Three For Thursday: The Time Travel Version

Yes, yes, not the most imaginative title. But I need to get at least one more April post in and by the way, how in the world is it almost May? Can anyone answer that one for me?

And so--

1. Still enjoying Timeless. It is hokey and predictable and has plot holes big enough to drive through. I love it anyway. It is--obviously-- not perfect, but it is many of the things I've loved in storytelling my entire life: Time travel. Romance. A time machine! The typical time travel paradoxes and the ability to change the present by screwing with the past. Plot lines that allow the characters to interact with historical figures. (Hey! It's JFK in his Connecticut boarding school and they end up having to temporarily bring him back to the present and even warn him about Dallas... not that this changes things) I love the idea of time travel stories so much that the novel I'm working on actually began as a time travel story until my editor announced that she believed it was a contemporary novel hiding behind some time travel hoopla. Okay I don't think she used the word hoopla. But you get the idea. Maybe I should have fought harder for my love of time travel. Maybe I still will at some point. But not with this book. Anyway. Watch Timeless. Sunday nights.

2. Speaking of which -- did you ever see the 50s version of the HG Wells' The Time Machine? There is one scene where they are underground with the Morlocks and one of the Morlocks gets lit on fire (I have no memory of why and no interest in trying to find out) and as he's running and screaming his Morlock scream, if you look at his feet you can see that he's wearing sneakers, and clunky ones at that. This makes me love the movie even more. Like the one version of Julius Caesar (I think it's the one with Marlon Brando playing Marc Antony -- and if you haven't ever seen Marlon Brando delivering the Friends Romans Countrymen speech then get thee to YouTube right now) where one of the extras milling around in a crowd scene gets caught under another extra's toga and has to swat his way out of it while the cameras keep rolling. I love crap like that. I love that no one bothered to correct it.

3. And while we're on the subject of time travel, at least sort of, did anyone else desperately want to be able to tesseract after you first read Wrinkle in Time? (I totally did) Here I need to interject that if you only saw the movie, you also need to read the book.

PS -- My favorite time travel story? Well, one of them is an episode of the original Star Trek. It's called City on the Edge of Forever, and the story itself was written by one of the great sci fi writers, Harlan Ellison. It's the one where Dr. McCoy goes crazy after getting some kind of injection and leaps through a time portal (because of course he does) and Kirk and Spock have to leap too in order to find him because somehow once McCoy goes back history changes and the Enterprise disappears and if they don't change it back they'll be stuck on this planet forever. But they don't find McCoy right away; they're just having to live in some sort of 30s reality and Spock has to wear a hat over his ears all the time and Kirk falls in love with Joan Collins who's playing a woman who runs a mission for the down and out. And of course Spock discovers that there are two versions of history and they all seem to revolve around whether or not Joan Collins lives and somehow causes the wrong side to win WWII. And so Kirk -- unlucky in love as always- has to let Joan get hit by a car. It honestly doesn't get better than this, people. It really doesn't.

yeah. I love the heck out of time travel stories.
How about you?

Captain Kirk Liked My Wings and Other Comic Con Austin Tales

Been toiling on revisions for FINDING PARIS, my contemporary road trip/mystery/romance that comes out in Spring 2015 from Balzer and Bray. Yes, I am revising in 2013 for a 2015 book! That is a good thing, people.

But this single-minded focus on top of holiday hoopla and other family things means that I have been a bad blogger and have not told you about Comic Con Austin, which occurred the weekend before Thanksgiving and at which I and the other Writing Ninjas of Texas hung out in costume, ate copious amounts of chocolate and fan-girled William Shatner, Norman Reedus and James Marsters and also met amazing fans and readers and other stellar humans. And supported a fabulous local Austin indie bookstore-- The Book Spot-- owned and run by Danny and Julie Woodfill, who sell books for us all weekend each year and who support books and literacy and local Texas authors in their wonderful shop in Round Rock. I can't thank them enough!

I love Comic Con! I really, really do. I know there are some who mock the fan experience, but I have to tell you that when Cory Putnam Oakes and I stood in line so she could get an autographed pic of William Shatner for her mother, who was/is a huge Trek fan, we were rather blasé at first. We were deep into publishing gossip and catching up and casting our eye rolls at the 60 something guy in full Enterprise regalia… UNTIL WE GOT UP CLOSE. Close enough to snap this contraband pic since technically you're not supposed to take pics if you're only paying for an autograph. (their rules, not mine)

And then-- and I am not exaggerating-- we were like two thirteen year old girls. I am telling you, it was crazy. I look at Cory and she looks at me and now we're squealing. And when Captain Kirk chatted us up and told us we looked really good (which he said TWICE), we squealed some more. And shook his hand. And stood there while he signed the picture and then spent the rest of the morning reliving the thrill. Yes! It was thrilling. I'm not going to lie to you. Captain Freaking Kirk. Liked our angel wings.
(in full disclosure, so did a lot of random guys in costume who asked us to pose for pics while we walked the convention floor. But whatever)

Here is what CAPTAIN KIRK said looked good:

And here are a few other pics from the weekend. You should go next year. You really should!

Zombie Kari Anne Holt

Mari Mancusi and friend

Me, my SWEET DEAD LIFE costume and TARDIS

This Ain't My First Rodeo, Predator

And it's Dread Pirate Roberts...

The Fates: PJ Hoover, Jessica Lee Anderson

Julie of Book Spot, Jessica Lee Anderson, Cory Oakes and friend

PJ Hoover and Mari Mancusi channeling her Mother of Dragons

The lovely Jo Whittemore and guess who