll hope I can make folks laugh until they hurt.

Back to it I go.

Want a shirt from either spoken-word show?

And would you like to help buy books for kids?

If so, you've come to the right place.

We're selling the limited-edition shirts for the Saturday night premiere of Wake Up Horny, Wake Up Angry, and I'm donating all the profits to Balticon's charity, buying books for kids in the Buck Lodge Middle School.


As you can see from this picture of the shirt's back, you can be the proud owner of a mostly black fashion item that is sure to offend almost everyone who sees it. (Those it doesn't offend are likely to want to own one; send them to me.) Isn't the design even better in close-up?


The front boasts a smaller and somewhat different logo, but it is still bitchin', as you can see here in both the full-shirt and close-up photos.




















Now, you may be thinking, "Wait, didn't he do a show and a shirt last year?" Why, yes I did. It was the Science Magic Sex show, and we still have a small quantity of those shirts available. These four photos show you the back and front of the shirt, and as you can clearly see, it is made of awesome.

Either of these beauties can be yours for the tiny sum of $15. I keep only what the shirt cost me, and I donate the rest to the charity.

If you'd like to order, email me via the form on the Contact page, and I'll get back to you in email to work it out.

Odds are you'll be the only one on your block to own one!

What am I doing now?

A few folks have asked me what I'm doing now that I've finished Children No More, so I thought I'd give a quick run-down of the various projects on my non-day-job plate.

Children No More: Yes, I finished writing it, but now I'm reviewing the proof pages. That does take time.

Wake Up Horny, Wake Up Angry: I'm doing the premiere of this spoken word/stand-up comedy show at one minute past midnight late on Saturday night/early on Sunday morning at Balticon. If you're in the area, you should definitely come to the con and see the show; the con is great, and the show should make you laugh. Right now, I'm still working on the show, and I'll probably be doing so until about three seconds before I step on stage. Maybe a little longer than that.

The Wild Side: I'm editing this anthology of erotic urban fantasy stories. Most of the stories are in, with one in rewrite and my own still to come. I'm also collecting the afterwords from the authors and their bios. I'll tell more about this one in a few weeks. I'm working on my story now.

Fatal Circle: This near-future thriller will be my next novel project. Because I already have about a third of it in first draft and have a huge (26K words) outline for it, I hope to finish it far more quickly than most of my books.

In addition to these projects, I have three interesting things in the works that I can't discuss quite yet. One is the surprise announcement I mentioned some time ago, and the other two are still not ready for me to discuss. It's all good, though.

Seeing such a short list makes me wonder why I'm feeling overwhelmed. I clearly have to work harder!

Coming to a Balticon near you

Though none of this is yet set in stone, I thought I'd let readers of this blog be among the first to know that it's now extremely likely that at next spring's Balticon I'll be doing two different performances that I hope will be both fun and raise some money for RIF, Balticon's favorite charity.

The first is a reprise of the Liars' Panel, which I'll be moderating again. Last year's was a big success, and I'm hoping to raise even more money in 2010.

The second and, to me, more exciting news is that I'll be debuting there a new spoken-word show, the one I've mentioned previously here: Wake Up Angry, Wake Up Horny. This time, the con is hoping to give me an evening slot, which would be more appropriate given that the material will again definitely be for adults and not kids. I'll be selling t-shirts for this and the previous show there, and all profits will again go to RIF.

When I've worked out the kinks in this show, which will be all or nearly all new material, I'll have about two hours of tested stuff. At that point, my hope is to stitch them together (I'm designing them to work well as a unit) and perhaps try to mount a one-person show wherever I can find an interested venue.

Of course, writing and work take priority, but I'm determined to become a better and better spoken-word performer.

I'll plug these performances again when we're closer to the con, but I thought I'd break the news here. If you're going to be at the con or live in the area, please come by and catch both shows. I'm pretty darn sure you'll laugh and have a good time.