Friday, September 17, 2010

Busy, Busy, Busy

Where did the time go?  I just looked up and it's already past the middle of the month.  And what a busy month it has been so far!

Last weekend it was a book signing  at Crescenta Valley Park in La Crescenta, California in conjunction with the Society for Creative Anachronism's  celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the Barony of the Angels.  This coming Saturday (the 18th) I will be signing books at the Kern County Pagan Pride Day celebration in Bakersfield, California at the Kern County Shriners' Club, 700 South P Street, Bakersfield,  adjacent to the Fairgrounds.  Next Saturday (the 25th) another book signing at the Antelope Valley Pagan Pride Day celebration at Poncitlan Square, 937 East Ave. Q9, Palmdale, California.

In between that it's Write!  Write!  Write!  Starting Chapter 37 of THE BLOOD OF KINGS (Volume 5 of The Glastonbury Chronicles).  Although it's not scheduled for publication till 2012, the story won't leave me alone, and since the hero of "Son of Air and Darkness" will be joining the regulars for this jam-packed adventure, I am having a hard time staying away from the computer keyboard.  Twists, turns, a real Celtic interlace of mythology, fantasy, history and science fiction are making me pay rapt attention to every word The Muse lays down in this one.

Once again, sleep is for wimps!

Thursday, September 9, 2010

No...Really...A Giraffe

It was more than a year ago I first saw him...just a glance out of the corner of my eye, and then I shook my head.  Travelling at 65 miles per hour on the freeway and seeing something like that near the foothills above Southern California...nah, couldn't possibly have been...

But yes, this is Southern California, and anything really is possible, so I looked again about a week later on the same route home, and all I saw was a very tall barn with no sign of life.  Two days later on the same drive I looked again and he was there, tall and sort of yellowish and brown, but he wasn't moving.  It must have been a very large stuffed animal.

It became the only possible way to go home, to see if there was anything to be seen on the right side of the freeway in that tiny window of opportunity when that barn could be seen, and occasionally my vigilance was rewarded with the sight  of...well...a giraffe.  The first time he moved I was ecstatic.  A real live giraffe was living within 2 miles of me.  A giraffe!

And then there was always the possibility that I had been writing too many strange things and I had only thought I had seen a...well...you know...a camelopard,  Giraffa camelopardalis, (named camelopardus by the Romans because to their eyes it had characteristics of both the camel and the leopard).

So for days I was afraid to say much of anything about it, lest I be accused of having finally lost touch with reality, and for days I continued to drive by my long-necked friend to see how he was doing.  He.  How did I know if it were a he or a she, especially travelling down the freeway at 55 miles per hour? Of course I didn't, but I recalled a TV commercial for a toy store called Toys R Us (with a backwards R that my keyboard will not duplicate) and remembered they had a giraffe named Geoffrey as their -uh- spokesanimal, so Geoffrey he became.  Or she.  It no longer mattered.  Geoffrey had become my equivalent of the 6-foot invisible rabbit Jimmy Stewart used to talk to in the film "Harvey", and I was duly waving hello to this giraffe as I drove by at 45 miles an hour.

And then one day I let it slip to a friend who had lived in this end of town much longer than I had and I asked her if she had ever seen a giraffe in the area.

She laughed and said "Oh sure,  He's an animal actor.  He does a lot of commercials and all.  You can see him off the freeway not too far from here."

So if you see me driving down the freeway at 35 miles an hour, don't honk.  I'm just trying to wave at Geoffrey on my way home.  And if you look over to the right side of the freeway after you have slowed down, you may see him too.

After all, anything is possible in Southern California

Friday, September 3, 2010

She Who Must Be Obeyed

I do not have insomnia.  I have a Muse who is living on Greenwich  Time and expects me to do the same, which makes it, shall we say "interesting" for someone who in her mundane life is currently living on Pacific Daylight Time.

So...no slug-a-bed, I found myself dozing off at 9PM last night and up brightly at about 1 AM to add 3 pages to a chapter (25) I had assumed was finished.

Never assume anything.  Never assume I have any idea of where this Muse is taking me or why.  I don't.  I just hit the keyboard when I'm told to do so and marvel at what I read when it's all over.

It's past noon over there.  It's a little after 4 AM here, and the alarm will be going off in less than 3 hours.

Sleep is for wimps.

Wednesday, September 1, 2010

New Book Trailer Up

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4oYSJ41UBA
This is one of the two Book trailers we did for "Son of Air and Darkness".  I was particularly happy with the way it came out.