Anytime somebody shares a personal story with me during autograph signings and someone comes up to me and shakes my hand and says thank you and I'm just like, wow. The fact that I can have an influence over somebody; it is heartwarming, it is the goal.
I've agreed to do several Star Trek conventions this coming year.
I never in my career did appearances, like where you go and sign autographs, and you do the comic-cons and all of that stuff, because I wanted, when I stopped wrestling, to go and do that stuff and have it really mean something to somebody, that it hadn't been watered down.
In my ideal world, my next novel would have a first printing of, say, 2,500 hardcovers for reviewers, libraries, collectors, and autograph hounds. The publisher could print more copies if they get low. And simultaneously, or six weeks later, the book would be available in paperback.
I do these conventions sometimes. We've been doing a lot of 'The Vampire Diaries' conventions, but I do Comic-Con and stuff all over the world. They can be taxing, and they can take it out of you a little bit, but it's just great for the fans.
I don't belong to any club or group. I don't fish, cook, dance, endorse books, sign books, co-sign declarations, eat oysters, get drunk, go to church, go to analysts, or take part in demonstrations.
I always wanted to get into the horror genre. I like scary movies. I want to go to the fan shows and sign posters with my head hanging by a thread like a B-movie actress.
Book tours are really kind of fun. You get to stay in nice hotels, you are driven everywhere in big silver cars, you are treated as if you are much more important than you are, you can eat steak three times a day at someone else's expense, and you get to talk endlessly about yourself for weeks at a stretch.
When people visit me at autograph conventions and signings, they always say, 'You just don't know how you scared me!' These people are grown up. They say, 'When I was a kid, I just couldn't sleep at night.' Sometimes they will have babies with them. And they give me their babies, and they take pictures of me holding their baby.
Mickey Rourke's character in 'The Wrestler' - that was my dad, that was my uncles, that was so many members of my family. It was the only thing they knew. And then they would end up wrestling for a hundred bucks, go to autograph signings for two hundred bucks.
