Writer's Grove

My Octoberfest

This week I’m hanging out in Scottsdale, my oooooold stompin’ grounds. I’m always amused whenever I visit where I grew up: part of it is nostalgia, but part of it is from noting how much the city has changed.

I’m staying at this resort thingie where my wife and I have a timeshare doodad. We got suckered into it when we were young, but of course you can’t get rid of them. We don’t trade or anything like that; the resort is nice, so we visit often and it’s a very cheap sort of staycation thing.

Of course, since it’s a timeshare joint and people are exchanging their weeks, whenever we go we’re the only locals there. There are people from all over the place, and the resort caters to the idea that everyone is there to play golf or take horseback rides in the desert. But every Monday, they bring out this dude by the pool to play steel drums and sing the same ten songs on top of a drum machine loop. He wears a really loud Hawaiian shirt—in the desert—and he sings a respectable ultra-vanilla karaoke version of several oldies.  His adaptation of “Margaritaville,” for example, isn’t all that bad with the island flavor to it. But I wanted to punch him for what he did to Otis Redding. Heck, Otis Redding would want to punch him. “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay” is not a reggae song, but he played it that way. Ears bleeding, I fled the pool to blog.

I’m working on TRAPPED these days. I haven’t updated my word total to the right (yet), but I will soon. I keep getting distracted by stuff. What stuff? Stuff like this amazing kerning game that will complete suck you in if you’re a type nerd. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. Thanks to Nicholas Olivo for sending me that link.

Also, I contributed to a massive post at The League of Reluctant Adults on Writer Beware and Absolute Write Water Cooler. My contribution got noticed and Tweeted by none other than Mr. Neil Gaiman, so that completely made my weekend. Thanks to the many people who commented and demanded that they also be boycotted by the cockwaffles at The Write Agenda, the other League authors and I will be donating our dollars to Writer Beware and Absolute Write!

I’m writing this at the Desert Ridge Barnes & Noble in Scottsdale, where an incredibly spiffy person named Lorien works. They have my books on a table behind the info desk there, right next to such amazing novels as The Name of the Wind and The Way of Kings and so on. I signed the series—all they had in stock—so head on up there if you get a chance!

In Indie bookstore news, I just found out that I’ll be at a shindig near the holidays at The Poisoned Pen in south Scottsdale (south siiiiiide!). On Sunday, December 11, at 2 pm, I’ll be showin’ up there with a whole bunch of other local authors. More on that when I hear who else is going to be there, but if you’d like something personalized for the gift-givin’ season, that’s where I’ll be. If you live far, far away, like in Malaysia or the Mongolian steppes, or maybe just Florida, you can also order signed and personalized stuff from The Poisoned Pen now using the info on my books page—they will ship internationally and have me write down whatever you’d like. :)

Rest of this week will be spent writing, except for when I’m kerning online or playing Warhammer with the Confederacy of Nerds. Hope you’re all enjoying October so far. :)