Current Mischief – September 12th, 2017

The News

When Words Collide (WWC) 2017 has come and gone. I had a brilliant time with all my friends, made all kinds of new friends, and most likely frightened the bejesus out of everyone else. I participated in a fun panel about mythology in speculative fiction, a number of fantastic book socials, a couple of cool pitch sessions with Coffin Hop Press, and a blue pencil session where I gave all sorts of unhelpful (I suspect) feedback on other author’s work.

My new book, Fishing with the Devil, garnered a bit of soft launch interest. Check it out if you haven’t already and come to the official launch on September 28th at the Owl’s Nest (info below).

RustEnigma Front: The Monster Within was also released at the convention with my dark sci-fi story Secrets and Lies. It’s about a conflicted soldier willing to sacrifice everything to unearth ancient forbidden memories. Fun stuff so check that out if it sounds like your thing.

In other cool news, I was recently interviewed by Joshua Pantalleresco for his Just Joshing Podcast. We had a cool chat, so watch for it to be released sometime soon.

Writing

I haven’t had a lot of time to write over the summer (I’ve been spending my time editing and working books for Coffin Hop) but I’m still chipping away at No Joy (a full length Tagger Boone novel) and Tales from the Double-W Pawn Shop, my Winston and Wu story book. I’ve also started assembling stories for another short story collection about death tentatively titled Die Jobs.

Upcoming Events

CHIseries Calgary – Thursday, September 21st, 2017 (7pm-9pm)
I’ve been invited to participate in the fall instalment of the The Chiaroscuro Reading Series (along with Craig DiLouie and Axel Howerton) hosted by the queen of darkness herself, Sarah L. Johnson. Come on down to Buffalo Bob’s Canadian Pub and listen to us read some horrible (but in a good way) stories.

chi_series_calgary_sept_2017

Fishing with the Devil Launch – Thursday, September 28th, 2017 (7pm-9pm)
Coffin Hop will be officially launching Fishing with the Devil along with Axel Howerton’s noirvella masterpiece, Con Morte, at the Owls Nest. It’ll be a fun party with drinks, snacks, readings, and most certainly mischief. Come on down!

Sept Launch 2017

Running

The last few weeks contained two damn tough races, but I had fun and learned important lessons – namely to leave more than three weeks before long, hard races and do more heat training.

On August 19th I ran the Squamish 50 (Miles). The weather was fantastic (21C) and I was well trained up, both mentally and physically. Since it was my first attempt at a 50 mile (80 kilometer) race, I wasn’t sure how my body would handle it, but aside from expected fatigue and some crazy bladder issues, it went fantastic and I completed it in a little over 14 hours.

Squamish 50 2017

Then, three weeks later on September 8th, I ran the Lost Soul (100 kilometer distance). I’ve done his race twice before: the 50 km distance in 2014 and 54 km in 2015 when I paced my buddy Steve on his 100 mile slogfest. While I knew the course well, I was still beat up from Squamish but figured I could push past that and complete my first 100 km race. Sadly, it was not to be. The weather was rough, a 35C day (40C+ in the bottom of the river valley) with thick smoke blowing in from Waterton. The air quality was terrible and the heat ended up ripping the life out of me. Combined with already weary bones and sore feet, I decided to drop at 62 km when my heat exhaustion approached a full blown heatstroke. Not worth killing myself over. I’ll be back in a couple of years to try again!

Lost Soul 2017

Upcoming Running Events

No body smashing ultra’s until at least February (Frozen Ass 50), but I’ll be running the local Harvest Half Marathon on September 30th,

♥ ♥ ♥

Cheers!
Rob

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