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… and so the promo for Trevor’s Song begins! I’m hanging out at Alice Audrey’s blog today, talking about Trevor and why we all like him so much.
There’s a giveaway with a catch, as well… stop in and see what I mean.
In the meantime, I’m still trying to settle into the school year and get my thoughts in order. Much to share with you guys this week!
Note from Susan: If you were here a year ago, you may remember our Wardrobe Girl, Loren. I actually have other fiction I wrote right after I wrote that one, but never posted. We’ll have to fix that. In the meantime, here’s something to keep you entertained.
Before tonight, Loren would have told you she didn’t have a prayer of fitting in with this crowd. They didn’t like chicks in the first place, let alone girls like her who were on the road to hide from something. Maybe — hopefully, although Loren wasn’t sure if there was hope anymore — heal a bit.
Maybe she’d been wrong to hold herself back, to abstain. From the fun, the camaraderie, the deep, dark nights spent drinking and swapping tales as the bus rolled them toward another city they’d never get to see.
But now here she was, proudly wearing the halo they’d made her from those plastic things that went around six packs of beer and soda. She wasn’t drinking, but then, neither was Roberta. A woman shouldn’t drink too much on the road, Roberta often told her. Especially with roadies like Monkey around, even though he wasn’t part of this current group. Nope, this was RP, Hambone, RP’s girlfriend Maureen, and a couple others whose names Loren couldn’t remember. She knew their faces, though. They were all young, like her. They’d chosen the road instead of anything else — college hadn’t been an option for most of them. Not like it had been for Loren.
Who knew; maybe it was still an option for Loren. She wasn’t ready to think like that yet. Heck, it was hard enough just being here with a group of people, watching them drink and listening to them talk.
Wearing their halo and smiling as they sounded like they meant it when they said they were glad she wasn’t locked away in her bunk or sitting in a corner, staring at the walls. “You’re too mopey,” they told her. “Smile.”
She’d been hearing that a lot from the crew lately. Even from the band. Smile. Like there was anything to smile for. Or at.
Hambone told a joke and everyone cracked up. RP tipped over backward and Maureen and Hambone pulled him up, laughing even harder. Loren watched and, for the first time since she’d joined the tour, didn’t feel like they were laughing at her. She didn’t feel quite so raw inside.
Roberta caught Loren’s eye and nodded knowingly.
Loren had to touch her face to realize she was smiling, too.
And then her halo slipped down over one eye. She heard herself laugh.
Ready for this week’s links to prompt sites? Here ya go… Three Word Wednesday, Thursday Tales, and Friday Flash. And let’s not forget Weekend Writer’s Retreat, too!
We actually got back from vacation last Friday. Where’ve I been? Why am I hiding Trevor from you?
Well, I’m not hiding Trevor. You can buy him in print and e-book form. He makes a great gift.
However, me… yeah, I’ve been hiding. I’ve been spending the last few days of summer vacation with my kids. I’ve been processing what turned into an interesting vacation and since it’s about what happened in my personal life, no, I won’t be talking about it here. This isn’t a place that’s about me. This place is supposed to be about my fiction and I’ve replaced the fiction with myself way too much of late.
Some things on the horizon:
A HUGE blow-out for the Musical Hanukkah Celebration this year.
I’d like to get Demo Tapes 3 ready to release in conjunction with the Musical Hanukkah Celebration (I told you I was going big!), but I’m not entirely certain I can.
And some behind-the-scenes stuff:
Better networking to bring in new converts to the Trevolution
More help at Win a Book. I love its success, but it’s starting to eat up too much of my time.
and other stuff, too. Cross your fingers that I can pull it off.
But for now, I’m off to check out the Three Word Wednesday prompt and, as my kids head off on the big yellow bus tomorrow, getting back into the swing of things. I’ve missed this place. Hope you’ve missed me, too.
