Susan Abel Sullivan, author
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Moving to the Funny Farm

6/30/2015

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View from the Funny Farm
In the 1988 movie Funny Farm, Chevy Chase and his wife move to the quaint little town of Redbud in upstate New York so that he can retire and write the great American novel.  Of course, nothing goes as planned, crazy hijinks ensue, and Chevy spends more time looking out the window at a squirrel than he does writing.

I can so relate to this.

The hubs and I relocated to the southeastern tip of coastal Georgia last month.  We're still unpacking.  

A major move is one of the top four most stressful events a person can undergo, even if it's a desired relocation. I can attest to this personally. I had grandiose expectations of getting the house completely unpacked and organized in a week upon returning from two back-to-back conferences: World Horror Con and the International Aquatic Fitness Conference.  

Yeah, that didn't happen.

What did happen was the internet service that was supposed to be installed never was.  And then the major plumbing line from the clothes washer started backing up into the house and a pipe under the sink burst and we had to get a plumber out pronto! And the heat pump on our A/C froze up because the previous owners never changed the filter and THAT had to be fixed.  And the state of Georgia sent me a threatening letter that I better go get my vehicle registered with the state or they'd sic the police on me.  And our year-old puppy broke house training and I was constantly mopping up pee puddles around the house.  And one of my ball pythons got burned on the heater in his temporary habitat and I had to spend quite a lot of time just finding a veterinarian within a 60-mile radius that even saw reptiles.  

And meanwhile through all of this, I couldn't find what I needed when I needed it because all of our stuff was in boxes.  I'm tellin' ya, it was enough to drive a person to the funny farm.  

But somehow over the past six weeks, we've gotten mostly unpacked and my office is now set up and I was able to go through all of the beta reader comments on my YA novel and began an outline for the 2nd round of revisions.  

I'm far behind the original plan of having 2nd revisions completed by mid-June, but there was really nothing I could do about it.  Unpacking and organizing takes time.  Lots of time. Certainly more time than I ever anticipated.  

Now if I can just get that squirrel to quit playing in the tree outside my home office window, maybe I can get some writing done.  Ha! Yeah, right. 
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My new office: a bigger room and a larger desk!
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World Horror Con 2015

6/11/2015

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Charlaine Harris, author of the Sookie Stackhouse Southern vampire novels, on a con panel at WHC '15
World Horror Con 2015 has come and gone and I'm left with memories of a fantastic conference, two successful pitch sessions with agents and an awesome print of artist Bob Eggleton's Pennywise the clown from Stephen King's IT. (see photo below)


As a first timer to WHC, I wasn't quite sure what to expect, but the four-day conference blew me away with panels, readings, an art show, a mass author book signing, and a costume ball.  I even had the opportunity to lead a group of horror poets in a Fried Zombie Dee-light sing-along! 


One of the highlights was getting to meet author Charlaine Harris whose Sookie Stackhouse series inspired the HBO show True Blood.  I've read the entire series (love it!) and just started watching Season 2 of True Blood on dvd.  I also had the pleasure of meeting several other guests-of-honor, such as Dacre Stoker, the great-grand nephew of Bram Stoker who wrote DRACULA--one of my favorite books of all time.  Kami Garcia, co-author of the BEAUTIFUL CREATURES series was an absolute hoot and so entertaining, as was poet Linda D. Addison who was an absolute delight in all ways.  


A large percentage of attendees were women--something I was pleasantly surprised to see! The general public often thinks horror appeals more to men, but I'm here to tell ya that the ladies love horror, too.


The one thing that actually scared me at the con was having to pitch my latest novel face to face with not one, but two agents.  Even though I've pitched and sold two novels and a short story collection to a professional publisher, it was all via email query where I could edit and polish my pitch until it was as perfect as I could get it.  But when you're in person and have 3-5 minutes to sell someone, anything can go wrong!  But I didn't get tongue tied, didn't stammer, and didn't put my foot in my mouth.  And both agents want to see my manuscript.  Pitch day also happened to be my birthday and getting two MS requests was the best birthday gift ever.


I left World Horror Con 2015 in high spirits and would love to return again next year.  

Picture
Bob Eggleton print of Pennywise the clown
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