My apologies, True Believers! I wanted to get a blog posted Wednesday so I could start a new posting schedule. Better late than never!
Last weekend, I traveled to Maryland to meet my friend Sarah “Serenity” Kilduff. She invited me to go with her to her local library’s “mini-comic-con” that Friday in Aberdeen. After a harrowing drive the previous day (mental note: don’t ever drive that far again in one day!), the two of us put on our cosplay outfits–I was the 10th Doctor and she was the coolest-looking TARDIS I’ve ever seen–and headed to the library.
We had a great time, and I hung out with several people the whole afternoon, most notably Anthony, who was dressed as the 11th Doctor.
That, however, is just the set-up.
The “mini-con” (not to be confused the Transformers faction of the same name) was capped off with a lecture by author Jonathan Maberry. Admittedly, I’d never heard of him nor read his books, but I was interested in hearing him as a fellow writer.
My gosh, this guy has connections! He met Ray Bradbury and Richard Matheson as a kid. He’s friends with just about every horror author out there. He’s written comics and screenplays. He even said he once had dinner with Neil Gaiman and talked to Steven Moffat, the showrunner for Doctor Who, on the phone! “Talk about geeking out!” he said.
His story was fascinating. He started as nonfiction writer on martial arts. Then he tried his hand at compiling an encyclopedia for vampire and monster mythology he heard from his grandmother as a kid. He sort of stumbled into writing fiction, doing it at first just to stretch himself as a writer. Now he does that full time. He has friends in the scientific community, too. They constantly feed him story ideas based on their research–like cloning neanderthals. (Seriously, he says that’s being worked on).
He’s quite prolific, so I asked him how long he writes everyday. He said 10 hours! He goes for about 3,000-4,000 hours a day. But he always makes sure to take weekends off for his family. Still, I was blown away. My days are split between writing, chores, and a part-time job. It makes me want to re-evaluate my priorities. Perhaps even make some changes to my lifestyle.
After hearing all this, I couldn’t resist giving him copies of my books (yes, I take them with me everywhere) and since he was a Whovian, I got a picture with him and Anthony. A photo background with with zombies are there, so we took the photo there.
I re-learned an important lesson from him: network, network, network. Knowing the right people is just as important–if not more so–than writing talent in this business. But its important to know people outside the writing field, too. They can help with research or give one story ideas. It reminded me to make as many friends and connections everywhere I go. I never know when it’ll pay off later.