At a neighbor's booth at Norwescon, Amanda found matching dragon rings in our respective sizes, which we adopted as a shared totem.

The Confabule Expeditionary Force—Amanda Kimmerly and yours truly—journeyed the reverse of ancient wisdom, traveling a thousand miles in order to make a single step. We saved up credit for extra steps in the process, rolling 4800+ miles onto the odometer in a road trip to Seattle and back for Norwescon 35, April 5-8. The single step we’ll take as a consequence of this journey—at least, the single largest step—is to immediately cease going to cons as a tactic for promoting The Hidden Lands of Nod and Confabule.

First, Norwescon is a fine event, well organized with interesting guests, a well-run dealer room and great attendees. The table next to ours belonged to the Northwest Independent Writers Association, a group based in Portland, Oregon, with members in Oregon, Washington and Idaho. We could not have asked for better neighbors. Novels by NIWA members Cynthia Robbins (The Light Warrior) and Brad Wheeler (Fugitives from Earth) have joined the library here at Stikmantic HQ.

Norwescon provided great conversation in abundance, both with people who know about many things and, richer but less often, with people who also understand things. Costuming showed a pronounced shift to ever more cursory steampunk. Fewer Klingons, fewer Star Fleet officers, fewer bounty hunters, fewer Jedi attended, about the same percentage vampires as always and a pronounced dearth of original concepts created from scratch by the costumer. There was also a pronounced dearth of book and art sales.

At the end of the day (or con, as it were), book and art sales are what the process is about for Robert Stikmanz, The Hidden Lands of Nod and Confabule. It doesn’t matter so much if the sales are from hours at the table we staff in a dealer room, or if the sales are downstream from the event in the form of web orders for books and e-books. What matters is that there are sales as a result of the activity. Science fiction/fantasy conventions are entertaining events at which one meets many wonderful, delightful, fascinating people. Unfortunately, in this latter day most of them are people who do not buy books and art.

Rolling home from Seattle, mile after mile through stunning landscapes of Oregon, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming, and across the numbing expanse of Kansas, Kansas, Kansas, Amanda and I examined our experience. One conclusion we have reached is that, regardless of obvious thematic connections, genre labels are not productive for Stikmanz or Confabule, and genre-themed events are not a fertile source of potential audience. This may be cold comfort to other authors and artists selling no copies of demonstrably genre-oriented work, but it indicates a clear direction for Stikmanz & Co.

Much discussion with Ms. Kimmerly brought me to realize that my voice contrasts sharply from that of the bulk of science fiction and fantasy around issues of intentionality. The intentional difference—my work’s agenda— likely poisons its market at events targeted to an audience looking primarily for abeyance from the reality of their lives. This is one of those obvious, practical-joking truths that sits half an inch in front of one’s face, waiting to laugh riotously at the startle effect when its presence finally registers. The Stikmantic imagination may embrace magic and surreality, but for a public for whom its accurate description must ever more hyphenate, it fails one of the primary aims for which genre fiction is now marketed: escape from the real world we are making.

I speculate from anecdote, always risky. Whether this or other reasons lie behind the steep fall-off in sales, an 800 pound gorilla at the bargaining table is that participating in science fiction/fantasy conventions is not an effective strategy for reaching those likely to purchase my work. Fun though events may be, every con I have attended in the past two years has been a money-losing activity. There is no more resource to spare for the experiment; we turn immediately toward an entirely different tack. Right now, this month, the Confabule expeditionary force launches on a virtual journey. Our attention for the next few months will be website development. Beyond that, who knows? Irons are in the fire, and ideas are welcome. Vast changes are in the offing. Allons, enfants!

This Sunday, Amanda Kimmerly and I load the mighty Scion and hit the road for Seattle and Norwescon 35. Reputedly one of the larger regional sci-fi/fantasy cons in the country, this event is so far outside our usual territory that we are taking almost two weeks for travel up, the stay, and the return trip.

Considerable soul-searching has gone into this initiative, and I expect to search further in the course of the journey. Frankly, I am close to discouraged, although what I am experiencing may be more a combination of weariness and frustration. The past several months have stretched me thin—too thin—and provided no signs that encourage forward movement. I am finding that I cannot function as a writer and artist, establish and operate a publishing company, and continue working a day job to support it all. With sales of my work barely perceptible, I am faced with the reality that I have no idea how to find whatever market may exist for the fruits of my imagination. The conclusion that seems to stare me in the face is that no market may exist large enough to justify continuing to make my own work a priority. An experienced and able business manager,  I am confident that eventually I can turn Confabule into a profitable publishing/production company; however, I am no longer confident that I can do so with my novels and art as a foundation.

