Looking Back, Looking Forward

It’s been a little over a week since I got back from FanX Salt Lake City. My wife and I had an amazing time. We saw old friends, had great food, attended many cool presentations (John Cleese, Zach Levi, Alice Cooper) and even attended a Lynda Carter concert.

The panel I was on, Eighty Years of Batman, was a tremendous amount of fun. I’ll never grow tired of talking about superheroes, especially one as iconic as Batman. The other panel members had great insights. They came from film, podcast and teaching backgrounds. I enjoyed the variety of viewpoints on the panel. The crowd, about 150 people, seemed very invested in the topic. What came across to me more than anything was just how important Batman is to people. One panelist spoke about how the character helped him through medical illnesses and injuries. When he spoke a number of people in the audience nodded their heads identifying with his story. One comment from another panelist drew to light how the character has been around for our entire lives. Longer than our entire lives. I have a friend who is obsessed with Star Wars. The first movie came out the year he was born. I used to joke with him that I “remembered the world without Star Wars.” I do not remember the world without Batman (or Superman, Wonder Woman, Flash, Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, etc.) Maybe that’s why I’ve had a harder time connecting to newer heroes over the past couple of decades. They weren’t around when I was young so I see them as johnnys come lately. Maybe. Although, Wolverine is pretty cool.

Since I’ve been back, I’ve been editing Book Three of the Long Invasion series. Right now I’m at the point where I can start writing Book Four, the finale of the series. Depending on how quickly that goes, I’ll either have Books 2, 3 and 4 ready by next September or just Books 2 and 3 with Book 4 being pushed back until Thanksgiving or so. I suspect that is the more likely scenario. In a way, it would be fitting to release the last book at that time of year as it was the day after Thanksgiving 2017 that I started writing the series. Two years, four books. Not bad if I do say so myself.

I’ve received a handful of compliments on Mat the Cat and will continue to spread the word about my most recent short story. It is, of course, available on kindle.

I just started a new short story. I’m only 4K words into right now. I’ll share some of it on the website here in the next couple of weeks when it’s a bit more formed up. The basic premise is this: the main character is given a password to website which bills itself as the “dream journal for the world.” At first, the site seems simple and innocuous. Then the character starts to notice things – strange things – happening in his life that might or might not be connected to the site.

Well, that’s all for now.