Six More Facts About Jimmy

One of the readers of Dennis’s Diary of Destruction, Anna of Anna’s Bee World, tagged both Dennis and me for a Six Facts meme.  Dennis already has posted his, which means it’s time for me to post mine.  But first, the rules:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

And now, the facts:

1. Before my wife dragged me to the Arthur Murray Studio in Syracuse, I actively refused to dance.  Now we’re working on our “Silver” program, and I spend more time at the Oceanside Fred Astaire studio than she does.
2. When I signed up to attend the 1997 World Horror Convention in Niagara Falls, I checked off a box on the registration form that asked if I would be interested in “Readings”, thinking it referred to attending readings by other authors.  Imagine my surprise when we arrived at the hotel and my name was on the program as giving a reading.  After a period of horrified indecision where I debated whether or not I could do a reading without having a heart attack, I decided to go ahead with it.  I hadn’t brought any material with me (I was a very inexperienced WHC attendee), so I called my office and had my boss fax me the prologue to Night Watchman.  The reading was well-received, and indirectly led to the eventual publication of A Flock of Crows is Called a Murder when one of my co-readers started a publishing house called DarkTales the next year.
3. Also at the 1997 World Horror Convention, I managed to introduce my new friend who later started DarkTales to a well-known horror writer named Yvonne Navarro, even though I didn’t know her.  I didn’t manage to introduce myself, though.
4. I have two completed horror novels and a completed fantasy novel waiting for me to finish editing them, but instead of doing that, I spend most of my time creating amusingly doctored pictures of my dogs and cat.
5. I once got an e-mail from the office of Bill Todman, Jr., (who was involved in a little movie called X-Men, among others) asking about the rights to A Flock of Crows.  By that time DarkTales had shut down, and I was between agents.  I spent the next week or two frantically trying to get an agent to help me negotiate with Bill Todman’s office.  (I also got some advice from Dan Hooker, who suggested that it was quite common for producers to send out such feelers and then never contact the author again.)  I didn’t find an agent, and Bill Todman’s office never contacted me again or responded to my attempts to contact them.  Dan Hooker was a smart guy.
6. At the 2004 World Horror Convention, I handed out so many books to potential contacts and publishers that, when I met the acquisitions guy from Dimension Films, I only had one left (a copy of Night Watchman), when what I really thought would make a good film was A Flock of Crows.  I gave him Night Watchman, which Dimension eventually passed on developing.  I never heard a thing from anybody else I gave books to.

And there you have six facts about Jimmy.  And here are six tag-you’re-its:

1. S. Le, who I’m pretty sure doesn’t do memes like this, but what the heck
2. A Blog in the Rough
3. Write Meg!
4. No One of Consequence, in hopes she’ll start posting again
5. The Black Cat
6. Gina’s Public Diary