Celebrity – Page 8 – AJ Mullican, Author

Making a list and checking it eleventy times

#dreams, #dystopian, #nerd, #publishing, Celebrity, Convention, Corsetry, Cosplay, costuming, Crafting, Geek, Marketing, Novel, Plus size, Promotion, Reading, Sci-fi, Sewing, Stress, Work, Writing

Well, I did it–I applied for a table at Tucson Comic Con…and I was approved!
I talked it out with my husband, and since the con is three days while Coronation is only one, he’s going to drop me off at TCC the day of Coronation, drive up to see his friend step down and get his Duchy, then drive back to Tucson to sit with me at my table. I’ve already annoyed all my local friends to try to get them to at least stop by the table (if not purchase a book or two while they’re there 😉 ), but my mind is racing with stuff I have to get done beforehand.

I’ve gotta get a tablecloth. That will make it look nicer. The TCC website said there would be a table provided, but no mention of tablecloth was made.
Square reader. Need one. Easy enough to obtain, but I don’t want to forget to obtain it.
Cash box/pouch? Hmm….
Better start plans to stock up on books to sell/sign at the con.
I need to finish fixing my Dark Phoenix steampunk corset. I made it too large when I initially sewed it, and even though I’ve regained some weight I’ll still need to take it back in.
Devise and sew a sci-fi-ish cosplay to wear one day? Hmm…. I do have a pattern for a body suit…I’d have to get my serger up and running again and remember how to use it though…And make a corset to go over said bodysuit because omg fatness lol
If I do do a new cosplay, a fun new wig to go with it 😉
Once I find out what promo materials I’ll have from the publisher, I need to make another list of display items to get, like some kind of stands to prop up books, signage, etc.
Tubs to carry stuff to and from the table in each day.

I’m sure there’s more I haven’t thought of, but that’s enough for now. I am beyond excited to have this opportunity. It’s fun to think that I’m getting back into cons and stuff, but it’s also going to be work. I won’t be able to leave the table much because I’ll have to be there so people can actually meet the author and get autographs if they want. So it’s not all fun and games. I’ll have moments of severe social anxiety that I’ll have to suck up and swallow down, because I can’t go freaking out over all the people when I paid money to be up in the thick of it (or back in a corner somewhere, which is more likely where I’ll be put. Lol)
There’s also a little thing called a housewarming party that I need to finish straightening the craft room for…I have to clear off both tables so we’ll have a place for people to sit and eat, and I have to get some semblance of organization done so my husband’s Peer has a place to crash for the night.
Oh, and I have to go see the podiatrist yet again because my left foot is either broken or has a neuroma or some crazy shit like that. There’s that, too.

Pros and cons of cons

#dreams, #dystopian, #nerd, #publishing, Celebrity, Convention, Geek, Marketing, Novel, Promotion, Reading, SCA, Sci-fi, Thoughts, Writing

So I have a decision to make…and it’s kind of a tough one.
There’s this convention, see. Tucson Comic Con. I wrote a sci-fi novel. Sci-fi and comic cons go together like peas and carrots. Or something. Point is, it would be a great opportunity to promote myself as an Arizona author with a new publication. The fee for a table isn’t unreasonable, and I’d have time to buy up a small stockpile of books to sign/sell at the con.
Buuuuuuuut…..The same weekend is also Coronation for the next King and Queen of our SCA Kingdom-slash-stepping down of my husband’s friend from current King to Duke.
Fuck. My. Life.
I want to be there to support my husband’s friend and my chosen family, but I also want to be able to be visibly there to promote my book at a medium-sized convention.
What do I do?
My husband was initially on-board with the con thing, but when he found out it was the same weekend as Coronation it was all nope, can’t do it. But I want to. I need to talk to him, I guess. I just feel like a jerk for wanting to.
We don’t have to do everything together. We can split the weekend–but it would be kind of a bummer not to have him there.
I’ll think it over. Who knows? I might not even get a booth. It might end up being a moot point.
But it would be freakin’ awesome to be able to do the con…..
*Sigh*
I’ll talk with my husband. See what his thoughts are. I know he won’t be happy, but maybe we can compromise.

