Houston, Bikers, Babes, and BBA

Sigh. What a week. I know I say that a lot, but this last week was stressful, yet awesome. As you know, Tigger and Roo drove with me to Houston for my first book signing. We made the trip into a vacation. Don’t even know where to begin on the amazing week spent away from home.

I’ll start by saying we loved Houston. My cousin (who I hadn't seen in a few decades) lives on the north side of the city, so I found us a hotel nearby. I chose a new La Quinta with an indoor pool since the boys love to swim. What I didn’t know was the hotel was in The Woodlands area. We scored on the location. The Woodlands is filled with restaurants and stores. We ate Italian, Mexican, Chinese, and barbecue. We also visited the downtown aquarium with my cousin and her girls.

The book signing was crazy awesome. It was a weird feeling to meet readers who know my books better than I do. One of them, a sweet chickadee named Natalie, said she’d read anything I wrote. I’m just warning everyone that my ego is huge now.

Lucking out, I was seated next to awesome author Laramie Briscoe and her friend, and soon-to-be author, April. I also met Damaged series fan and fellow author Stephanie Garza who I interviewed on Indie Angie after she published her first romance. Between those three and the readers, I smiled and laughed so much that my face hurt afterward.

I'm hoping to return to Houston for another signing, preferably one in the summer. I’d been considering moving to Texas for a while (the no income tax thing is a nice carrot). Every time I told a local this fact, they said I needed to visit during the summer first. You know, to see if I could tolerate the heat. Of course, I would handle the heat there in the same way I handle it here. Hide inside with the air conditioning. While we were visiting, the weather was in the sixties. Yeah, I’m a little in lust with Houston.

The trip was also a creative boon. From the Illinois interstate adjacent strip clubs to “Little Memphis” to the hitchhiker on the long stretch of nothing in Arkansas, the drive inspired a million new ideas. In fact, I've added a few new books to my 2014 schedule. Who knows when they’ll be written?

Overall, the trip turned out better than I hoped. Take that, jealous anon F&G poster who misuses quotation marks. 

Back to non-freaky stalkers, I missed Pooh more than I can express and am relieved to be home. Sally did a great job watching him and he did a job great watching her. The cats did a great job trashing the house because they felt ignored. The dog did a great job pretending to be a pissed off cat.

Normally, I’d list off a bunch of blog posts I’d worked on or books I’m churning out. While technically a business trip, I was really on vacation and did nothing blog or writing-wise. Thankfully, Agent M was on the job and smacked around (figuratively) more than one BBA. Giggles.

This month on Where Zombies Come to Read, I’m focusing on All Together Now: A Zombie Story. After the scarecase, I posted an interview with the author Robert Kent. He also provided an excerpt that I'll post next week. Finally, Deadly Dee is working on the review for the book. I’m thrilled to profile a fellow Hoosier author.

In a few days, I’ll have the blogs running especially Whisperer. We have a few ideas to help new authors avoid turning into asshats. Plus, everyone in the know is well aware of the Titty Twisting Trifecta happening between Rick Carufel, Melissa Douthit, and Asshole92X (the BBA who equates bigotry towards the disabled with negatively shelving rude authors). While I had hoped F&G going into retirement would mean we’d have less reason to blog, BBA never rest. If they didn’t have something negative and whiny to say, these numbnuts would say nothing at all. With other asshats pointing out her bad behavior, Melissa is in overdrive trying to find something positive for her hate blog.

Soon, I’ll get back into the swing of things here in Indy. Books and blogs need writing. Laundry needs washing. Best of all, kids need cuddling. So far, 2014 is turning out to be one hell of a year.