Girl Meets Dragon Diorama

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.