Okay, here’s the rundown on the events I’ll be doing at RT this year (May 13-18):
Wed. May 14: 2:30pm Club RT — casual meet readers
Wed. May 14: 7-10pm Welcome Parade & Dinner — my publisher Forever/GCP/Hachette is a sponsor
Thu. May 15: 1:15pm Forever Publisher Spotlight
Thu. May 15: 3:15pm Club RT — casual meet readers
Fri. May 16: 4-6pm RT Reviewers Choice Awards
Sat. May 17: 11a-2p Giant Book Fair
Details under the cut:
Mirrored from blog.ceciliatan.com.
Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
(Only a few more days to earn bonus posts for February! Click here for details and to see the tally in the comments.). Short version: all comments, retweets, new followers/likes, and donations get counted as 1pt, plus 5 pts for reviews on blogs or left on Amazon, Goodreads, or Smashwords!)
After Bart and I ate, we sat around in the mostly-empty restaurant in no hurry to leave. Late night patrons still laughed loud at the bar in the back and waitstaff drifted back and forth with new bunches of fresh flowers for the tables and full salt shakers.
Now that I was full, and probably better grounded, I brought my mind back to more concrete problems. “I don’t even want to see him right now.”
“Ziggy, you mean.”
“Who else.”
Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
Bourbon Street was the same as last night, with people wandering through the bright neon-lit humidity looking as much at each other as at the store fronts and bars. Music poured out of every doorway and was sort of soothing after a while, the booming bass of one place fading into the cajun wheedle of the next as we walked, Bart bright-eyed like a fever victim and me, well, me just me.
We didn’t talk, but we didn’t not talk, if you know what I mean.
Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
(Details on how to earn bonus posts for February! Click here). Short version: all comments, retweets, new followers/likes, and donations get counted as 1pt, plus 5 pts for reviews on blogs or left on Amazon, Goodreads, or Smashwords! You have until Feb 3rd!)
We each did a pretty good job of avoiding the other after that.
At one point all of us were sitting around sharing beer and stronger substances with the openings bands (you guessed it, like everyone else we’d met in New Orleans, they were ultra-friendly) and having a wide-ranging group conversation, but that didn’t really count as speaking to each other. Ziggy was discussing hair coloring with the keyboard player from one of the bands whose hair was a long, wavy, unnatural orange. I contented myself with a lively argument over the roots of modern surf punk. (“Come on, do you think it’s a coincidence that “pogo” and “gogo” rhyme?”) And then the first band went on, and Bart and Chris went out to watch. I moved myself to one of the side rooms to put my eyeliner on.
Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
I lay for a long time on top of the bedspread with my clothes on, thinking, thinking. I couldn’t even remember half of what we had just said, which was unusual. Usually I could play back a traumatic exchange like a movie. In fact, I was usually helpless to stop the endless replays. But it was all fucked up now. I wasn’t even sure which of us had said what. Meltdown. All I remembered was that I’d given him an ultimatum. Stop the bullshit or I’m pulling the plug.
I thought about the little truce we’d had, keeping out of each other’s way, like that was supposed to restore my confidence and get me playing better. I had been playing better, acting better… what was going to happen now?
Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
I had just hung up the phone and was exploring the extra-large bathtub in the suite’s bathroom–it had some kind of jets–when I heard the door open. Ziggy came in and threw himself down on the king-size bed.
“Tired?” I asked as I paused in the doorway from the bathroom, my voice neutral.
He threw his arm over his eyes. “Yeah. But kind of wired, too. It’s this place. Talk about a party town.”
I sat next to him on the bed and crossed my legs. “I just got off the phone with Bizzy.”
“Oh, yeah?” His eyes were still hidden under his arm.
“Yeah. I told her I wanted her to come back.”
“I thought she had some kind of family emergency…”
I pulled his arm down and looked into his eyes, anger sudden and rough in my veins. “Don’t give me that bullshit. You know she left because of you.”
Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
I walked down Bourbon the other way, not tempted to stop and now vaguely wondering when I’d lost Bart. I didn’t see any of the others and felt a pang of guilt over Carynne; she’d have liked it here. When I got back to the room I called her, only thinking after I’d dialed that perhaps it was a bit late.
“Hello?” She sounded awake but puzzled.
“It’s your boss,” I said, holding the phone on my shoulder while I sat on the edge of the bed and untied my shoes. “We’re in New Orleans.”
“Omigod, isn’t it fabulous? Did you just get there or have you seen anything yet?”
Mirrored from the latest entry in Daron's Guitar Chronicles.
Within an hour we were on our way to Louisiana. Carynne had left me some specific notes about our route through Alabama and Mississippi, where to stop for food and such. Don’t Fuck Around she had pencilled in block letters on the page with the route outlined and although I didn’t figure she meant it literally we spent the minimum amount of time necessary to do what we had to in rest stops and at roadside restaurants.
There really are Denny’s in every conceivable corner of this nation. We’d all gotten to the point where we knew what day of the week was for which soup and I was actually looking forward to the next vegetable beef day.
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