Schools out for CONS!

Okay (I'm done using OK, till I mess up and do use it) like holy crap! Lost deep in the heads down, no time to look up, better learn how to breathe ink because it’s the only air I’m going to get this month, first drafts and web book crazy! (Yeah that’s has hard to read as it’s been to do.)


While I’m not going to all the cons my co-author (the second half of the pen name Stanley Dufalo) is heading off to this month. (Run on sentence warning)  We needed to get cracking  to have pages done for when she’s on a plane (with or without snakes) and/or too drunk, passed out in a gutter with the rest of the Con goers because they had too much Joss Whedon dust, and are LSD tripping on Firefly reunion with a Avengers crossovers.
My real worry is now that we’ve started a web book about zombies coming to life at Comi-Con, and Rob Zombie is going to be the opening act for the event, we have written too close to real life and we are going see art become fact! So Del, get ready to live your damn story, because it’s coming!  Myself, on the other hand better find a dead end job mall, because I get to play Elliott, but now that I think about it I don’t think we ever gave him a job and so, I can fit right in buying a cup of coffee.
Here a fake Cali ID for the trip girls:

Right now my day goes a little like this:
1. Stumble out of bed.
2. Somehow find myself at work.
Do stuff
3. Complete job 1 and go play some kind of sport/raid.
4. Pull out Oil and Water, write at least a thousand words on first draft.
5. Work on From Beer to Apocalypse (remember how to spell apocalypse)
6. Mourn my stagnate blog while doing nothing about it and then head to be about 2:30 AM so can do it all again the next day.
It’s a great life; I even try and watch a little Military Channel in bed, but that lasts about 5 minutes before I’m snoring, and subsequently getting kicked all night by the wife to turn the hell over.


I’m going to Westercon, the highlight of this con, for me will be having the manuscript, Cooperate Policy dragged over the coals by professional writers. All this, will be just in time for me to start making all my updates I’ve planned out in July. I’m right on time and where I want to be. The cover isn’t, but I’ve seen betas of it and I look forward to seeing the final soon.
I’m a little disappointed in writing panels at Westercon, I’d have liked to seen a few more on writing. I think that Norwescon was much better for this. Westercon should have taken me up on my offer to run a panel or two, I think they needed it and looking over the list of what they have so far, it’s sparse and they aren’t using all their rooms effectively. Also, it seems I’m supposed to be registering at the same time I’m supposed to be in a few of the panels so F*** that, better fix it.  How the hell am I supposed to get to my Anime girls panel on time.
Okay guys, let me solve the mystery for ya; the Otaku is all about the hawt girl with the big gun playing a dominate roll, but still too sexually frustrated to know what to do in the sack. Done, saved you an hour of your time, enjoy the registry line.


From Beer to Apocalypse, is starting up Chapter 3 this Monday, I’m really excited about this.  We start to get into the really down and dirty zombie brain eating, Oregon under siege, I’m on a boat motherf***er, story now. (minus the boat, sorry to get your hopes up, I shouldn’t have done that.) We seem to have about 20 loyal readers and love you all. Tell a few friends I’d love to get us to 30 loyal readers by the end of summer.

What am I reading right now:
Books:
The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky – Not bad, I saw the movie ad and wanted to check out the book. I enjoyed it, but I felt the writhing was too simplistic for someone that getting straight A’s in high school. It was basically the main characters letters to another person, so maybe they were trying to capture that in an art like way. Worth a read all the same. 

Fifty Shades of Gray by E. L. James – I have never wanted to knife myself while reading a book so bad in my life. It’s been really popular and I try and look at books that are “big” so I can keep a pulse on the fiction world.  That said, the whole plot could be written out in about 60 pages if you remove the bland sex from the book.  Only redeeming quality is if they can get the whole Twilight movie cast to do the Gray movie, double points if they can make it porn.

A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket – I’m on book 1 of 13 now, I’m enjoying it, but doing the audio so I get the pleasure of having Tim Curry read them to me. Totally awesome and he’s really good at it.  This will keep my car stereo busy for a few weeks.

Manga:
Stepping on Roses  3-6 : Plot is really moving along, story is going well and art is holding up. If you like romance like stories, it’s worth a read.

Air Gear 23: This has been one of the better ones in a few installments. The one thing that happens when a series goes over 20 books is that the plot seems to grind to a crawl in my opinion.  OhGreat has avoided that in most cases. I’M LOOKING AT YOU NEGIMA!

MUSIC:
Go by Motion City Soundtrack – One of the better albums they have done, love’n it!

Speak in Code by Eve 6 – Came out and April and I didn’t notice, very late 70s punk feel, like the Police. Also good!

Synthetica by Metric – Still getting a feel for this one, but first impressions, not as good as there last CD.

