This weekend is OryCon. I will be there as a dealer and as a panelist. Below is my schedule. If I’m not in a panel, I’m probably at my dealer’s table. Come on by to see me. I'll have my "stealth book" with me. :)

Friday, 17 Nov 2017
4pm: GM School
A primer on how to run a game for those who are interested, and even those who have never done it. How to keep your players involved & interested in coming back. What campaign to pick for your players.

5pm: Writing and Art for the RPG Industry
A how-to workshop on what it is like to work for the RPG industry.

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Saturday, 18 Nov 2017
10am: I Quit My Job to Be a Writer! WHAT HAVE I DONE?
How do you stay focused when you're all by yourself and the realities of making a living via the written word come flooding in? Find techniques for forcing yourself to get words written and plots plotted, with time to get dressed and leave the house.

1:30pm: Reading with Jennifer Brozek
I will be reading from NEVER LET ME SLEEP and from FIVE MINUTE STORIES.

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Sunday, 19 Nov 2017
11am: Pamper Your Muse
How to get your creative mind to talk to you. How writing prompts, mind maps, creative dates with yourself, tarot and storytelling cards can help you tap the muse.


While I am not an official participant of the Cedar Hills Crossing Powell’s Sci-Fi Authorfest 11, I will be there with Josh Vogt who is an official participant.

I've got seven events (conventions, readings, appearances) left for the year. Here they all are. November has five events! Come see me read or talk or just come visit and buy books. I'm creating mystery boxes for the December events that will be perfect for gift giving. Otherwise, we'll have signed books and candles!

NOVEMBER
Jet City Comic Show - Tacoma, WA
(Dealer with Books & Chains.)
November 4-5. Details here.

Bellingham Holiday Book Festival - Bellingham, WA
(Dealer.)
November 11, 10 AM-2 PM. Details here.

YA Speculative Fiction Extravaganza @Village Books - Bellingham, WA
(Multi-author reading/panel.)
November 11, 7 PM. Details here.

OryCon - Portland, OR
(Panels. Dealer with Josh Vogt.)
November 17-19. Details here.

Multi-author signing @University Bookstore - Mill Creek, WA
(Multi-author reading/panel.)
November 25, Time 1-5pm. Details here.

DECEMBER
Anglicon - Sea-Tac, WA
(Dealer with Books & Chains.)
Dec 8-10. Details here.

ODDMALL - Bellevue, WA
(Dealer with Josh Vogt.)
Dec 16-17. Details here and here.

Hope to see you at some of these events!

As I'm sure you've seen, I will be speaking at Verne & Wells on RPG tabletop and video games on July 7th at 6:30. But what some of you don't know is that I've accepted a position as Luminary. It's a great opportunity for me to reach out to fans and others who may be starting their journey into RPGs. I feel very honored to have been asked to fulfill this position. For those of you who aren't familiar with Verne & Wells or what a Luminary is let me elaborate.

Verne & Wells is a geek social club. It's a place where gamers, designers, artists, and authors can meet and play games, discuss their favorite platforms, learn from each other and collaborate. A monthly fee covers services such as the game library, gaming rooms, snacks, and drinks. They have a calendar full of gaming, movie nights, and more.

Verne & Wells seeks out industry professionals to become Luminaries. About once a quarter, each Luminary will discuss a subject in their realm of expertise. Luminaries range from video game designers to authors to more. The Luminary events are free to the public, so feel free to join me.

Crypticon Seattle has come and gone. We did well enough in the sales department. We’ll probably be back next year—timing of the convention and other conventions willing.

It occurs to me that I should probably mark down somewhere all the conventions I’ve been a Guest of Honor at. I no longer remember the years. I mostly remember all the conventions. I should probably look that up now.

30 minutes later, I think I have the list. If you remember one that I don’t remember, please let me know.
•    BayCon 2009 – Toastmaster (San Jose, CA)
•    GothCon 2013 – Guest of Honor (Gothenburg, Sweden)
•    Context 2014 – Featured Presenter (Ohio)
•    LepreCon 2015 – Guest of Honor (Phoenix, AZ)
•    Gen Con 2015 – Industry Insider Featured Guest (Indianapolis, ID)
•    Gamehole Con 2015 – Special Guest (Madison, WI)
•    OrcaCon 2016 – Guest of Honor (Everett, WA)
•    Radcon 2016 – Guest of Honor (Pasco, WA)
•    Capitol Indie Book Con 2016 – Featured Author (Olympia, WA)
•    Tracon 2016 – Guest of Honor (Tampere, Finland)

The slow paring down of stuff continues apace. I move stuff to donate out of my overstuffed office and into the cat/exercise room. Currently, there’s a huge mound of stuff. I think once a month, we get out to donate it to Saint Vincent’s.

