Is it the end of July already? It CAN’T be, not when I feel as though I’ve just taken down my Christmas things, given away my Valentine’s hearts, hidden my Easter eggs, welcomed my kids home for summer vacation and spent the Fourth of July in Los Angeles, high up in the Marriott, watching fireworks displays from the sea to the mountains.
End of July means it’s almost time to get ready for school again, for fall, and the wham! bam! Thank you that is Halloween, Thanksgiving Christmas, and New Years. Where does that time even GO?
Grammerians, if ever there was a time for the interrobang, that would be it.
Have I really turned into one of those people whose years pass like the calendar pages flying by in old-school movies? What’s next? Will I start yelling at the neighbors’ kids to get off my lawn?
There is still some summer left, and I plan to enjoy it. I am going to the Writer’s Police Academy in Wisconsin, and I can NOT wait. I think inside every writer there’s a mystery enthusiast waiting to burst forth, like a Miss-Marple-shaped alien from one’s chest. Okay…maybe that’s just me. At any rate, I’ll be bathing in DEET and wafting clouds of baby powder (because I’ve BEEN to Wisconsin) and heading there for some first rate information on how to do mysteries and police procedurals right.
In the mean time, I have two very important things coming up:
Gasp!, the novel featuring irrepressible rock star Nigel Gasp and his body-guard-cum-love-interest Jeff Paxton, will be available in Audio book featuring the magnificent Gomez Pugh soon. (Because yeah, I borrowed him from Jordan Castillo Price and Amy Lane for a brief and perfectly wonderful time.)
A word about Gomez Pugh: I am a superfan. End Of.
I love the novels of Jordan Castillo Price. It goes without saying she’s one of my favorite authors. I hang on her every word. I marvel at her creativity. She zigs where I always expect she’ll zag. She astonishes. And that’s just while I’m reading. Add Gomez Pugh, whose careful study of text and determination to give life to a writer’s words is equally as astonishing, and you have something very magical indeed. I almost didn’t dare to ask him to give my work a try. And maybe I don’t feel–on some level–that I deserve him. Because he’s just that good.
But he agreed, (YAY!) and his professionalism, care with the text, and solicitation of my thoughts about the text, made the experience of recording this book such a pleasure. If it’s half as pleasurable to listen to as it was to make it, or have it made, as it were, you’re in for a treat. I know I was. Here’s the greatest compliment I can give any narrator with regard to my work: After a bit, I forgot I wrote the book and simply enjoyed listening to it…
Look for Gasp! at Audible soon.
And… Look for Crossing Borders, the Re-release Aug 4th:
If you haven’t read it, or you know someone who hasn’t, it’s coming back!