This is not to say that I intend to abandon The Hidden Lands of Nod or its derivatives. I simply cannot bring myself to do that. I am contemplating moving all things Habdvarshan back to the place it occupied for so many years, namely a side project to which I gave odd moments in the after-hours, when earning a living and pushing the initiatives that drew public approbation were put to bed. Our experience at Norwescon will have substantial influence on whether I redouble my effort to find my own audience, or shift gears to focus Confabule on publication, production and promotion of works by others that have more certainty of monetizing the scheme. The bottom line is the bottom line. While I remain an acolyte of Art, Truth & Beauty for life, if sales of my work do not materialize to keep the Habdvarshan dream afloat, then I cannot continue to offer devotion in my own name.

Staple! The Independent Media Expo, runs this Saturday and Sunday, March 3 & 4, at the Marchesa Hall and Theater. Celebrating its eighth year, Staple! is a bazaar and nexus of indie expression in all forms and formats from Austin and around the country. Look for the smiling faces of Confabule’s Amanda Kimmerly and me, R. Stikmanz, at table #6 in the main hall, at which we shall amaze with books, artifacts and unfettered imaginings.

Rumor has it that our friend and fellow Blue Moose Press author, Paul Elard Cooley, will be present some part of the weekend. Listen for the familiar voice of the Fiendmaster, and let it draw you into conversation with Paul about his fiction, his podcasting, and his great app for independent publishers, MyWrite. Find out more about Blue Moose Press here.

A sad note to observe about this year’s Staple! is the absence of Bram Meehan and Monica Banko Meehan of Panel Press in Santa Fe, NM. Bram and Monica were the people who first connected me with the Staple! community, which they have been in the habit of traveling to each year with a trove of work by the comic book artists of 7000 BC, the northern New Mexico independent comic publishers group. Besides being brilliantly talented, they are wonderful friends. Unfortunate that buying trends and competing obligations make it impossible for Bram and Monica to attend this year’s event. Please go to their website and buy everything they have in stock, so we can proceed with confidence that 7000 BC and Panel Press will be back in Austin next March.

Apologies to anyone who has watched this space for updates. I’ve been thinking mightily but ineffectually about many things. My comprehensive report on all subjects active within the Stikmantic pate consists of: Still processing.

Forward movement is discernible. Rose Moon part 2 is in final draft. New illustrations grow in tiny steps as time allows. I’ve gotten a lot better on the Irish bouzouki. While the movement is real, however, it is not demonstrable. A lot better is still not very good, so don’t look for a ‘zouk debut this epicycle. None of the illustrations in progress is ready to share, although the map for the Confabule website draws close. And, while Rose Moon part 2 lurches toward publishable, it is not yet done. What have you been up to, Mr. Stikmanz? Still processing.

Rule No. 1 here at Stikmanz Intergalactic HQ, right now at least, for the duration of this post, is to suspend processing when called to serve as guest at a con. Sorry, folks. Demonstrations of our work are again delayed, as this weekend will find our full expeditionary force at ConDFW, in Dallas, Texas. Look for a Stikmanz table in the dealer room, staffed non-stop by Amanda Kimmerly and Elizabeth Renee Smythe, while I come and go as a programming participant. Sunday, Amanda and I are scheduled to present our workshop, “Inventing a Language,” based on our experience creating and elaborating Dvarsh. This is a great event, with an enviable track record of improving every single year. It would be joy to see you. Come out.

Digging deep into the archives, I pulled this cover of Aileron, A Literary Journal, Volume X, Number 1, from March 1989, featuring my pencil drawing of the ouroboros as a pseudo-knot bounding a dark glass. Click on the image to view it approximately actual size. Not the least symbolic, right? I connect this drawing with a direct line to the dragons and wyverns I sketched fifteen and twenty years later. Representation of elemental dynamism with a serpent is certainly antecedent to both this Aileron cover and the Hidden Dragon of Confabule.

This is actually my second use of the ouroboros. I used a more fanciful styling for the border of a poster for an event, The Metaphysical Jam, staged by poet David Gugin at the Cactus Cafe on the UT Austin campus in 1987. The naturalistic rendering of this drawing is more potent by far. Let us celebrate the excellence of hindsight!

One can compare the Hidden Dragon by visiting the Confabule website, which I am proud to announce has now launched under Amanda Kimmerly’s editorial direction. She has done a fine job assembling a wealth of material, most of it related to Habdvarsha and The Hidden Lands of Nod. My screaming dragon mask—another emblem of elemental dynamism—serves as logo for this new commonwealth of dreams.

