Come Out To The Coast, We’ll Have A Few Laughs

I have returned from the Left Coast.

Goodbye, Los Angeles.

Hello, suddenly-green wooded acres outside my office window.

I am now beating back jet lag with a thumpy stick.

*thump thump thump*

The trip was a good one. A great one, actually. I didn’t go out initially to support Blackbirds (which, ahem, released on Tuesday, as if you did not know that what with my ceaseless reminding), but actually to give a talk to the WGA on the subject of transmedia storytelling with my writing partner (and then a second less-formal talk to the WGA board, which put me in a room of luminaries so dazzling I’m still trying to blink away the star-streaks).

But, of course, it also happened to time out very nicely with the release of the book.

Did the LA Book Fest on Sunday. They sold out of the book on Saturday (!!) and had to get more in for my signing, which was exciting because lo-and-behold, people actually wanted me to devalue their books with my signatures. (And I also signed books by predicting how the procurer was going to bite it. Death by plague marmots! Smothering butterflies! Jet boats! Bird flu!)

Then: Monday saw meetings about Blackbirds. Those went very well.

Tuesday was the signing at Mysterious Galaxy, and Sweet Baby Krishna do they know how to throw a book launch. Death-themed cupcakes that predict your demise? Virgin blackbird cocktails? Friends and fans and goodness thanks to LeAnna (note the “big A”) and the other brilliant humans at the MG store in Redondo Beach. Once more, signed books. Told people how they would bite it. Good times.

In random snippets:

I had a birthday. Thanks to Facebook for reminding me.

Howard Rodman, standard-bearer for the WGA, is a true gentleman and so kind for having us speak to the WGA. And for saying nice things about me to them. And for giving me a cupcake.

The Blackmoores — City of the Lost Stephen and wife Kari — did not rufie me with drug-cupcakes and lure me into their lurid latex underworld. He did show me his rubber llama costume, though, which I thought was illuminating. And Kari did make cupcakes. All of which I ate greedily.

(It was very clearly a cupcake-centric trip.)

The “niceness” quotient of Los Angeles was raised when Sabrina Ogden flew into town for the book signing. She is, as some of you know, a beaming bright channel of sunshine that dispels the darkest night. And it was a pleasure being carsick with her in the back of the Blackmoore’s ride, where we threatened to share bodily fluids in the least pleasant way. Or, at least, puke in the Blackmoore’s seat pockets.

And “seat pockets” is not a metaphor for anything. Dirty birdies.

Jimmy Calloway and Matt M.C. Funk should form a goddamn detective team and just get it over with. Those two need to be characters in a novel (though they are both excellent writers as well).

Nancy Holder is very nice for putting up with me sitting next to her during the first signing.

Scott “S.G.” Browne has a novel out called Lucky Bastard, and it is kick-in-the-nuts good. You should procure it. And I — *takes a note* — should have him here for a terribleminds interview.

I talked about how I once saw a tiger urinate on a little girl.

An old man accosted me in the grocery store while I was looking at cookies. He wheeled up to me and said, “Pick your poison! There’s enough to go around!” He then cackled and tottered away.

LA traffic is a sentient bipolar threshing device.

I met people from Twitter. Which sounds like a country. “Where are they from?” “Twitter. The Republic of.”

I drew weird porny cartoons in a couple copies of Blackbirds and at least one of them is hidden somewhere in the Mysterious Galaxy (RB) store. LeAnna took the one with the two-dicked unicorn.

I have about a thousand emails to pick through. So if you’re waiting on me, I’ll get there, but don’t be afraid to poke, prod, elbow me. It will get your email at the top of the midden heap, at least.

I’ll have the death-themed flash fiction challenge picked by the end of the weekend. Promise.

Again, Blackbirds is out. You can nab at:

Amazon (US)

Amazon (UK)

Barnes & Noble

Indiebound

If you read the book and liked it — or any book by any author! — please consider writing a review and telling your friends and just in general being an advocate for work you love.

Also, send us cupcakes.

Because, as it turns out, we really like those.