Daniel J. Hogan's Blog

Writer/editor William Jones is running a contest over on his blog. He's working on another H.P. Lovecraft inspired anthology, this one dealing with Lovecraft's made up Miskatonic University, and is asking readers to submit comments as if they had been a student at good ol' MU. William is going to pick up to five that he feels fit the bill the best and print them in the book - and you get a free copy of the book as well.

Always one for a contest, I gave it a shot. I decided to just do something quick and funny - taking the persona of someone who went to MU on a track scholarship and never really knew  exactly what was going on (a clueless jock I guess).

I'm new to the Lovecraft Mythos, but I've enjoyed everything I've read so far and I'm happy for a chance to be included in a collection of Mythos stories. As William says "...here is an easy way to get into print." William and I were on the Influences of H.P. Lovecraft panel at ConClave this past October. He'll forget more about H.P. than I'll ever know, but I had fun - and I actually did a decent job for it being my first panel. I had more say in the people who had actually been influenced, and myself being influenced by them (trickle down influence, if you will) - such as Hellboy creator Mike Mignola and the Evil Dead movies.

So wish me luck - and let me know what you think of my entry. I may do another one now that I realize William is keeping this open for awhile. He said we can submit as many as we want, but he'll only take one.

I like my premise for the story: someone  who is at the university, but isn't involved in the typical weird going ons - someone in the background who is exposed to the weird stuff, but not directly a part of it. Kind of like the construction workers on the second Death Star in Return of the Jedi.

I think spending the past four days not doing much of anything has caught up with me, I feel horrible (I feel like I've been crying - but I haven't been).

Or it was because I didn't get to bed until 4 this morning and slept in till noon (for the record I was only up that late because my drive home took forever in the blinding snowstorm and my caffeinated adult beverages kicked it, thus keeping me wide awake. I'm sure the white knuckle drive of terror at 2 in the AM didn't help either). And I didn't even drink that much, I only had like two and a half drinks last night.

I'm sure that my sitting around the apartment for most the past four days didn't help anything. This is why I won't typically take time off of work unless I have stuff to do or places to go - if I don't, I'll just sit around all day/night and be miserable and go stir-crazy. I am very much a person who needs to be kept busy - and at the same time someone who likes to be lazy, quite a contradiction.

I know I shouldn't make it sound like I'm complaining for having the past four days (and today) off, and I'm not complaining about that - I just wish the weather had been nicer so I would have been able to go do stuff, or at least been inspired to go out and do something.

I'm trying to get motivated to start work on my short story again tonight. I was going to go to the Starbucks at the mall (inside Barnes & Noble), but they closed at six (I called 'em at like 5:45 too - good thing I called). Man I hate winter, I hate driving in snow.

Had a bit of a Small World moment last night - I was at a party and was talking about The Magic of Eyri and handed out cards. One of the guys said "Oh, I've seen this card before." I asked him where and he said "A convention," so I asked "ConClave?" "Yep!"

So it turns out we were at the same convention in October, go figure. I'm kind of surprised I didn't see him, because I've known him for awhile now but it possible he went to stuff I didn't get a chance to go to - which is very likely. He'll be at ConFusion this month as well.