FanX

It’s been a rough summer, y’all. Still applying to a buttload of jobs. (Buttload is a real measurement, look it up.) Still not hearing back from almost any of them. Since Utah Ren Fest, I have had one opportunity to sell, and we did not even pay off the table. It wasn’t just my jewelry, it was also Carlisle Legacy Books, and we have a new book out! But it wasn’t enough, because it was WesterCon. And WesterCon is tiny. I’m amazed it’s still going, honestly. It was over the 4th of July weekend. (American Independence Day, for any of you non-Americans.) And my little brother was running security for the con. Since I was still unemployed, I agreed to help with security. It was pretty boring, and the vendor hall was nearly empty, so we grabbed a table. I spent most of the weekend hanging out with the other vendors, who also didn’t do terribly well. The massage therapist did okay, and so did Theresa Mather. (She’s an amazing artist. She paints gorgeous dragons! I have several of her dragons on my wall!) But the rest of us? Not so much. There were maybe a dozen attendees the entire weekend.
But I did get to see some con friends I only see at LTUE, so that was nice. And it was really close to home!
And the best thing of all happened that weekend! My brother who ran security? His wife had a baby! He’s the cutest little squish! So we ran security without him so he could be at the hospital for mom and baby. And my nephew is so excited to be a big brother! It’s too cute!

So that was July, pretty much. We did a few events with the SLC Ghostbusters, which was awesome. I need a new flight suit, though. My khaki suit fell apart, and I’m outgrowing my black suit. (I have gained a bit of weight since my gut issues started getting bad, mostly on my thighs and around the middle. First time in my life getting stretch marks, because I was a very late bloomer when my body was growing.) But I was able to squeeze into the black suit long enough to do a car show, a parade, and a photoshoot!

And the Ghostbusters will be at FanX once again! I’m not sure how much I’ll be at the GB booth, since I’m running a dealer table with my family. That’s right, Eclectic Jess and Carlisle Legacy Books will be at FanX! We’ve already got our table number and everything! We’re sharing our table with Timbe Ghost Press and the Utah Horror Writers, so if you want new scary stories for Halloween, come see us!
Speaking of new stories, CLB has released a new Ted Bundy book for Dr. Carlisle’s Violent Minds series! If you loved I’m Not Guilty and The 1976 Evaluation, then you need to pick up The Ted Bundy Files. Remember how I mentioned, back when we were filming the documentary, that we found Dr. Carlisle’s box of Bundy papers that he thought had been destroyed? Well, we’ve finally gotten the test results together into a book! You can see Bundy’s Rorschach results for yourself! We don’t have Dr. Carlisle to interpret them, unfortunately, but we have the results to the test. We have Bundy’s answers to the Make-A-Picture test, the TWST, the TAT, we even have his IQ! (The man was NOT a genius.) Also included are several police reports, timelines, and letters from the time of Ted’s arrest in Utah. It’s incredible.
And I got to be one of the editors! It’s my first editing credit, so I’m really excited.

And since The Ted Bundy Files was released, I’ve been working on our next installment in the Violent Minds series. See, Dr. Carlisle exchanged letters with Keith Jesperson, the Happy Face Killer, for some time. And we have those letters, as well as interview transcripts. And Dr. Carlisle had started a book about it, so we’re finishing what he started. It’s really fascinating to go through the interviews and the letters, to see how Jesperson grew up, and how he became a serial killer. The things that led him down that path. It’s why Dr. Carlisle wanted to study serial killers in the first place- to find out how they turned out the way they did. And every single case I look at- whether I’m listening to the Casual Criminalist podcast or watching a documentary, or going through my grandpa’s research- they all follow the same pattern. Every single one. Every serial offender becomes addicted to violence, to assault, to murder, just like people get addicted to gambling or drinking or smoking. They choose it until they can’t stop.
And that’s why Carlisle Legacy Books was created. To keep Dr. Carlisle’s research available to everyone. We are organizing and publishing his research so that everyone can learn how to avoid becoming victims, and also so that everyone knows that there’s always a choice to not go down that dark path, no matter how much you may have in common with previous serial offenders. Knowledge is power, y’all. And it’s slow going, but we’re hoping to have the Jesperson book out by the end of the year. (If I can get it organized enough in time. The information is pretty scattered, and it took me weeks just to organize the pre-murder timeline.) If not the end of the year, we’re aiming for first quarter next year.

In other book news, I’ve been editing Just Your Average Fairy Tale for publication. I’ve gotten the cover, which I commissioned from my amazing friend Jade, and I’m absolutely in love with how it turned out! I’m not gonna reveal it yet, but once we’ve gotten most of the edits done, I’ll be posting the cover reveal everywhere. So keep an eye out!

I’ve also got a BUNCH of new earring designs finished and ready for FanX! The Pride patterns on the Made with Love earrings have been so popular that I’ve gotten the beads to do even more flags! I now have seven different flags available!

I also have scarf pattern earrings for the four Hogwarts houses! I know that people are hating on JKR right now, and she kinda deserves the calling-out, but I still love the Harry Potter series. (We don’t talk about her post-publication additions, because they honestly make it worse. I stick to the books and movies, thanks.) And since everyone’s favorite Slytherin Daddy, Lucius Malfoy, is going to be at FanX, it’s the perfect timing! (I still can’t get over how he’s the voice of Gortash in BG3. Like, he plays all the best villains we love to hate!)

I have also made some new bottles, thanks to an idea from someone at Utah Ren Fest! Allomantic metals! I have a good chunk of them ready, actually. Only two of each, to start, but it’s easy enough to make more, now that I have half of the metals. And you would not believe how hard it is to find metals bits and shavings on Amazon! I can get radioactive isotopes, but I can’t buy tiny bits of tin? I can buy whole ingots in fifty different sizes, but no shavings! So, it’s a bit slow, but I do have a bunch of the beginning metals. And they’re actual metals! Like, the iron is actual iron shavings, so you could take a magnet to the bottle and move the contents around. And I have actual aluminum shavings, and copper foil, and I’m having so much fun with the different bits! (The gold is not real gold, though. Sorry, that’s just too expensive. It’s gold-painted bits or gold leaf, but that’s about it.)
And!! I’ve finally figured out how to make resin D20 earrings! Yay! I also made a buried treasure D20 the other day. So hopefully those will be coming soon, too! It is slow going, as I only have one mold, but I have been making lots of fun little things, and should have a couple pairs of D20 earrings ready for FanX this month!

In other news, I had a birthday! Yay! I still look about a decade younger than I am! Though I’m definitely feeling older, lol. My wonderful husband took me to a cat cafe, and I got to spend a whole hour with happy little purr machines. The kitties were so cute! And since Spirit Halloween is now open, we went there, too. It’s hard not to admire all the fun Halloween stuff. And one of our trees blew down in a recent wind storm. That was fun! We called dispatch, since it was blocking the whole street. But since we have so many awesome neighbors, the tree was chopped up and out of the road by the time the city guys showed up.

Anyway, that’s what’s going on. I need to get my microphone set up to stream crack otomes, but the job hunt and crafting has put that on the back burner until after FanX.