Thinking of paring down stuff, I’ve come to a realization on some of my knick-knacks. I’m keeping them because someone 10 years ago gave them to me. It’s an obligation. Not a joy. I think I’m going to pull down all the knick-knacks I no longer love, put them on the dining room table, and invite my friends over to pick out what they want. The rest will be donated or sold if our neighborhood ever gets organized enough to do the neighborhood garage sale.

Thinking of the neighborhood. Can I just say that I love that my neighborhood has a close FB page? It allows us to post about rescued pets, lost keys, found items, mention stuff we’ve seen, and warn each other of danger.

Thinking of danger… I’m getting better at the “not panicking, planning” thing. One of my projects dropped a bombshell on me and it was a doozy. However, as one of the other people involved said, “We can make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear” with this. I was in “fix it” mode for most of yesterday. It’s a good thing I have the ability to know who might have an answer if I don’t have it.

Thinking of fixing things, I have a 5.5 lb cat insisting it is time to play and that is the only answer she cares about. Have a cat picture. Leeloo and Pharaoh were very glad I was home from the convention.

So, life continues at a breakneck pace. I am grateful for all that I have and all the opportunities I’m pursuing. Sometimes, thought, it’s hard.

Travel: I recently returned home from North Carolina where I visited my family and had a very good time. I dislike the act of travel (especially planes), but I enjoy the visiting. Next up for travel is a whirlwind appearance at StokerCon for the banquet and ceremony. I won’t be on any panels (that I know of) and I don’t have a table in the dealer’s room. It’ll be strange to just attend the convention for a day and a half. The following weekend is Crypticon Seattle, the local premiere horror convention. Dealer only, but there will be much visiting to be had.

Writing: I got the official “Sekrit Project Alex” is accepted and checks are in the mail. Super happy about that. I’ve also turn in a short story and I’m about to return to Fever County. I was away a lot longer than I expected to be. Such is life. I also got interviewed by File 770. Oh, yes. I now have a local writing group for me and several work-at-home authors called Wit’n’Word (see what I did there?). It’s not a critique group. It’s a social writing group. We write. We talk. We play with kitties. We write some more.

Editing: Still dotting I’s and crossing T’s on the two anthologies I’ll be editing this summer/fall. The spin up part of anthologies is the hardest part. I’m looking forward to the editing part. Thinking of editing I’m processing the final proof notes for Ivan Ewert’s Famished: The Gentlemen Ghouls omnibus. It’s looking really good.

Domestic 1: I’ve been watching a lot of YouTube videos on minimalism and tiny houses. I don’t think I’d ever become a minimalist or live in a tiny house, but there’s a lot of good and inventive ways do de-clutter, organize, and pare down the things you don’t use or need. This has helped with my need to de-clutter and organize my house. We’ve been living here together for over nine years now. We both tend to packrat things for “just in case.” That makes it difficult to do things like use the closets efficiently.  Thus, I’m working on it. The Husband helps when I need him to. Mostly, this is one of those things I can control, thus I am. Each slain task feels like a real victory.

Domestic 2: We’ve decided that since this will probably be our house until we move to a retirement house (with no stairs), we’re going remodel and upgrade both upstairs bathrooms. We’d have to do it any way before we sold the place. Might as well enjoy the upgrades now. I suspect it is going to be an exciting summer for the cats.

Domestic 3: Thinking of cats... all of mine are doing well. They are fat and happy and demanding. I have an Instagram account that’s mostly cats. In the wild kingdom that is our backyard, a territorial hell beast of a bunny has moved in. This hellbunny has challenged and run off: other bunnies, crows, stellar jays, a pair of mated ducks, and a myriad of squirrels. They keep coming back. It’s a never ending battle and a never ending source of amusing cat TV.

Travel to see family always has its ups and downs. I dislike the travel part of almost any trip I go on that involves a plane. (My kingdom for a transporter!) This trip was a good one. My nieces have grown into lovely young women. My parents are still ticking, even though they’re getting up there in age. My sister and I have way too many medical issues in common for comfort. And my BIL is Enlightened and Valor. It made for an interesting and fun trip.

The Husband helped Dad buy, deliver, and build a patio set that is really nice. We got to use it the last day before we came home. I liked it.

