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New York Comic Con 2014 Recap
Hi everyone,
I made it to New York Comic Con last weekend and did a panel on Not Your Mother’s Fairy Tales. It was an amazing time, and now, I’m going to try and give a good recap.
As I have a day job (and a new one at that), I wound up driving Friday evening to get close to Delaware from Virginia and then made my way into New York on Saturday. Bishop O’Connell, author of The Stolen (which I’m happy to say I’ve started and am enjoying), sent me a text before I reached the convention. It was good to have someone expecting me. I got out of my cab which was stuck in rainy New York traffic and tried to figure out where the entrance was to the Javits Center. There was a woman on the sidewalk in front of me in a Black Widow costume. An Avenger had to be going in the right direction, so I followed her and found the entrance.
Words don’t do the place justice. Just heading inside, there were SO many people, dressed in SO many costumes from anime to sci-fi to horror to superheroes. I had Jedi Knights on one side of me, the Doctor and Amy Pond on the other side and lots of Deadpools in front of me. Everywhere I looked, there was a spaceship or a dragon or a poster of something spectacular. I found the whole experience overwhelming. I texted Bishop to find out where I should go, but he replied that he was about to do a radio interview and that I should head to the Harper booth.
Life, Lunch and a Lot of Rambling
My life’s been very exciting lately. I’m changing jobs in my not-so secret real world identity. Happily Never After just made it through an editing deadline. I’ve written a few interviews and scheduled a couple of events to promote Once Upon a Rhyme. That’s not to mention that my daughter started school, and I’m dealing with car issues. Oh, and I’m spending way too much time trying to watch Amazon.com sales numbers (that way leads to madness) and trying to find reviews of Once Upon a Rhyme. Also, I need to keep working on the as-yet mostly untitled book 3. Exciting times.
Despite all the excitement, I managed to find a Saturday afternoon where I was able to have lunch with Bishop O’Connell, the author of The Stolen. I’m still working on reading his book (sorry, Bishop), but if it’s half as cool as he is, I have no doubt it will be great. I’ve put the link above, but included his awesome cover below.
We had a fun conversation for three hours where we talked about influences and how we got started. I’m going to invite him to an interview in the near future, either here or at http://www.jackheckel.com, but one thing that he said which stuck with me was (and I’m paraphrasing), “Once you’ve been published, your work really increases.” I admit that when Once Upon a Rhyme came out, I felt like I was done, but Bishop’s right, everything’s just beginning.
I’m scheduling events – so far I’m going to be at the Baltimore Book Festival on September 27th and I’m planning to be at RavenCon in Richmond, VA in April. I’m trying to get a number of other events scheduled, but I’m waiting for confirmation. Hopefully, I’ll have more announcements soon. If anyone out there would like a fantasy/sci-fi/RPG author to be a guest, please let me know.
The reviews have been the scariest and best part of everything. Of course, I’ve noticed lots of misplaced commas or awkwardly-worded sentences in my perfectionist mode. However, it seems everyone’s enjoying Once Upon a Rhyme. Here are some quotes from the Amazon reviews:
Thank you to everyone who has given it a review and here’s hoping that there are a lot more to come. If you’ve read the book and enjoyed it, please tell someone else about it. The more people who read it, the better the chances that Will, Liz and Charming will have more adventures.
Oh, the other thing I need to do – write more blog posts! Thanks for understanding and I’ll keep striving to do more.
All the best,
Harry
Harry Heckel 