Siamese Dream by Smashing Pumpkins – Yeah it was 1992 and it was amazing. Well it was just remastered. I picked up the deluxe version. This will be weekend candy for me.


OK (Ha got me) enough for now,
Robert Dufalo

A Time Away

It’s been a few, and knowing that I needed to get a blog update out, it was time to put the nose to the grindstone, or maybe better said, "another grindstone"
My friend Joe thinks that I'm a work alcoholic, I'm starting to believe him, now I just need to start focusing my powers to those things that make me more money! Look out Trump, I'm moving in.
Ok that's not happening, so lets move on.


A close friend of mine had their wedding in Hong Kong and so not willing to miss it for the world, I boarded an aircraft and traveled to the other side of said world to be a part of it. When I say be a part of it, I really do mean it. I think that everyone in attendance felt like they were part of it. It was one of the most touching wedding I’ve seen, and I have been to many weddings in my time.

Hong Kong is an interesting place, once you get used to it. And once you are used to it, you really can't help but enjoy it. I found their mass transit to really be one of the best I have ever seen, Mark had told me a little about it before, but seeing it in action (and I do mean in action) it's something that anyone that wanted a PHD in transportation should study closely. Also the best drivers in the WORLD are Hong Kong bus drivers, I say this with all honesty, I've never seen drivers like them. They take these double decker busses and move them around crowds, thins roads, and up and down mountain roads that are perched over looking huge drops. Still they get everywhere on time like some kind of inhuman atomic clock.
The malls are fun because instead if sprawling out over miles of land they go up, and up, and UP. You don’t walk you take escalators up and down, each floor has a ring of shops so you walk a ring, go up a level then walk another ring.
I also want to take a second to thank Mark's family, they were all very kind of me and invited me out to do things with them, for someone that didn't have a real plan, it was nice to piggy back on their plans. I also seemed to run into them everywhere, even the airport when I was getting ready to leave.
Chris, Marks longtime friend, was great too, when everyone else was busy or sleeping Chris and I stayed up late at bars drinking while bartenders kept calling for last rounds after every drink we ordered. (Note to travelers: I think there is about 6 lasts calls in Hong Kong, starting at 2am and ending about 4am.)
I hope to see you all again soon and thank you for helping to make my stay in Hong Kong that much better. I was honored.



Around this I’ve been working hard on my first draft of Oil and Water, my first attempt at a Young Adult book. It’s sitting at 60,000 words now and it’s coming along. It’s not coming as smoothly as I’d thought it would and I find myself doing a lot of work on it to make sure I get high school details right. I’m also learning there are A LOT of things that I didn’t do in high school that maybe I should have! While Nic is going to be valedictorian and get the chance to give the big speech that was never something I wanted to do myself. So there has been a lot of things I've had to learn on the fly like. When should I have started applying to colleges? When should I have taken my SAT? What day should I have taken them on? When should I start hearing back from colleges? How do you get a full right to a college?
Kennedy on the other hand was much easier for me because while we both got good grades in high school (And only starting in high school, let me be clear on that) I wasn't pushing to be some kind of all state academic superstar. So trudge on through this first draft marking out all the things that I enjoyed from high school and finding a lot of things that I missed wondering why I didn't try them at the time.
My feed back is back on my Cooperate Policy and I'm looking forward to doing some cleanup and getting that to editors before I look to release. The cover is coming along and I might do some sneak peak stuff on it soon. But as long as I don't let other author things I want to do get the way, I'll be on schedule and you'll be able to pick it up at the start of October.


Anime, I'm not sure what's happened here, but I'm not watching very much if it, by that I mean I haven't watched anything in months. I'm still reading a boat load of Manga, but no real Anime. I don't like this, some of the best stories I've ever seen are based in Anime and I don't want to start limiting myself to less. I'm going to have make sure and force myself into following again, find some stories and stock up on episodes.



Porn and Sex in literature.
As I sit here I'm reading a draft of a book that I've been asked to give feed back on and there is a sex scene. I looked up from my seat at work cafeteria and I wondered what people would think if they knew just what I was reading right now? Of all the books I read, there is sex in many of them. I'm willing to bet the people reading around me, there sex in those books too. So I ask; is it really ok at work? Because there are no pictures? Why can't I just sit here and read a playboy with a brown paper front? Only I'm reading it and no one else knows. Then again if I turn the playboy around and show it to people is that bad? How about if they read my book? Or if I read aloud?
Such a strange world.

What am I reading:
A slow few weeks. I spent a lot of time writing and reading a friend's book and as it's not published it I won't tell you about that one.
How ever I found time for this one:
The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach - Sarah Dessen turned me onto the book and I gave it a try, I'm liking it! I'm the throws (inside joke) of the end and I have NO idea how it's going to finish. Every well done, very good reading. The Characters are a mess!

I'm going to be doing a post every other week for a few,  just a lot of writing I need to get done.

Robert