pbray

Had a great time at Flights of Fantasy yesterday.

Drove up in the pouring rain, and arrived early so I grabbed a cup of coffee to fortify my mental processes before heading over to the store. Met Maria, Joe and Gil for dinner at the Italian restaurant across the street, then returned to the store for a reading, followed by a discussion, then a half-hour of signing and individual chatting. It wasn't the best reading I've done--I could feel myself rushing a bit, but it wasn't my worst.

Even with the foul weather the event was well attended, and the audience asked thoughtful questions. Maria had laid in a stock of the DEVLIN books, so I sold a few of those as well as a large stack of THE FIRST BETRAYAL, then signed the rest for stock. Gave away the remaining marketing lizards and lots of M&M's.

The audience seemed to have a good time. Flights of Fantasy is one of my favorite places to do a booksigning because the folks there genuinely love books and love the genre. The audience asked all sorts of interesting questions about the book and the writing process. As we bantered back and forth I got a cool idea for a crab attack ("I pinch!"), which may feature in a forthcoming book.

There were a few questions about the next book in the series, but I could only discuss it in general terms in order not to give away massive spoilers for TFB. I'm looking forward to seeing the LASTSFA folks again after they've read the first book, when I won't have to be so careful in my descriptions.

Then, reluctantly, I packed up for the 2 1/2 hour drive home. The rain was intermittent so I was able to pop in my new CD and listened to the soundtrack of Wicked. A good soundtrack, even competing with the rain and windshield wipers, but I found the part of Elphaba (the Wicked Witch) to be lacking--the vocals didn't match my memory of Saturday's performance by Eden Espinosa. Not that it was bad, merely just not as good as I remembered.

Now reality strikes with a thud, as it's back to the day job!