The biggest event of the trip was the escape room event called "Lunar Lockdown" by Bull City Escape. It was a crashed spaceship with six people. That allowed it to be just family to solve the puzzle. And solve it we did. The first 15 minutes were crazy. My family solved puzzles even before I knew they were there. My main job was time watcher and hint communicator. I watched and took in what was going on around me then suggested things when something got stuck. I also caught a couple of mistakes we made and solved one puzzle myself.  Everyone did something. We all contributed to the win.

Though, we did need all three hints. Technically, we “needed” one hint that we would never have figured out the code without it. The other two hints were to point out mistakes—once was mislabeled jars and once was not seeing the key stuck to the inside of one of the boxes.

We solved the space crash puzzle with 6:41 to spare. The room only has a 40% success rate even when hints are used. It was a good time.

That said, I never want to do another escape room event. This one went as well as it did because all six of us were family. We knew how each other thought. We were able to get in each other’s spaces. I’m not sure we’d be able to do that with strangers in the group. Also, it would’ve been a serious downer to have lost the event. As a personal note, I dislike timed events in general and never play that kind of game. They make me anxious.

However, if you like timed events that require a lot of puzzle solving, Bull City Escape does an excellent job.

I enjoyed seeing my family. It was a good trip. However, five days away was enough. I missed my bed, my kitties, and my routine. I’m in the middle of a novel and I have a short story due at the end of the month (Hi John!). Not to mention the two anthologies in progress. I had to put the novel work on hold to get some much needed revisions on Sekrit Project Alex done, but I’m happy to be back to it.

This family trip is one of the reasons I’m not going to be at Norwescon. I’ve been to the last 6-7 of them and enjoy the heck out of them, but I need the break to rest and to write. At the end of the month, I’ll be at StokerCon for Saturday and Sunday. My next full convention, it will be Crypticon Seattle where I’ll be a dealer.

As an aside, I do have a new Dreamwidth account now and will be phasing out my pro-LJ to crossposting only. Until I figure out how to get the crossposting to Dreamwidth done, those will be manual copy/paste. My GaanEden LJ is a permanent account. I haven’t decided what to do with it, yet. I mostly use it for non-writing stuff.

Other social media: Facebook page (one of my main social accounts), Facebook author page, Twitter (super active on this), Tumblr (which I rarely use), and Instagram (if you like cat pictures), G+ account, and finally, of course, my blog. My LinkedIn, Amazon, GoodReads, etc... are all crossposted from one of these.

Five days in the rainforest with minimal internet, an outline, and someone to compete with = 28,356 words written. I am brain fried and dead. I don’t actually recommend this to anyone. I took Monday off writing to recover a bit and it was needed.

All day Monday, while I did other things and played PokemonGO, I kept thinking of things I forgot to add into the manuscript. From descriptions to full scenes. I’m probably going to spend the next two days editing what I wrote to see what else I missed and add it in. Then I’ll feel comfortable enough to continue on. I just feel like my narrative foundation is a bit too cracked and shaky.

View from the 2nd floor Parkside Suite, Thursday morning. Before they brought me a boat and waders.

Beyond teaching a session at RWR, I got to experience the adventure of having Lake Quinalt rise two feet. The Husband thought we might have to evacuate. We didn’t, but I did have to borrow thigh-high waders to get to and from the rest of the resort for two days. A couple of attendees who didn’t know me thought I was part of the Park Service. It was a fun and interesting experience. I’m glad the lake didn’t have a current. I put more pictures and a video of it up on my Facebook.

What Lake Quinalt usually looks like. Saturday morning.

Also, while I was in the land of no internet, the podcast of my short story, “Endless and the End,” went live on The Overcast. My story is episode 49. It’s my creepy little steampunk story inspired by the likes of The Mummy and the casual game Bejeweled. The end of the story includes an afterword by me and a "warning" from The Overcast. I hope you listen to it.

Here is my OryCon and Authorfest SF schedules. If I'm not at a panel, I will be at my dealers table. Come by, say hello, get a book signed, and/or buy gifts for friends! I'd love to see you there. I'm even going to have some of my signed, numbered, limited edition books.

