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BLitz Comics 24 Hour Comic Boot Camp @ Kaleid

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blitz comics boot camp september 23 2011 at kaleid gallery in san jose Nathan Vargas and myself are facilitating a 24 Hour Comic Boot Camp at Kaleid Gallery in downtown San Jose tomorrow, September 24 from 7pm to 11pm. For those that don't know, 24 Hour Comics Day is a challenge held each year to create a 24 page comic from scratch in 24 Hours. Nathan and I have tried this five times between the two of us, and we've been discussing techniques to succeed over the last year. Then a drunk guy manning a comics booth at the Sub Zero festival overheard us saying that and said we should put on a tutorial. And since we have a policy of always following the advice of random drunk guys when it sounds like they are serving as a hotline for God, we said OK! The Birth of Blitz Comics Our work has produced a pretty nice 24 Hour Comics Day Survival Kit which is now getting distributed to a lot of 24 Hour Comics venues. And it's free under a Creative Commons license! So you can download it and use it on your own. But we're going one step further and providing a "Boot Camp" where we'll help participants create a 2 page comic, involving discussions of comic theory and 2 hours of drawing exercises. So please show up and enjoy ... or at least check out Blitz Comics and our survival kit if you want to survive 24 Hour Comics Day. -the Centaur

Who Am I?

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me in front of the bell bridge books promotional material for BLOOD ROCK Who are you? Good question. I'm Anthony Francis, and I write stuff and make computers jump through hoops for a living. What have you done? I'm most notable for the EPIC award winning urban fantasy novel FROST MOON and its sequel, BLOOD ROCK, which are about magical tattoo artist Dakota Frost and are therefore hopefully both more interesting than my ~700 page PhD thesis on context-sensitive computer memory. Also on the computer side, I've done some exploration of robot emotions. What are you doing next? Forthcoming in the Dakota Frost series is the third book, LIQUID FIRE, and this November for National Novel Writing Month I plan to work on HEX CODE, the first in a spin-off series featuring Dakota's adopted daughter Cinnamon Frost. Are you working on anything other than Dakota Frost? I've also recently completed a rough draft of the first book in a new series, JEREMIAH WILLSTONE AND THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE. A short story set in this universe, "Steampunk Fairy Chick", will be included in the forthcoming anthology UnCONventional. What are you working on currently? I'm also currently working on a fourth new series with the working title STRANDED, a young adult science fiction novel set a thousand years in the future, featuring a spoiled young centauress who must rescue a shipload of children who have crashlanded upon a world she wanted to claim as her own. This story's set in the "Library of Dresan" universe from which this blog takes its name and which was setting of my very first unpublished novel "homo centauris", which I am now happily milking for its 57 billion year backstory. Anything else? I have a flash fiction story called "The Secret of the T-Rex's Arms" to appear on the Smashed Cat Magazine. I've also published one short story, "Sibling Rivalry" in the Leading Edge Magazine. I have a webcomic, f@nu fiku, on hiatus. And I'm actively involved with helping people succeed at 24 Hour Comics through tutorials that I and my friend Nathan Vargas have put together at Blitz Comics. Is that enough questions for now? Yes, it is. Please enjoy. -the Centaur

Back home again…

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Blogging from the convention floor at Dragon*Con right now ... 11:45pm, it's hopping, and it hasn't officially started yet! No pictures right now because of equipment failures, but since I've arrived I've hit registration, had a great dinner at Sear, hit the guest con suite and picked the brain of a ninja, hit a drum circle and speculated on anorexia, wandered through a concert room between bands tearing down and setting up, helped a Minecraft cube through a pair of double doors and crossing the street, and seen Mister T twice. I've seen about five TARDIS dresses, half a dozen half naked people, dozens of anime characters, an absolutely spectacular furry just walked by, seen several great Doctors including a superb 10th and a passable 8th, and run into several con friends. I've taken pictures in places I take them every year and taken pictures of things I've never seen before. Every year is slightly different, slightly better, as the facilities of the hotels (now five!) get better, skybridges are added, and people routing policies are improved. We'll see how all that holds out when the zoo starts tomorrow. First panel on my list is 10am, so I'd better crash soon if I want breakfast. Or, hey, I could stay up all night writing. The night is young, and you're always as young as you feel. -the Centaur UPDATE: You may not feel so young the night after you flew in on a redeye. :-)