Into the Void

#nerd, Celebrity, Geek, Social Media, Thoughts

Pi Day, 2018: a sad day for nerds everywhere. It was “as if millions of voices suddenly cried out” when I read the news…
Stephen Hawking has died.
Now, I don’t claim to be a huge fan of physics. I’ve never read any of his work, and if I did I’m sure I’d be lost just perusing the forward, let alone delving into the inner workings of the mind of this incredibly brilliant man. I can kindamaybesorta understand the Schroedinger’s cat theory of physics. Kinda. Maybe. Sorta. But black holes and the universe as a whole? That’s wayyyyyyy beyond my comprehension. So why does it make me sad that Hawking has passed away?
I think I’ve figured it out. He was more than just a physicist. More than an theorist. More than the sum of his IQ. He was humorous. He put a smiling face out to the world when it must have taken all his effort to do so. He freakin’ guest-starred on a sitcom about nerd and geek life, not to mention the Futurama and Family Guy voice-overs. This was a guy who could take his disability and say yeah, it sucks, but I’m not going to let it be the be-all and end-all of who I am. Was he as well known for his disability as he was for his science? Yeah, but I think that’s more society’s fault than his own. I mean, he has no control over what perceptions people choose to focus on when they think about him. Human nature sucks sometimes. We zero in on the oddities and abnormalities and oftentimes overlook the light within the shell.
Where will Hawking’s light go now that he’s gone? He may have had a scientific mind, but the afterlife is kinda a personal ambiguity that is, in my opinion, unique to the individual. Are there fluffy clouds and angels and saints? Is it as empty and inescapable as a black hole? Are both true? I think that, for the sake of sanity, those are questions best left to each person to figure out and reconcile in their own way. I don’t know Hawking’s personal thoughts on the matter of life after death; I don’t know if he believed in an afterlife in the religious sense or if he was of the school of thought where we’re born, we live, we die, and we rot. And to be honest? I don’t care. That’s his afterlife. That’s where he chose to go, what he chose to believe, and if it gave him more comfort in life to believe that his mind ended when his body did, then so be it. More power to him. I for one will let my imagination wander a bit on this. I’d like to think that now he has answers to all the questions he ever had in life. I’d like to think that, free of his body’s limitations, he can now travel the galaxies and actually witness the inside of a black hole. I’d like to think that he knows now how accurate his theories were. I’d like to think that wherever or whatever he is now, he’s at peace.
I’m not quite as torn up as I was for Carrie Fisher’s death. I’m sad, but I’m not sobbing. A little tearing up, but that could be allergies to be honest. Maybe a little dry eye. Regardless, a great man is gone and it sucks that he had to go, but it’s great that he had the life he did. He was able to continue to use his mind even when his body betrayed him. He had the fortune to live in a time when technology could advance enough to prevent him from being completely trapped inside himself. It makes me a little verklempt. Okay, so maybe it’s not allergies. Or dry eyes.
The Age of Celebrity Deaths is far from over. We’re so immersed in the lives of our favorite celebs/public figures that we forget that we don’t always personally know them; we mourn as though we were present for all those media moments that awarded Very Important Person a spot in our hearts. The knife of death cuts deeper each time, but we’ve got to remember that every celebrity in history eventually comes to the same end we all come to. Some more violently and tragically than others, true, but it happens. Media saturation just makes it seem sadder than it has to be.
As I ponder these things, I think about my own eventual demise. Oh, don’t be like that; again, it happens to us all. I have no intention of speeding up the process by any means, but I need to start maybe living a little more. Write more. Make more art. Leave my own little mark on the world. Who knows? Maybe some day, in some distant future, some blogger fan of mine will be doing some pondering of their own as news of my passing reaches the media. They’ll be sad, they’ll tear up a little, and they’ll write up their own tribute that I’ll never get to read.
Or will I?

