Blogging too much? NEVAR!!!!!!

I've recently been thinking about little things that happen that shape our lives or change our perspectives, partly because of my recent fixation on parallel universes and partly because of...well, you know.

I PROMISE that eventually my posts will have nothing to do with the horror thing. But it was a BIG deal. And sadly, I realized that I may never see some of those people again (translation: I'm so mad at myself for not getting a pic with Julian).

But anyway. I was thinking about my last post, and it dawned on me just how much things we do or say can affect people. I'm sure that Julian, Malcolm, and George (yeah, we're all totally on a first name basis, you know) have no idea how much they affected people when they were there over the weekend. I'm sure they felt like they were just going through the motions, doing a job, etc. They probably have some inkling of how excited people were to meet them (and/or almost passed out ;) ), but very few of us know just how far-reaching those effects actually are.

Take Nathan Bransford for instance. For a huge amount of people, his decision to leave agenting felt like losing a best friend. He's been really blogging since 2007. He's been sharing vast amounts of info with strangers for 3 years, and I doubt he realizes how many minds he's actually eased, how many spirits he's picked up, or how many writers he's helped become authors because of posts like this one.

We can choose to help or hinder, but everything we do has an impact on someone, however far-reaching that impact might be and however positive or negative it might be.

And now, I'm going to try to be productive. We'll see how that goes.

Well, since I'm here...

I think that horror convention was a great thing. Not only because of everything in the previous post (which still makes me giddy, btw), but because it left me with a feeling that things are actually going to look up. After all the negativity--some of it self-imposed, yes--that I've endured over the last few months, the consistent rejections, the battering of my ego, etc., the fact that something as seemingly insignificant (in the grand scheme of things) as meeting all those fabulous people and sort of talking to Julian has helped me recenter myself and actually want to work on things. Even though I had a massive crisis moment while reading The Windup Girl the other day that nearly resulted in deleting all of my files and just stopping then and there, the fact that something I panicked about writing and really had no faith in myself about writing has been well received by my peers who are undoubtedly much better writers than I am had assisted in the confidence department. Sometimes I feel completely inadequate, sometimes I feel like nothing I work on will be good enough. Sometimes I feel like a talentless hack who has no future in writing.

But I won't give it up for anything. Because I'm a MUCH better writer than I was when I started. Better than I was even last year. It's a growth process, a learning process. And the most important lesson to learn is that we all have unique voices, viewpoints, and styles. Just because I don't write the same way as Paolo Bacigalupi or Anne Rice doesn't mean that my words don't have merit or that my ideas don't have potential. It just means that I have a different way of looking at things, and that's fabulous. The world already has Anne Rice and Paolo Bacigalupi. It doesn't need another one. I can learn from them, but it's still my voice.

Writers go through a lot of confidence ups and downs. We're riding high one minute, and then a rejection comes in that steals our thunder. Or a less-than-kind critique deflates our ego. Or we just wake one day with the panic that we're fooling ourselves. I know I'm not the only one who endures these doubts. All creative people have them, and anyone who says otherwise is either fooling himself or delusional.

But the thing to remember about creative pursuits is that perseverance is key. Some actors wait their entire careers to have that breakout role *Mickey Roarke anyone?* Some authors write 4, 5, 6, 50 books before they have that bestseller. Some musicians play in bars until their 30 before they hit it big *John Mellancamp*. But do you give up? No. One of the things I took away from the convention was that regardless of how many people are clamoring to meet you *or not*, you keep doing what you love because you LOVE it and you can't imagine doing anything else. Hone your craft. Take classes if you can. Attend seminars if you can. Befriend other writers. Learn from them as they learn from you. It's important to persevere.

FAN GIRL HEAVEN

OK, y'all, this is probably going to be a bloggess-inspired post because I'm sure that her excitement about meeting Neil Gaiman is all that rationally compares to what I'm feeling right now.

Y'all, I TOTALLY met Julian Sands. Warlock.

And yes, it was MAGICAL.

Sadly, too few people know the awesomeness that is Julian Sands. My humongous crush on him started when I was around 7 years old, after watching Warlock for the first time. *My parents didn't believe in those silly parental guidance ratings for movies. I saw Terminator 2 IN THE THEATER. I was 5. It was epic.*

I sat enthralled. Never having gone through that "boys have cooties" phase, I was entranced by Julian's...everything. His mannerisms, his voice, his...hotness. I rooted for him. Instead of being grossed out by the diner scene (wherein our wonderful Warlock rips out a dude's tongue), I was flabbergasted. My little 7-year-old brain was like, "OMG, this guy is AWESOME."