Yeah, so the Boy Band and I went down to the new Consol Energy Center today. If you follow me on Facebook (and you should!), you might have seen my status updates as the signs downtown changed. This is new, it’s exciting, it’s wonderful. Having a new venue in the city, where hopefully more bands will stop in and perform inside of…
Oh, yeah. Hockey. And man, does the ice look GOOD.
Walking into the Consol, I expected it to be all stiff and shiny. Almost overwhelming in its pomp and ceremony.
HA.
It was like slipping into a boyfriend’s shirt. The Boy Band and I agreed it was like coming home.
We wandered around. Holy smoke, the food prices! I thought they were bad last year, but NINE BUCKS FOR A PIZZA???? Hello, Consol and Pizza Hut people… I can get a pizza that feeds six of us for ten bucks. At the POOL. (and it’s good!)
Yeah. At four bucks for a bag of popcorn, even, I’ll be doing most of my eating at home, thankyouverymuch. What the heck; it’s healthier in the long run (although there is a fruit plate that’s priced at … ready? Six bucks!).
We went up to our seats (or what we think are our seats; we could only remember the section number and seat numbers, not the row.) — yes, as I’d feared, we are further back from the ice than we had been in the Igloo. But I gotta say it now: the sight lines are fantastic. I don’t think the players will be the tiny ants I was expecting them to be. If I can’t be ON the bench — not behind the bench, not in the first row behind the glass, but ON the bench. Butt on bench with the players — I want to be right where we are.
And the seats! Oh, I think the Tour Manager is going to be very happy with them. I know I was. They have great lumbar support and I suspect they’ll be great for doing multiple overtimes in once the playoffs come (me? Optimistic much? Nah.).
The women’s room at the top of our section has more than three stalls! Of course, this means less to joke about as we wait in line, but…
I was surprised to see that the toilets don’t have automatic flush. And that the faucets in the sink have those annoying water-wasters where you push the lever and can’t adjust the hot or cold or how long it’s on. And this is a LEED-certified building? At the highest level??? Sheesh. I thought the water would NEVER shut off.
Then the Boy Band and I wandered down to the club level, where a few of the boxes were open for inspection (we went into all the hoity-toity areas, in fact. I figure it’s the only time we’ll ever do it, so why not???). They are quite lovely and that private bathroom is something to covet. But the seats?
Yeah, they’re leather. They’re high-backed.
And after two minutes, they made my back hurt. I can’t imagine spending an entire game in them.
I’ll stick with the unwashed masses, thanks. Even if access to what they’re calling the Upper Bowl is confusing, limited, and probably a guaranteed death if we ever have to evacuate fast. That was probably my biggest complaint — but it’s also possible that once we learn our way around, we’ll find better ways up and down from the ground floor.
So now all we need is to wait for that puck to drop… I’ll be there with one or the other of my boys. I can’t wait.
In the meantime, I’m taking off for a few days R&R down at the beach. We’ll be back this time next week or thereabouts. You guys behave, peruse the archives here (can you say Musical Hanukkah Celebration? I’m already laying plans for the biggest and best yet), and buy my books. I got hockey tickets to pay off.
My good friend Mary sent me the heads-up about this one: Olivia Cunning has a new series she’s launching. The series is called Sinners on Tour. The band at the heart of the series is called Sinners. Each member will have his own book.
The first book is called Backstage Pass.
Of course I want to read (and review) this one. Perfect for me, no?
What more do I need to say? Other than darn it, I need more time to write! (and yes, I’m drafting this while my arm is bad. Like you can’t tell?)
So I’m seeing all over the blogosphere (well, this isn’t the only place I’ve seen it) that today’s World Cat Day.
Around my house, every day is World Cat Day. I am cat furniture. I am the ears that get yelled in every morning at 5:30 AM. I am the one who schleps to PetSmart in search of Dental Diet (which has been discontinued! The cat better not hunger strike. That’s all I gotta say…)
But most important, I am CAT FURNITURE.
