Last week, I visited my brother who lives in Chattanooga. I bet that I’m the only old man around
who can ask his brother—an even older old man—if he might dig out a pair of
plastic dragon wings for me to use for a project. Of course, Johnny dug around
in several boxes of fantasy wargaming stuff until he found just the brace of
big brown bat-wings I was hoping for. When I picked up a metal miniature of a dying
horse from a pack of Custer’s Last Stand cavalrymen, he said sure, take it.
Then he dug around some more and offered me a miniature of a slender hands-on-hips
young lady in a floor length dress and long tresses. Three for three.
Back at home I fetched my zoo-store-purchase
plastic horny toad, drilled holes into her back for the wing-studs, and repainted
the miniature horse and gal. After a trip to Hobby Lobby for a $3 wooden oval
base, I put the pieces together for a tasty ‘Girl Meets Dragon’ diorama.
See the pics.
It’s not just a ‘Girl Meets
Dragon’ vignette. It’s a “Leine Meets Mally Standing Over the
Dead Carcass of Marble, Mally’s Prized Appaloosa Filly” vignette. Over
Mally’s strenuous objections, poor Marble became Leine’s supper, putting girl
and horny-toad dragon off to a rocky start to their budding friendship.
The diorama will go with me to the
weekend living history festival near Houston called Texian Market Days.
I’ll have my book stall set up on vendor row, earnestly peddling my novels and
my co-authored non-fiction history book. I’m hoping that perhaps the little 3-D display
will draw enough attention to sell a few copies of A Different Dragon
Entirely. I’m even more hoping that folks
strolling by my book stall will buy some copies of my new Civil War novel, With
Might & Main.
While I do truly enjoy chatting with
folks, hawking my books at outdoor events, the fact is that relentless self-marketing is one of those necessary
facets of independently publishing one’s novels. It’s great having my books on
Amazon’s online bookstore, but unless Oprah chooses one of them for her book
club, those face-to-face sales are important.
Since it's mid-October and the Houston Astros are in the
World Series, and their best player is a guy named Altuve who is as short as I
am, which is really unusual in the Big Leagues, here’s an old photo of me
during my Little League days in the early sixties.
I was probably the worst
Little League player in my town or in any town. I was truly bad, but I enjoyed
putting on the duds. Maybe that’s why I enjoyed two decades of being a Civil
War reenactor. And not to mention they don’t keep score in reenacting. 😊
Happy Halloween.