FRIDAY
Writing in Other People's Worlds
Meadowlark (3)
Fri Nov 18 8:00pm - 9:00pm
Christina Hartley, David Boop, Diana Francis, Elton Elliott, Jennifer Brozek

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SATURDAY
Freaking Me Out, Not Grossing Me Out
Salon C (LL1)
Sat Nov 19 1:00pm - 2:00pm
Colleen Anderson, Jennifer Brozek, Judith Conly, Laurel Anne Hill, Matt Haynes

Reaching Readers Who Don't Know You Yet
Meadowlark (3)
Sat Nov 19 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Anthony Pryor, Blythe Ayne, Deborah Ross, Jennifer Brozek, Josh Boykin

Reprints
Salon A (LL1)
Sat Nov 19 6:00pm - 7:00pm
Bruce Taylor, Jennifer Brozek, Maura van der Linden, Wendy Wagner

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SUNDAY
SFWA Meeting
Sunstone (3)
Sun Nov 20 10:00am - 11:00am
Jennifer Brozek

Synopses, Summaries, and Blubs, Oh My!
Meadowlark (3)
Sun Nov 20 12:00pm - 1:00pm
DongWon Song, Jennifer Brozek, Mary Rosenblum, Ripley Patton, William Hertling


AUTHORFEST SF 10
Cedar Hills Powells Bookstore, Beaverton, OR
Sun Nov 20 4:00pm - 5:00pm
Many authors

August and September were strange months stats-wise because I had so much editing and travel—Worldcon, Tracon, and a wedding, spanning America, Iceland, and Finland. Now, I’m back home and I’m deep into Sekrit Project Alex

Year-to-date stats:
Fiction words written: 148,910
Article words written: 15,700
My novels/collections edited: 11
My short stories proofed: 8
Other novels/anthologies edited: 13
Events attended: 9

Event-wise, I should have only three events left and all of them are in November.

• November 17th, I’ll be reading at the University Bookstore in Seattle with Mira Grant.
• November 18-20, I’ll be at OryCon in Portland, OR as a panelist and dealer.
• November 20th, I’ll be at Authorfest SF 10 the Cedar Hills Powell’s in Beaverton, OR as one of the many authors signing.

Writing-wise, I have Sekrit Project Alex and the small additional material for that. The main bulk of writing for both should be done by mid-November. Then, I have 3 contracted short stories to write and get to their respective editors by mid-December.

For once, while I am busy, I don’t think I’m burning the candle at both ends for the end of the year writing work. If I keep a steady, consistent pace, all will be well and I will have a couple of planning weeks before I start the new YA series I’m going to write.

One of the things I really wanted to do while I was in Finland was play Ingress—unique captures and hacks FTW! Ingress is a wonderful game to help you find neat sights and hidden gems in a new city. Plus, you get to meet awesome people.

Tracon helped us set up a Project Isthmus sponsored Ingress meet up in Kalevankangas Cemetery. I also got in touch with some of the locals (Agents Cthulthist and pimpelipom) to spread the word to the local Ingress players who weren’t at Tracon. 27 local players showed up and a good time was had by all.

The Husband (Agent Morgyan) set up a crossword puzzle with a passphrase that the agents had to solve and then find me somewhere in the cemetery—I was hiding with Morgyan running around capturing portals—to give me the correct passphrase. The first two RES and ENL players to show got prizes of very rare (1st place) and rare (2nd place) load out cards. Everyone who played received a Project Isthmus bio card. Everyone who fully completed the puzzle received a limited edition, uncut Project Isthmus bio card.

Agents who joined us: AdrianGajewsky, Arisep, Cthulthist, eimink, Ekyttis*, Fixied, FoxingDemon, Golug*, HeterTheMoth, Jalermo, JherekCarnelian, Jovee, Kaustinen2*, Limlaith*, Marjaananen, Meepu, Molter, MrJ007K4, Mryy, Pantone268c, Penguinone, pimpelipom, Stahi, vieru2002,  Xitay, z3r0x, ZeroScripter… and, of course, GaanEden (me) and Morgyan.

* = Won one of the rare/very rare load out cards.

The RES came out in force and were generous to a fault with their swag. I can’t wait to show my locals the awesomeness we were given for sponsoring this meet up. It was a good day.

After the meet up in Kalevankangas Cemetery, we headed to a pub to drink and celebrate where I had the best pear cider I’ve ever had, Somersby pear cider. I managed to get Flint on Hangouts to give everyone a wave and they were pretty excited about that. Me, too.

The best thing, though, was after the meet up, I was told that it gave the two factions a chance to talk and they are going to start up a First Saturday meet up. I can’t tell you how happy this makes me. As a final bit of joy for everyone who came out to meet us, some agents may show up in a forthcoming Project Isthmus story in passing. :)