Funky Fresh: the Street Mrkt Faire

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sandi at street mrkt 2011 The Street Mrkt fair is an independent art festival held at First Fridays in downtown San Jose. There are dozens of small booths each with an indie artist's unique artworks, including my wife, Sandi Billingsley's work under the Studio Sandi banner. sandi's booth from the outside There's also an ArtCar festival in a nearby parking lot, a spoken word artist as MC, and a sequence of live bands. the live music rocks I really love the funky, eclectic flavor of the San Jose art community. It reminds me a lot of the Atlanta art scene, which was just exploding when I left. It's real, earnest, and odd, but not pretentious, and people have a lot of fun here creating and soaking up creation. the funky flavor of the friday festival The Street Mrkt fair is going on right now, August 5th, until 11pm. I've heard rumors it will also be at the next First Friday, September 2nd. Check it out! -the Centaur

Taking Criticism

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At Comic-Con I catch up with a lot of old buddies, particularly one of the Edge who's solidered through many drafts of my early stories. He's got a script he's working on, and is making a lot of progress. In contrast we know a friend who's written a dozen scripts and is making no progress at all. Why? One of the conclusions we came to is that it's important to accept criticism of your work. Timely feedback is critical to improved performance - but you must respond to it. I think writers should put down all their dumb ideas and then convince everyone that they're brilliant. Your quirky ideas are your contribution - I mean, who'd think a story about a naked blue guy and a homeless vigilante investigating a murder would make one of the greatest comics of all time, but hey, that's Watchmen. But you've got to sell those ideas. "Ideas are a dime a dozen, but a great implementation is priceless." So if you show someone your story with a naked blue superhero and they don't buy it - you have to fix your story. That doesn't mean you take out the naked blue guy, even if your critics want you to. It's your story, and just because it doesn't work for someone they may not know the right way to fix it. It's up to you, the author, to figure out how to solve the problem. Readers give bad advice about how to fix stories because people are notoriously bad at introspection. If someone gets a funny bad feeling about the manuscript, they may latch on to the most salient unusual feature - not realizing it's the bad dialogue or structure which gives them indigestion. But authors are also notoriously bad at accepting criticism because they take the criticism as a personal attack. But if you get criticism on your story, you've done a great thing: you've produced a story that can be evaluated. Authors are also bad at accepting criticism because they have fragile little egos. But you can't afford to explain everything away. If people are complaining about your story, they did so for a reason. You need to figure out what that is - and it's your problem, not theirs. So, if you get criticism on your story you don't think is fair, you get one --- ONE --- chance to explain yourself. If your critic doesn't immediately get it, then --- even if you don't agree --- say, "Yes, thank you, I'll take it under advisement." Then put it in your trip computer and remember it for later. If others see the same thing, you have a problem. If you personally start to feel even slightly the same way, you have a BIG problem. But your biggest problem is not taking criticism at all. Me and my friend have encountered a fair number of leaders whose egos are so fragile they've insulated themselves from all criticism. You can still achieve some degree of success in an echo chamber if you're willing to critique yourself and you have high artistic standars. But usually it just makes for unnecessarily flawed stories, movies and products - and an unnecessary slide towards the dustbin when your ideas stop working. So if you're lucky enough to have someone who reads your pre-baked work and gives you feedback, listen carefully, explain at most once, and take the criticism gracefully. Your art will be the better for it in the long run. taking criticism graciously -the Centaur

Back at Comic-Con

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the gateway to comic-con I'm back at San Diego Comic-Con again ... my con home away from con home (my con home being Dragon*Con). Comic-Con is also where I get to visit with 125,000 of my closest friends. the crowds begin Like Dragon*Con, San-Diego Comic-Con has grown far beyond its original roots. The con is about far more than just comics: it's now a full bore genre media event. the convention floor They've got sexy space girls ... star trek babes ... sexy space guys ... the 5th, 11th and 10th doctors ... and everything in between. the total recall car and robots And lest there be any doubt about what I meant, here's what I took the closeup of in that last tableau ... I am a roboticist after all: the total recall robot While I'm here, I'll not just be renewing my creative juices ... I'll be working on the final proofs for BLOOD ROCK, which is due the day after I get back. If only I had a way to get more time...wait, maybe I do! me and the tardis Wish me luck! -the Centaur

