What a week! My Writing Horror class started at Moore Norman Technology Center, and I got a surprise. Yeah, well, another one. I’d originally asked for Ellen Datlow’s The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror as a secondary text book. I was told they weren’t going to order that. So I put in the lesson plan to read public domain stuff off the Web. I get to class on Tuesday and find they’ve ordered Stephen Jones’ Best New Horror anthology. Of course, I haven’t read anything in there. So class begins with not one, but two different books than what I’d anticipated. Oh well.

Wednesday I got a rush job from one of my freelance clients — the one that pays the most. A complete employee benefits newsletter had to be delivered by Friday morning. So I had Wednesday evening and Thursday after the horror class to write it. I got it done, but I currently have fish hooks holding my eyelids up. (Okay, maybe not, but you get the idea.) I just got a round of edits for an earlier newsletter I did for the same client. Those will get done Sunday.

This evening has been all about getting ready to lecture about werewolves at ParaCon 2006 tomorrow. Well, that and dealing with a passle of kids, many of which I did, admittedly, father.

Oh, but back to the title of this entry. I spent the last three days “teaching” a geometry class at Moore High School. I say “teach” because the idea of me actually imparting knowledge in a math class is laughable. Anyway, as a tool to help me keep the classes under control, the real teacher offered an incentive to the class that was best behaved during her absence. It was a good tool … until it came down to time for me to pick one class. They were all pretty good. But, how do you compare a half-asleep first hour with a hyped up sixth hour that’s actually working to remain calm? Then, I really enjoyed the third hour class and fourth hour, while not generally as well behaved, was a lot of fun. Fifth hour pretty much screwed themselves on the first day with the paperwad throwing. Anyway, I had to choose a winner today, and I did, but asked the teacher to award a consolation prize to another hour, too. I hope she does. I enjoyed the three days with the class.

On one of those days I got to cover an English class during my planning period. They were studying “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.” Other classes that teacher has was studying Frankenstein. Hopefully some day soon I’ll have my own English class and can assign horror stories.

Today is Horror Day. I didn’t actually hold any kind of event. What I did do was drop off a copy of David Morrell’s Creepers for a fantastic promotional campaign I’ll be watching closely (with an eye toward stealing later). And, I gave away one copy of each of my books to students in my fourth hour class. I was a little leery about that, but the students who took the books assured me their parents would be okay with the content. Hopefully Skye will see that werewolves really are better than vampires. haha

Two last things. Brian Keene is a depressing SOB. I finished reading his City of the Dead about a week ago and am still pissed about the ending. Of course, if he hadn’t made me care about the characters so much that ending wouldn’t have been strong enough that I’m still bitching about it a week later. (And Brian’s really one helluva nice guy, by the way.)

Finally, Greg Lamberson, if you’re reading this, you’ve got me hooked. Again. I had to print what you sent me so I could carry it with me to read, but now that I’ve done that I’m making quick progress and enjoying the hell out of it. The anus packed with cotton was a nice detail. For the rest of you, go to Greg’s Web site and learn how to buy his debut novel, Personal Demons, and his movies, like Slime City. Don’t wait to get on the bandwagon, do it now. Greg may be a New York Democrat, but he’s a mighty talented one!