A page in the life

#publishing, Celebrity, Fandom, Insomnia, Marketing, Novel, Promotion, Sleep, Social Media, Writing

So I manage a cosplay page on Facebook (that has stalled at the wayside as SCA overruns cosplay on the priority scale), a “fan” page for our cat, Rory, a page for my oft-forgotten Etsy shop, and of course the work I do for the Barony. So why did I add another page to keep track of?
Oh yeah, author Facebook pages are a thing. That’s why I did it.
You see, it goes something like this: I was typing up a scheduled post for Friday (keep your eyes peeled, folks!), and I realized that I haven’t had a proper page for my writing in years. I just keep losing track of what I’m doing and forgetting to post and then I ditch the page in favor of just using Twitter and this blog to promote moi.
Can’t keep doing that. People like having “fanpages” they can use to get updates on their favorite authors’ comings and goings. Granted, I don’t come or go much, but I do write, and I can write about writing. So off to Facebook I went to create a page.
Except I can’t get the damn URL to be custom. I guess not enough people like the page yet? Maybe that’s why…anywho, for now this is the URL: https://www.facebook.com/AJ-Mullican-143311953045804/
Yeah, you see why I want a custom one. I think if enough people like the page I can pop in and create that custom URL in a jiffy, but right now it’s the middle of the night and no one’s up to add it.
It should be interesting to see how the viewership of this blog changes with the new Facebook page. You see, I changed my Twitter settings so my tweets go to the author page, not my personal Facebook feed. Say what? Yeah, WordPress is cool like that; it lets you share to different social media platforms when you publish. So why does changing my Twitter settings change my WordPress posting? Okay, so Twitter does a cool thing, too: it lets you share your tweets to different social media platforms as well. So WordPress –> Twitter –> Facebook. Easy peasy. Or something. It’s worked so far; guess we’ll see how well it works now that the settings are tweaked. If worse comes to worse (or is it worst comes to worst? Damnit), I can just share from the page to my personal feed if I want my blog read by more friends and family. A P.I.T.A. to be sure, but eventually people will see that the author page is the original poster of the blog posts and thus go to the author page and like it and then everything will be swell. Or not.
Facebook, you see, is tricksy.

More tricksy than nots. What they have are these silly metrics things, which are apparently arbitrary and only to Facebook’s benefit. To make a long story short, if you don’t pay them monies to get your posts seen, even people who “follow” your page won’t see your posts. Lame.
So, again, why make the author page?
Because it gives my publisher a link to show people, that’s why. Yeah, it’s a new page and doesn’t have much content (yet)….it’s still something. And the more links they can give, the more exposure I can get once it’s time for Book 1 to get released.

Credit to the Oatmeal. Because that guy fucking rocks, and he deserves both exposure and monies for the work he does.
Seriously, though, as an author a little exposure can go a long way. I mean, if people don’t know I’m there or that my work is there, how can they be interested? Yeah, exposure itself doesn’t pay, but if people see the thing and want to read the thing, then (in theory) if they want it enough they’ll pay to read the thing.
Or maybe I’m just nucking futs at 1:30 in the morning, having very little sleep and being unable to either get to sleep naturally or take more sleeping medicine. (I already took my prescriptions hours ago…they worked to get me to sleep initially, but not to keep me there or get me back there.)
We’ll see how the page goes once people wake up and start liking the page and once I can update the URL and all that fun happy stuff.
Until then…to the writing board!

Godly aspirations

#design, #nerd, Celebrity, Comic books, Convention, Cosplay, costuming, Crafting, Fandom, Geek, Movies, Plus size, Sewing

Well, I have my newest cosplay obsession. I went to see Thor: Ragnarok last night and now I’ve decided I have to do a Hela cosplay.
Observe:

Weight issues aside, it’s not too far of a stretch. I’ve been told on more than one occasion that I look similar to Cate Blanchett, and let’s face it, Hela is a badass. (Ok, so I might have dozed a bit during the part where Thor kicked her ass… what can I say? It was past my bedtime.)
It should be an interesting challenge. I’ll have to make a bodysuit, figure out the shoulder cutouts, and figure out all the piping and stuff.
Oh wait. I have two Italian Renaissance outfits to make before Yule. And a synopsis to polish. And revisions out the wazoo. And Christmas presents to make. And work.
Not to mention that we’re not really going to as many conventions lately. Not since this year’s Phoenix Comicontroversy. Still…it shall happen.
Some day.