A Funny Thing Happened Before My Trip To Comic-Con

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Axually by the time you reads this am already atz the con now - but just befores I waz completely discombobulated from cats:
Anthony Last night our home was invaded by a quiet, timid but quite feral cat. 2 hours trying to locate the capture him - no dice, he was a wily fucker. Then 3 hours cleaning the pee he left behind when he bolted out the door. Emailed that I wouldn't be coming in and got to bed at 4:25am. Sheesh. Donna OK...while I am sure that REALLY sucked, I have to admit I also am still laughing. Sorry that happened...Febreeze works well. Anthony He's an adorable little cat. He's also a master of hiding (he tucked himself into the tiniest possible space in a bottom bookshelf) growls if approached closely and smells of pee. I think he's been causing my other cats to spray. I'd be laughing too if the situation wasn't so serious - just last night I lost two books, half a dozen magazines, some papers, and possibly an heirloom kitchen table I got from my grandmother to pee. The behavioral effects on our other cats are so severe one's on Diazepram, the other's on Prozac, and we're thinking of getting rid of them. I'm locked out of my own library most of the time because we can't let them get in there. I went out for coffee for an hour and a half and found the black cat on top of some clean laundry. Donna Oh no!! I take it all back... No longer funny :( I hope it gets better! Anthony There's some small amount of funny, I admit it. When not gnashing my teeth, I like to remember that it's better than a kick in the head with a golf shoe! William Good lord! I think you need the Cat Whisperer. Cortney Decoite O. My. That's almost as bad, if not equal to, a burglar. My deepest sympathies. John Have you ever tried a kick in the head with a golf shoe? It's not so bad. My eyes are still crossed and I'm falling down a lot, but I don't think it has anything to do with the kick to the head...
Iz funny in a lolcats trainrecks kind of way. Don't worries, will not get rid of teh cats. But just catching the ups now. Response will be the slow, please be the patients. -the Centaur

Backing off from Qumana

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screen shot of qumana Qumana is a good blog editor, but it's got two unfortunate interrelated problems: it isn't quite compatible with how I put images into posts, and you can't publish posts as drafts. I just found that out - I think perhaps I confused Qumana's interface with a blog posting app I have on my Nexus S - which is why some you may have seen a brief flash of a post in your RSS feeds that will instead show up later. Saving posts as drafts on Qumana won't cut it - I need to upload the draft to WordPress as a draft and make manual modifications before publications, which I can't do in the current interface. So I'm going to back off from using Qumana a bit. It's still good for composing drafts offline, but I either need to dig through their manual, update it to a latest version (if applicable) or find another editor that works better with my process. -the Centaur

Future Books

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piles of notes between caffeine fuel and computational engine An exchange from Facebook:
Anthony: Just finished a rough draft of JEREMIAH WILLSTONE AND THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE ... my fourth completed novel! Wallace: Anthony it is great that you have 4 what are they? We know Frost Moon, blood Rock, what was the 3rd? Barbara enjoyed putting them on audio. Anthony ‎#1 is one you haven't heard of ... HOMO CENTAURIS is my first completed novel written in the early 90's. The next two were FROST MOON and BLOOD ROCK ... the third one in that series, LIQUID FIRE, is about 75% done. THE CLOCKWORK TIME MACHINE is the first in a new series. P.S. The working titles of the next three Dakota Frosts (4,5,and 6) are SPECTRAL IRON, PHANTOM SILVER and SPIRITUAL GOLD. The working titles of the next next three (7,8, and 9) are something like SPIRAL NEEDLE, HELICAL LANCE, and CIRCULAR KNIFE. And the working titles of ... I'll stop there. I can keep going, but I won't ... don't want to spoil the surprise. I've already mentioned some of the later ones online. :-)
Assuming I get that far ... no, I'm planning to get that far, and farther, God willing. -the Centaur Pictured: piles of notes between caffeine fuel and my computational engine.