Let us also celebrate another cycle of convention-going launched in this new year. Most especially at the moment, let us celebrate the fact that ConJour 4.0 will manifest on the University of Houston Clear Lake campus this coming weekend, January 27-29. The UHCL gamers guild brings its annual sci-fi/fantasy con back to its original start of the year slot. Amanda and I will staff our table in the dealer room, sit on panels, present our “Inventing a Language” workshop, and hang with all the good people who come out to make con and share. This is our first event since Austin Comic Con last November, and so we look forward to seeing old friends and meeting new ones after a hiatus. If the panels and play of deep geek subculture are not enough to entice you, come sample the con suite, which is overseen by an actual chef, the talented Marie. Besides, how often can one attend a con at a facility with signs warning pedestrians of coyotes, bobcats and alligators?

Well you might ask. It’s the time of year for summarizing records, including figuring various taxes due to various governments, and I have addressed that. Literature has made me a source of revenue for three states, including Texas, which is no mean feat considering how hard it is to find taxes to pay in Texas.  All sales combined came to around 200 books. That would hardly seem worth it, except some of the people who read the books then said incredibly kind things about my fiction, and that reinforced my notion that an audience for The Hidden Lands of Nod and things Habdvarsha is out there waiting to be reached.

Study, Eanna walking, pencil and colored pencils, 12/011

I was once advised to consider myself a successful cult writer. As nearly as I could tell, that meant the market for my fiction is large enough for a publisher to profit from my books, but not large enough to provide an income that would allow me to work full time on the fruits of my imagination. An insurgent heart compels me to resist that ceiling. If profession and vocation will only verge nearer one, my evenings can shift away from the arithmetic of public obligation. To which end, please see items listed for sale in the column to the left. Support your friendly author by ordering early and often!

Fortunately, evenings have not been ground completely under the heel of dry numbers. Several illustrations amble through various stages of development, among them the eventual cover of an eventual edition of my novella, Rose Moon, now appearing serially (see below). At the center of that image strides Eanna, the mysterious woman who looms large in the life of Bigger MacGregor. When I began writing part one of the novella, I thought I held in mind a clear image of her physical presence; however, when I attempted to translate the imagined appearance to illustration, I found I actually had not thought specifically about how a Mesopotamian sex goddess looks. Substantial investment went into a false start that may still have life in another context, another time. Meanwhile, I returned to pencil and colored pencils, scratching on paper to discover my character, and a few days ago some of the scratching managed to capture what I am trying to see well enough to model for the cover illustration. The image did not scan well, but I’ve posted it anyway, as proof I haven’t been stretched on a divan eating bonbons. At least, not without interruption.

Other cool visualizations maintaining traction among extant projects here at HQ will feature in an eventual Confabule website. The launch of an on-line presence for Confabule has been delayed by unforeseen complications that vexed my attempt to contract for site design. Now, in consultation with editorial director Amanda Kimmerly, I’m taking a more active hand in the process than I had originally envisioned, and this is a good thing. An issue of how to divvy time is never settled, and the work cuts into hours I could spend on finishing fiction, but it is, even so, wonderfully satisfying. Crafting a map, creating decorative knotwork, clarifying the visual atmosphere, these activities are great fun, as well as necessary to the effort. Penning and polishing stories get nudged a little later on the clock, a little longer on the calendar. Since the trade-off cannot be avoided, it is not a bad one. The reverse is true, too, meaning that Ms. Kimmerly and I shall launch an interim Confabule website in the near future. Our initial presence will be functional, with play and beauty added as the elements come to fruit.

Also launching will be Confabule’s first Kickstarter project. We will be seeking to fund production of Gary Warner Kent reading my story, “Death on the Toilet,” for release as CD and download. Look forward to an announcement on this subject just as soon as we finish a project video.

“Death on the Toilet,” please recall, originally appeared between the covers of The Sorcerer’s Scrolls #47, from Zarathustra Publishing. Editor and publisher Jeremiah Griffin has now added a second publication from Zarathustra, with release of The Scroll, Vol. 1. Among its features are part one of Rose Moon and reprint of an interview Mr. Griffin conducted with me for The Sorcerer’s Scrolls #45. Parts two, three and four of Rose Moon will run in coming issues of the magazine. To order a copy, visit Zarathustra Publishing.

It seems no time has passed since Wizard World Austin, but it has been two weeks. I almost suspect someone has been pilfering minutes when my back is turned. Truth is, the available hours are so sliced up and distributed between all the active projects that every day seems to whip past. Updates on all these activities is forthcoming. For now, only two have reached a state deserving mention. First, volume 1 of The Scroll, the new magazine from Zarathustra Publishing, is hot off the press. Featured in its pages is part one of Rose Moon, my paranormal romance. This short novel, which will appear over the first four issues of The Scroll, is a story of Bigger MacGregor, a character familiar as a boy in Sleeper Awakes, the third book of The Hidden Lands of Nod, and as an old man in “Death on the Toilet,” my short story available for free download on Smashwords.com. To purchase copies of The Scroll, visit the Zarathustra Publishing site.