And I love every second of it. Except those 5:30 AM yowls in my right ear, but hey, it can’t all be paradise.
Go kiss a cat, will ya?
If you’re new here, these characters can be found in all three of my books, The Demo Tapes (Year 1 and Year 2) and Trevor’s Song, the new, full-length novel starting the toasted marshmallow featured below. There are no spoilers in the following piece.
Noooo. Hotel pools were no longer good enough for the Great Mitchell Voss, it seemed. Nope. The fucker had to be outside, in the sunshine, where it was warm and where the sun would glisten off his fucking suntanned skin and make all the housewives swoon with longing at the way the golden tan contrasted with the loser’s silver-blonde hair.
Of course, there was a plus to this outdoor pool they were walking into: Charlie had promised them up and down no one would bat an eye at them. This pool was part of some blueblood health club, where any idiot could come ogle the pro athletes and the local TV people and everyone else who didn’t deign to be bugged by the adoring yokels who don’t know when to give a person some space.
They probably wouldn’t get anyone to play in the water with, Trevor figured. Places like this, no one did anything but swim laps and work on their tans. The people here were pampered. They preened.
They’d never let the likes of ShapeShifter invade them again.
They hadn’t even gotten into the place, and Trevor knew how it’d end. With the four of them walking out, laughing over a good time — and every other poor sod in the joint trying to figure out what had just happened to them. Oh, some of the women would be all intrigued, biting their lower lips and considering taking old Trevor up on his attentions. If only they weren’t married. If only they didn’t have the kids, or the stretch marks, or the guts…
Yeah. Nothing would come of that, either. Talk about a waste of a day’s good flirting.
Except… once they got there, count on Mitchell to fuck up the script. To pull off his shirt and make his hair cascade out behind him like some fucking romance novel cover model. If the band tanked, the asshole sure had another career waiting — so long as someone airbrushed his face real good. Then again, the girls seemed to like that cleft chin and those blue-green eyes well enough.
By the time Mitchell swan dived off the diving board the first time, every one of those pampered moms, their bodies too taut to have birthed babies and look so good without the benefit of plastic work along the way, their kids snot-nosed despite the good, chlorinated water to rinse it off. Yeah, every last person at that pool was sighing and wishing Mitchell would come talk to them. Even the grandma, her skin leathery from too many days out by this pool and her hair one of the fakest oranges Trevor had ever seen. Yeah, even her.
They’d be invited back, no doubt about it.
Trevor wasn’t sure if he should be grateful to Mitchell — burning every bridge you came to got old every now and then — or hate the bastard for the way the big idiot could make every single person on the planet eat out of the palm of his hand.
Maybe he’d settle for doing both.
**
Once again, I’ll be linking this piece up at a bunch of places. The Weekend Writer’s Retreat. Friday Flash. Writer’s Island.
Shh. I actually returned from Cub Scout camp on Saturday. What have I been doing since then?
Not writing. Much. I have an outtake ready to go that I’ll include as a Friday Flash. Or maybe I’ll write to this week’s Wordless Wednesday… I don’t know yet. Maybe both. Maybe there will be more fiction around here again.
With three weeks and a day left until school starts, it’s time to wring the rest of the fun out of summer. I may be erratic here. I may not be.
One thing that’s certain, it’s time to start ramping up the talk about Trevor’s Song. It’s out there, guys, waiting for you. Trevor himself is. You can bring him into your home and have you SEEN that cover? Totally hawt. Maybe hotter than Trevor himself. You need a copy. And remember, I’ll sell you a copy cheaper than Lulu will. (should I really be advertising that? Sure. Why not?)
Which means… you want me, Mitchell, Trevor, or even Kerri to stop by your place for an interview or guest blog? Let’s talk dates. My calendar for September’s starting to fill up. You know I love to visit and make new friends. Let’s hook up and play.
More to come. Maybe it’ll be tomorrow. Maybe it’ll be once school starts. Who knows? That’s the fun of summer vacation. (at least for now)