A matter of time…

#design, Celebrity, Comic books, Convention, Corsetry, Cosplay, Interview, Sewing, Time, Work

So I think I got my motivation for cosplay back…the problem is, today I just don’t have much time to work on it.

Today’s a long, early day at work, which means I don’t have the time to sew that I’d like to have. On the plus side, though, I’m back to wanting to sew.

I have an interview with an actress after work today, so I probably won’t get any sewing done then, but hopefully tomorrow morning I can get a little bit done. Now that I figured out the secret to getting the pleather to move through the sewing machine easier, it shouldn’t be too bad to get the rest of it done. Next after the corset is the shrug, which should be easy enough once I get the proportions figured out. Stupid fat arms lol I have to modify the pattern a bit to get my upper arms to fit it. Gonna be a mock-up for sure.

Then on to the really scary part: Spandex! I saved that for last because I knew A- I have never worked with it before (& it’s a bit terrifying to even think about) & B- I know that the two things I have to make with the Spandex can be purchased online easily enough, if it comes down to that. We’ll see. I don’t want to be relying on Amazon Prime to get our last costume pieces here on time, but if that’s what it comes down to then that’s what we’ll do. I can always use the Spandex later, either to improve on what we bought or to make something new.

Life is going to get interesting in the coming months & even the next couple of years, but I think I can handle it. Just have to get to/through Dragon Con and then I’ll have some breathing room. Maybe even time for writing? Who knows.

Almost time to get ready for work!

Missing motivation

Celebrity, Convention, Corsetry, Cosplay, Interview, Work

I should be in the craft room. I should be sewing. There’s less than a month until we leave for Dragon Con and I still have a ton of work to do. So why can’t I make myself go into the sewing room & get cracking?

I guess part of it is that my husband is pressing me to finish. I have this tendency to “rebel” when pushed, and since he is adamant that I keep working on it I’m stubbornly not working on it. Self-destruction at its finest.

This past Saturday, my husband and I went to a friend’s house to work on prop making. It’s going really well, but we had to stop for the day and will be back to it next Saturday. Yesterday, I did a minimal amount of sewing on the corset. I need to finish the boning channels and order the boning, but my procrastinating self just won’t get off her ass and go into the craft room to get to work.

Adding to this is the fact that I have to write interview questions for a phone call I’ll be getting tomorrow evening. I suppose that should take priority, seeing as how the deadline for that is much closer than Dragon Con. I’m glad that the actress (and her “people”–I guess I should thank them, too) was willing to work around my schedule and do an evening interview. I get so frustrated when I can’t take any of the good interviews that Talk Nerdy With Us offers because I’m working all the time. Don’t get me wrong–I need and want the money–but I just miss doing interviews. The email ones are fewer and farther between, and they’re just not the same.

Yeah, I’d better draft up some questions. That’s a good reason to procrastinate on the sewing, and it also will help me get back in the swing of things, interviewingly speaking.

Public Displays

Celebrity, Language, Social Media, Thoughts, Writing

Responsibility can be a pain in the ass sometimes.

Remember that anthology I talk about every so often? Well, it’s in jeopardy now as yet another author has left the project…this time not due to lack of time to devote to the project, but rather due to a certain member’s public social media profile.

What blows about it is that I’m in a position of authority in the project so it’s partly my responsibility to see to the matter, because the now-former member has a point.

When you’re in a position like I am–like all of the authors in the project, really–you’ve got to think about the public face you put out for the world to see. This is a project involving authors from around the world, and the goal is trans-Atlantic publication. So yeah, it’s a lot to think about. How do you want potential publishers to see you? Do you have a profile that they wouldn’t want associated with their name, or is your public face free of blemishes?

