You’ve probably never heard of it, but this past week I was at a writer’s conference called Superstars put on by Kevin J. Anderson of Star Wars and Dune fame as well as a number of other great authors. There, almost 400 writers descended upon Colorado Springs and took over the downtown to teach and learn and share knowledge about the writing craft as well as the writing business.
If you’re a writer, you should definitely look up this conference. There’s tons of great information shared by authors like Kevin, Jonathan Maberry, Jim Butcher, Kevin Ikenberry, and many many more.
I’m typing this up in the airport in COS mostly because American Airlines pretty much screwed an entire plane full of passengers. I’ll be spending the night here in the main area of the airport, so I can re-check my bags for the same flight at 4:30am tomorrow morning.
Yes, that sucks… but it’s not stopping me from getting you my latest newsletter. I’ll tell you a little more about that below.
Free Fiction…
If you didn’t get it in the first round back in January, you can still download three fantasy short stories for free. Those stories are all set in the Eldros Legacy world, and two of them deal with my main character Rellen of Corsia. The stories are:
So, if you are looking for some great new fantasy fiction, you need go no further than the links above.
The American Airlines Nightmare…
So, the nightmare began when the American Airlines plane I was taking out of Colorado Springs arrived to the gate a little late and they took forever to disembark. When I saw the tiny delay, I checked my connection flight and realized that the window for me to make it (20 minutes at the time) was going to be a close call. If you’ve ever been to the Dallas/Ft. Worth airport, you know it’s six or seven terminals connected by a big, looping train. The agent said, “you only need 5 minutes.” I had to restrain myself from saying, “Ma’am, it takes 5 minutes to get TO the train, a few more for it to arrive, 5 mins for the train to get to the terminal you want, and another five to get to the gate.”
I can’t stand people who don’t think about the words that come out of their mouths.
Anyway, we boarded about 10 minutes late. That meant we’d need a pretty good tail wind for me to make my connection. Then the plane sat. And sat. And sat. Apparently, the pilot saw some oil on the pavement beneath one of the engines.
So we sat. And sat.
“Oh,” they said, “we just need to tweak something and we’ll be on our way…”
“Yeah, right…” So, at this point, I realize I don’ have a hope in hell of making my connection. About thirty minutes later, they tell us that someone didn’t tighten an oil line in a turbine, and that’s why there’s lubricant everywhere.
“Okay, everybody… get off the plane and we’ll wait for them to fix it.”
We all get off, and everyone gets in line to try and rearrange their connection flight. I get on the American App. I won’t go into all the details, but two and a half hours later (while some miserable little “First Class” puke held up the entire line and one of three agents for three hours because he would only fly in First Class), I had been moved to three different Dallas flights and the Flight out of the Springs was moved to 6:30 in the morning on the following day.
Of course, they’d already sent all of our luggage back to baggage claim.
“Okay,” I say, I’ll just stay in the terminal till tomorrow morning (11 hours away).”
“Oh, no,” they say, “you have to go out of the gate area and into the main airport.“
And I thought I was pissed off before. So, here I am, suitcase next to me, waiting to recheck it and go back through security at 4:30 in the morning. I have a nastygram out to AA to get a serious travel voucher AND a refund for the second time I had to pay for an extended seat. But that’s another story.
Anyhoo, that was the nightmare, and it won’t be over for another sixteen hours. The cats are sure going to be hungry for wet food….
You can learn more about Eldros Legacy at www.EldrosLegacy.com. And don’t forget that Rhenn the Traveler was just released on Tuesday. It’s the ninth book from Eldros and the third in Todd Fahnestock’s legacy of Shadows.
Don’t forget to follow me on my website and check out the growing list of free short stories I have on BookFunnel and StoryOrigin. I’m attacking 2023 with a vengeance!
