Once upon a time there were big plans for this October. I was gonna do lots of book signings. The University of Oklahoma was gonna whip the University of Texas in football. My Writing Horror class was going to go off without a hitch, too.

Well, most of the signings never materialized. The Hasting’s contact I had never returned my messages. Full Circle pushed me back to December. The other author I was going to sign with has become very quiet (I keep meaning to call you, Craig, to see if you’re okay.) The only sure thing I have planned at the moment is Scare on the Square in Enid. There are a couple of other things that are still possibilities, though. One is a paranormal conference in OKC, put on by the Scare on the Square folks.

OU proved yesterday they’re still just a little too young and green to beat Texas. It was a good first half, though. I think we’ll have the edge in experience next year, at least on the lines. Of course, we’ll have another first-year quarterback. And we’ll likely lose Adrian Peterson to the NFL after this season. So … who knows?

My Writing Horror class got pushed back a week because the school couldn’t get copies of the book I used in designing the class. It’s Edo van Belkom’s Writing Horror. Then the school called again to say the book is out of print. All the other how-to-write-horror books I have are OOP, too. So I had to scramble to find another book for class. I ended up going with Nancy Kress’s Beginnings, Middles & Ends, not a horror manual at all. That meant I had to find a copy and begin reading, since I chose the book based on reputation and past experience with Writer’s Digest Books. It seems okay. Not great, but it’ll do. Of course, that means I have to rewrite a good deal of my course because Edo’s book was a major part of it. Next time, I guess I can use the new edition of the Horror Writers Association manual, which is due out in about a month, I believe. Anyway, it’s not too late to enroll in the class.

Speaking of HWA, the organization got behind the Horror Day of Action idea at least a little. They’ve posted the four parts to a publicity class I wrote on the public part of the Web site. You can see it here. The information can be adapted and used for just about any promotion you’re putting on, I think.

I’ve turned over the management of my MySpace page to Alex. I’ve been spending too much time dealing with that when I should be writing. He has his own MySpace page and has become pretty good at designing it. Plus, he’s closer to the age group that really lives on MySpace, so hopefully he’ll make the site more attractive to potential book buyers. I’m paying him a monthly flat rate, plus a bonus for every 50 new friends the site gets. With his obsession for buying crappy music, I look forward to getting lots of new friends.