The notion of purchase is an expansive one, and I would like to point out that the left column of THIS site provides links to purchase paperback editions of all my currently available books—including newly minted and long awaited, The Way It Grows: An Introduction to Dvarsh, which I co-authored with the esteemed editor of the Blue Moose Press editions of my novels, Amanda Kimmerly. In fact, I herewith issue a seasonal appeal. Please buy copies of my books! They make wonderful gifts for every voyager of the imagination—and there is no better way to support art and literature than by purchasing it! These paperbacks may be available cheaper from your favorite retail bookseller, and they are certainly available cheaper as e-publications from Smashwords.com. If those are your chosen sources, go for them with blessings! Please note, however, that paperbacks ordered through this website are shipped with author signatures on the title pages. That’s not a deal one finds every day.

Follow the link to get all the scoop on Wizard World Austin Comic Con 2011, happening this very weekend at the Austin Convention Center. Doors open to the public Friday, November 11, at 4:00 p.m. Beyond all the celebrity guests, apart from the serious gamers, at a table in artists alley, Amanda Kimmerly and I shall hold forth on all manner of subjects Confabulous and Habdvarshan. Even better, we’ll be selling my novels and our jointly authored The Way It Grows: an Introduction to Dvarsh. Consider this a special appeal to reduce our inventory. Art, truth and beauty are near extinction, and only your support can pull them away from the brink. One of everything would be a dramatic launch into a richly imagined world.

Unless something unexpected pops up during the holiday season, this will be our last public presence for the year. This weekend will be your best bet to get unique oracle dice, signed books and original postcards for the gremlins large and small on your gift list. It would be lovely to see you there!

Questions about the state of Confabule are circulating into Stikmanz HQ, with good reason. Due to an error by the original design team, an unfinished, unarchitected version of the website was public for a time when it should never have been. After some back and forth, we were finally able to have the site in its unfinished state made private. Some few have wondered why the site was up, albeit in an embarrassing state, but then went away. The short answer is that the site remains under development and should never yet have seen public light. It is our hope—mine and Amanda Kimmerly’s—that we shall be able to launch the site soon with the assistance of a new developer. Our plan at this time is to keep the site private until we are satisfied that it does what we wish and represents our vision in an acceptable manner.

Questions about the website, however, are not the same as questions about Confabule, the company Amanda and I have begun. That entity, Confabule LLC, is operational. It is the venue through which the book Amanda and I co-authored, The Way It Grows: An Introduction to Dvarsh, has been released, and more projects are in the works. These go forward even as we continue shaping our eventual web presence.

If you’d like to find out more about Confabule and our plans for near, middle and far futures, come by Wizard World Austin Comic Con, November 11-13 at the Austin Convention Center. Look for Amanda and me at the Stikmanz table in artist alley. We’ll have books, postcards, dice and our own informative selves on hand to grabble with questions about reality.

Mary C. Saunders and Robert Stikmanz stroll the creek trail in Boulder, CO, 10/21/011

Amanda J. Kimmerly and I survived a night on the road at the Nursanickel Inn in Dalhart, Texas to reach Boulder, Colorado in the late afternoon on October 20. We made the trek a day early in order to keep appointments for acupuncture with my dear friend of many years, Mary C. Saunders. After a couple hours work in a coffee shop, we arrived at Boulder Community Acupuncture for post-long haul treatments at Mary’s expert hands. After our treatments and dinner in a Vietnamese restaurant, Amanda and I followed Mary home for an overnight visit with Mary, her husband Whit and son Martin. Friday morning, 10/21, Amanda, Mary and I walked along a stretch of the creek trail winding through downtown Boulder, before sitting down to breakfast at one of Boulder’s treasures, the Dushanbe teahouse. Ms. Kimmerly and I bade farewell to Mary and Whit a little before noon, aiming the mighty Scion for Denver and MileHiCon.

As I write, the second day of MileHiCon 43 has come to a close. Compared to recent years, attendance at the event seems down. Nevertheless, enthusiasm remains high, and many delightful people are in attendance. One interesting consequence of launching the new book Amanda and I have co-authored, The Way It Grows: an Introduction to Dvarsh, at this event is that people want to hear Dvarsh spoken. First they ask for a book. We gave them a book, but now they want an audible demonstration. In keeping with that request, here is a recording of my reading of “G’teoksh” (my translation of Amanda’s poem, “Rush”): g’teoksh

Tomorrow brings the final day of the con, and then it is back into the Scion for the long drive home. Tomorrow night will find us again in Dalhart. Twelve hours in the car Monday will put us back in Austin, road weary but ready to insert into our ordinary lives.