Vesta, the Amazing!

Conventions

World Steam Expo Wrap-up

So this last weekend I went to my very first (real) convention...

I say real because the other "conventions" I've been to were kind of random and I don't really count them as a true con experience.

Having said that, I got the real con experience I was looking for. I was at the World Steam Expo in Dearborn, MI. The con was really well thought out with programing and activities available day and night.

I was lucky enough to have my book Sings With Stars featured on the table of Bethalynne Bajema (who has two illustrations in my book) and hang out with both Bethalynne and her fiance Myke Amend. They are the awesome!

I got to see several bands, (including Abney Park, who were kind enough to sign my personal copy of my book , on the page that their song is featured on!!) which was super exciting for me! As you can tell by the geek out moment I'm having in this photo...

Other awesome bands I got to see and meet were Gypsy Nomads and Tartanic!

The awesomeness was not limited to just the bands either.

There so many panel discussions available as well as an amazing vendor's room. I think I saw something I wanted at every table!!

Meeting and having a photo-op with (steampunk) Boba Fett was a high point for me as well, being a huge Star Wars fan!!

He hangs with the people of Penny Dreadful Productions, an amazing collective of craftspeople involved in all sorts of stuff. Seriously check them out!

It was super cool to meet Nick Valentino, author of Thomas Riley, Evelyn Kriete the steam behind Steampunk Tales, and the amazing Miss Monster (and her tentacles of doom) (I made up the tentacles of doom part). There was always something to do and people to meet. There were several people I didn't get to meet that I hope to in the future...

Lots of amazing people to watch in general and be inspired by. The level of costuming I witnessed there was truly remarkable!

I'm hoping that there will be a second annual World Steam Expo!

YAY! My very first book review has been posted!!

Check it out!!

http://lovingbooksandmore.blogspot.com/search/label/Books%20by%20Bethany%20Greenier

Chapter 1

1

The Difference Between Me And Them

From the day she was born they brought her to it.

It had opaque walls and lid locked tight.

She spent all of her life picturing what was inside.

This perfect world that its walls did hide.

Abney Park

The Box

There is quite a difference between feeling like you are somehow...special, different, and having all the kids at your school thinking that about you. This was the thought that was circling through Gigi’s mind as she sat by herself for lunch today. Because today was like any other day.

When you think that you are different and special, you think that someday someone will make the connection that you are really from a different place, one where, of course, magick exists and you are not from humble beginnings. You are actually quite wealthy and happy. Your new life begins immediately, and you never again have to think about the petty, snarky people that you’ve left behind.

When everybody else realizes that you are somehow special or different, it can be a very lonely walk through the lunch room of your high school.

Not that you actually have much interest in their small lives, but it might be nice to pretend for a minute. Pretend that prom dresses and senior pictures matter to you...

But of course they don’t.

So when the ordinary world won’t have you, what else is left to you but to make up your own world? The world that you should’ve been born into, everything is different yet somehow still familiar: existing in the same place as your world, only slightly off. Like if you were to catch the light at just the right angle, you’d be rewarded with a secret glimpse of it.

So once you know, and they know, and you know that they know that you are special and different, everybody realizes that this might not be the best thing. You just give up on the illusion of fitting in. You find interest in things that don’t matter to others, embracing who you could be without the influence of what other people might think or say. Free to just be yourself, unfettered by the constraints of other people’s opinions.

You begin to embrace your differences in small ways. Dressing a little differently to begin with, evolving your own look, as if your clothes had been designed by a clockmaker or an air ship pilot. Not caring that you look like you might be a courier from another world when you get ready for school in the morning. Or that you spend your time dreaming of this other world.

Sometimes if she squinted just right, she could almost see the haze that separated her from her once destined home. A shimmer that glinted when the sun caught it just right.

Chapter Names

Sings With Stars Chapter names...

1

The Difference Between Me and Them

2

Mr. Whitley’s Junk Emporium

3

K.S.

4

Gigi Storme

5

Meeting

6

Departure

7

Alone

8

Truth

9

Awake

10

Temptation

11

Sacrifice

12

Verdict

13

Uncomfortable Conversation

14

The New World

15

Training

16

Energetics

17

Sings With Stars

18

Breathless Silence

19

A Moment out of Time

20

An Unguarded Moment

21

The Future Is Now

22

Birthday Girl

Chapter 15 - Training (teaser)

Chapter 15

Training

…And all is waking up

Seek not to self destruct

We can be more than what we are

If we choose to…

The words of the song echoed through her head from a distance as she awoke in the middle of the night; once again to the uneasy sense that she’d been having the same dream that she’d had the last few nights. It was so frustrating to not be able to remember it. It felt important somehow, but she could only remember a glimpse here and, a turn of phrase there. She could piece together the bits from the previous nights’ dream, figuring that Fayanna was trying to convince her to join The Sisterhood, getting angry when she wouldn’t, and demanding to know the reason why...