I’m much more comfortable with avatars, cartoons, or drawings of fractals than I am with pictures of myself. It’s not that I think I look bad. I’m a reasonably handsome, husky ball of joy. I just tend to see the areas in need of improvement when I look at pictures of myself. Not trying to fish here, just being honest.
This is all by way of saying that I wasn’t too thrilled to be doing the author photo for the Surreality Kindle Scout campaign, and I put it off till basically the day before.
My wife took the picture, actually about four dozen of them, and manipulated the final image to get what you see above. That’s my basement library and poker table in the shot and one of the approximately seven computers on which Surreality was written. I’m happy my wife insisted on the nicer shirt, as the just t-shirt shots were only okay, even though the shirt is kinda cool.
One thing I learned is that I apparently do not open my eyes. I don’t know if it’s because I’m tired or just have very narrow eyes, but I had to actually work to open them enough to be seen, without looking like I was a crazed psychopath. My eyes “crinkle” when I smile as well, meaning that a full grin would basically leave me blind.
What you see in the shot is pretty typical of my workspace, though with a lot of unseen clutter outside the shot. The open book is my random writing thoughts book, something that I would probably only share with somebody else after I’m dead. My goal right now is simply to fill it with a lot of nonsense that hopefully makes the words I write in books work better.
There were several coffee mugs tried in the shot but ultimately it couldn’t have been anything else but the OSU mug. The handle broke off once and we glued it back on because that is my Saturday game day coffee mug. It’s just that simple.
I’m also happy that my body blocked most of the manga behind me, though you can clearly see Love Hina creeping out from behind my left shoulder. Slightly better is the Appleseed, Ghost in the Shell and Dominion sitting above it. And that is a set of blueprints for the Enterprise-D you see lying on its side on top of a bunch of Star Trek comics trades. It’s research … okay 🙂 The gray box a few shelves up contains a DS9 tie complete with all of the aliens from that show. And trust me, this is nothing compared to the chotskie’s I have on top of my desk.
————
One week in and the campaign is going strong, but I still need your support. Please vote for Surreality using the link below, and receive a free early copy if Kindle Press decides to publish it. Share your support on Twitter, Facebook or Squirrelbook, the social-media website for squirrels. No chipmunks allowed!
[BTW] : Ben Trube, Writer 
Love the pic!
“I’m a reasonably handsome, husky ball of joy.”
-the best of all possible answers to the job interview question, “Tell me about yourself.”