I’ll freely admit that mine profile’s not 100% clean. There’s more than one reason I don’t put my day job down on Facebook, and the desire for the freedom to cuss every once in a while is just one of those reasons. Is it a profile that I’d be afraid to show publishers? No, because it’s who I am, and my writing reflects that–well, it generally reflects that. Obviously for the project I don’t write the same type of material that I write for personal things–heck, I even write differently here. But I try to keep from getting publicly involved in controversial topics and potentially offensive things (the occasional blue language notwithstanding). I also generally don’t add people under the age of 18 as friends or follow them on social media, not even family members, because I don’t feel that the things I post are appropriate for that age group.

Now, this isn’t something I had considered (as far as the project goes) until this was brought to my attention, but it is a valid point. Your public social media posts can come back to haunt you. Think about what you’re posting: Is it appropriate? Is it offensive? Is it excessively violent/graphic/etc.?

Think before you post, everyone. If you don’t have a problem with posting blatantly offensive or controversial, that’s all well and good. Just be aware that not everyone’s going to be fine with it and it could potentially cut off profitable avenues.

Twit for Brains

Celebrity, Social Media

Man, I can’t seem to tear myself away from Twitter for very long this morning. Usually by now I’ve written a blog and chatted with a few friends and maybe done some cosplay sewing or writing or something. Yeah, I’ve gotten a little of all that done today, but for some reason I keep going back to Twitter.

What keeps us locked on social media? Why do we keep hitting refresh or view (x) new tweets or some such thing? I mean, sure, some of the people I follow I genuinely want to know about…but some are news pages, and some are people I’ve followed that I’ve never bothered to unfollow (generally people who don’t post anything other than book ads–not that I don’t advertise my own book from time to time, but I’ve learned to try to keep it at a minimum…not constantly).

Facebook isn’t as bad, unless one or more of my friends are online. Then I’m just messaging back and forth, learning about their day or sharing mine. But Twitter…man, some days I need a twelve-step program. Even now I want to log back in, to check and see if there’s anything worth retweeting or replying to. I want to see what the trending hashtags are, and see if I want to be trendy and use one of them.

For live tweeting it can’t be avoided, obviously. You have to be on Twitter, and you have to refresh frequently to keep up with the other live tweeters. But in day-to-day life? I don’t know about that, man.

I also get caught up in how many of my tweets get liked or retweeted. Just this morning a celebrity liked a tweet that I sent in reply to one of their tweets. If you’ve read my piece on Talk Nerdy With Us about “social media fame,” you’ll know my opinion on that–yet I still get excited.

Good thing for me that it will soon be time to get ready for work. I’ll have no choice but to leave the Twitterverse behind for a while as I take my shower and get dressed. Then, once I’m at work, Twitter will have to disappear until I get my lunch break or go home.

Bye-bye, Twitter. I’m sure I’ll see you again soon.

A good day for a Song

Celebrity, Convention, Cosplay, Fandom, Geek, Sci-fi

Today will be Day 3 of Phoenix Comicon for me, and I’m most excited for today. Why, you ask? Because I have my first ever official con photo op (not just a selfie at the guest’s booth), and it’s with the one, the only River Song (aka Alex Kingston)!

River Song is my favorite Doctor Who companion, hands down. I cosplayed her as my first cosplay, and ever since they announced that Alex would be at the con I’ve been eager to get a photo op. I’m debating having her sign the photograph later in the day, because sometimes you get a little bit of time to chat with the guest at the autograph table (as opposed to the photo ops, where they have you move right along to keep the line under control).

I’ll be dressed in my Star Wars/Doctor Who mashup cosplay today, complete with Ultrasabers lightsaber:

13307342_1052150321543813_7559592774447620295_n

I got a lot of compliments on my costume Thursday evening when I wore it, and I’m hoping Alex likes it. (Of course, being an actress and all she’ll probably say she loves it regardless of her personal opinion on it haha). I could have done a River Song cosplay again, but I don’t have a good wig for it anymore and my hair is shock-straight no matter what I do with it.

If you’re at Phoenix Comicon today and see me, feel free to ask for a photo if you like my costume. If you don’t like it or don’t want a photo, just wave and say “hi” 🙂