Palmcon, a hearse, and inspiration

Palmcon, a hearse, and inspiration!

Last weekend I attended Palmcon in West Palm Beach, Florida--my home town. What a weekend! To say I had fun would be an understatement. I was exhausted going into the convention because my husband and I worked non-stop for two weeks getting the Sector 13 hearse ready for the convention floor. We fought against rain, humidity, and very large Florida mosquitoes as we worked through the night, day-after-day.  After a massive amount of caffeine we pulled through, and Friday afternoon the hearse glided into the convention center for her debut the next day.

Saturday morning we were ready to go (thank you Vickie for coming out to help with the table)! I'm a geek-girl at heart and this convention made me smile the entire time. But I'll get to that in a minuet... The buzz around the convention according to many and Martin, Mr. Palmcon himself, "why is there a hearse here?" Let me enlighten the curious ones who didn't have a chance to stop by. Sector 13 is a secret division of the FBI, which monitors and controls all paranormal activity with the objective to keep humans safe and the paranormal hidden. The Sector 13 hearse makes an appearance in Covet the Moon, the second book in the Power of the Moon series, a paranormal thriller/romance. The hearse is issued to agent Mia Starr as her undercover department car to help fight against paranormal crime.   As one Palmcon attendee asked... "so you bought a hearse because you put it in your book." No, not at all, but that sounds like something I would do. My husband and I have owned the hearse for about 20 years. The 1969 Cadillac hearse started her career at a local funeral home in Palm Beach County, Florida, and was in service from 1969 until 1992. With a mere 70,000 miles on the odometer, weighing in at over 7,000 pounds and powered by the original 472 cubic inch, four barrel carb engine she drives like a dream. When fully restored, the Sector 13 hearse will be equipped with emergency lights, siren and some additional “classified” Sector 13 hardware. If you're interested in following the restoration and Sector 13 fun, you can follow our pages: Facebook and Twitter

Now on with the show...

We met some really cool people, like these guys from 3-D Me. They tried to laser scan the hearse, which I find completely fascinating, but the hearse is to big at 20 feet. If you haven't heard of 3-D Me, please check them out! Maybe you can get scanned at the next convention they're at and have a an life like 3-D figure made of you.



Day one of the convention was packed with cosplay! I'm a Star Wars fan, and when we go to Star Wars week at Disney, my poor hubby has three children to deal with because once I see Storm Troopers... the adult in me vanishes. So when this happened, I had a permagrin for at least an hour afterward. Thank you to the 501 for the photo op!

As the day went on, those "damn dirty apes" appeared!

Then... More cosplay and a whole lot of fun continued throughout the day!

Day two was a little slower, but zombie Elsa appeared and made it all worth while. There were amazing costumes there and I didn't get nearly enough photos. I plan to do better next time.

I met other paranormal fans and signed a lot of SWAG and books!

 

 But, all good things must come to an end. We loaded the hearse and headed home.

   

 I was impressed with the organization of the convention, everything seemed to run on time and smooth. Martin Pierro, Palmcon's promoter and creator, did an outstanding job! We're looking forward to coming back next year.

That covers Palmcon and the hearse, but where does the "inspiration" part come in to all of this?? I'll tell you with much excitement as I type! I was blown away at the amount of people that came up to ask when the movie was coming out. Blown. Away. Any writer, comic book or otherwise, will tell you it's such a joy to have something they created loved and to have others want more out of it... well, that's icing on the cake. I've been toying around with the idea of scripting the Power of the Moon series and submitting it to studios. I've never been one to sit around and wait for my dreams to come to me, but to go after them with a vengeance because life is short. One of the gentlemen that came by the booth and asked about the movie, and I wish I remembered his name, was a script writer. Imagine that, right? Script writing is an art form all by itself so when he asked about the Power of the Moon movie, I simply replied, "One can dream." He looked at me for a minute with an almost shame on you expression and replayed, "why dream when you can make it happen." Then after a short story about a script he wrote... he was gone. The idea has been burning inside me since and he is absolutely right, why dream when you can make it happen. So my lovely Power of the Moon fans, the script writing has begun! A BIG thank you to the mysterious script writer.

See you all at the next Palmcon!

Much love to my husband, Matt. Who made every second of this possible. xox