I'm hoping that this explains things juuuuuuuuust a little.

Yesterday, I met the guy who ripped out a dude's tongue in a diner (yes, I know it was a movie.)

Boyfriend, Boyfriend's Best Friend, and I went to the Horrorhound Horror Movie Convention yesterday on two days' preparation. I went solely for Julian, thinking that if I could just SEE him, I would be able to walk away happy. We meandered around after registering, looked at some cool movie props (the stuff from Ghostbusters, mostly), and joked about all the stuff that was there. Some of it was actually pretty cool, and I would have liked to have bought it, but I had $70 for Boyfriend and me, and it was $40 just to get us both in.

I was on a mission. My mind kept racing. Julian Sands. I was in the same building as the Warlock. Then, to keep myself grounded, I kept thinking, he's probably not here. I paid that much money, and he's probably not here because I'm here, and these things just don't happen. The more I thought it, the more I believed it to be true. Julian wasn't there. That was silly-thought.

Then we rounded a corner of horror movie posters and THERE HE WAS. My heart nearly stopped. JULIAN SANDS. NOT EVEN 20 FEET AWAY. I nearly collapsed then and there. It was...like lightning had struck my chest and the heat radiated out into my hands, my feet, my face. Like I was going to explode. I think there's a term for that.

ANYWAY, it took me forever to work up my courage (and some gentle prodding from Boyfriend was necessary, too). So I tried to calm down, and I went. And it was glorious.

Sadly, he had no line, which proved to me just how under-appreciated he is. I walked right up to him, shook his hand, and thought about all the stuff I wanted to say. I'm 25 now. I've spent a LONG TIME wanting to meet this guy, thinking it would never happen because things like this don't happen for me. So...like I figured I would, I turned into a blubbering idiot, and Julian couldn't have been kinder. I blurted that I love him, and he was gracious *and still so very very VERY handsome*. We talked for a couple of minutes before I thought I was going to pass out. I at least got to share with him how important Warlock was to me as a kid, how it was one of the first horror films I ever watched, and how much I enjoyed his work. He told me I was pretty, that he appreciated me, and that he liked the ring boyfriend had bought me. I was in fan girl heaven.

Y'all, he was sooooooooo nice. *Nicest guy ever, seriously.* HE KISSED MY HAND. I thought I was going to die. Also, he told me to come back by, but I didn't. I don't think I could have functioned.

Also, I met Malcolm McDowell of A Clockwork Orange fame (my little Droogies!) and Rob Zombie's Halloween 1 and 2. He signed my boyfriend's poster and boyfriend's best friend's Michael Myers mask (which he really liked), and shook my hand. IT WAS SO COOL.

I met George P. Wilbur, who was Michael in Halloween 4 and The Curse of Michael Myers. He was just under Julian in the "OMG YOU'RE SO FREAKING NICE" category and let me take a pic with him (it was a deal where you got a free pic if you had something signed) after taking a pic with Best Friend. It was SO COOOOOOOL. After the picture with Best Friend, George looked at me and said, "How about her? You can't have all the fun!" When I got next to him, he said, "Michael loooves women. Most of his victims were women." And then I took a picture with Michael Myers. OMG.

There was some sadness, though. There were people there I wasn't entirely familiar with (Damien from the original Omen, one of the dudes from The Crazies [not Timothy Olyphant *sad*], the dude who played Chainsaw in Summer School, a couple of people from Halloween 4), and none of them had large lines at all. The two biggest were for Linda Blair and Danielle Harris (the girl from Halloween 4 and Jamie's best friend in the 2 Rob Zombie Halloweens). But it was some serious awesome. If I'd had more money (like $500), I totally would have blown it on Julian and the people without lines. Because nothing makes you feel unappreciated like seeing Linda Blair's line, which stretched out into the lobby. I think people waited for like 2 hours to see her. I stood five feet away and got a pic of her signing something. It was cool.

P.S. I think Julian stole my heart from Chris Evans. If I meet Chris and he's HALF as nice as Julian, I might rethink that. But for now, I would totally leave Boyfriend for Julian.