May – Motorcycles – Zombie Mayhem

May is halfway done and I don’t know where it went. Work kept me unusually busy, but who wants to talk about that.

Spent many hours in the early days of May responding to publishers who asked me for pitches, creating them from scratch, re-tailoring them, or adding more information as requested. Of course since I sent the pitches in it has been crickets. I also had to hurry and produce a short story for an anthology. It was an invitation but not an acceptance, but this was one of my best works, by far, so I hope the publisher will snatch it up. Still, not a peep from the low world of publisher-demons, and probably none coming any time soon. Not the best of circumstances for an impatient guy like me.

Been working on setting up book signings but had a glitch. Empire of Salt was held up in customs for some reason and I missed my first signing, then missed the rescheduled signing when the initial hiccup caused a string of events between customs and distributers. Now we’re back on track and I’m back to scheduling signings. A big one is coming later in the year to coincide with the Tucson Zombie Crawl. Looking good. For tour dates, feel free to check at Book Tour.

Another thing that has been stealing my time was building a new shed for the well house. Lucky for us, Nephew Tad came down from San Fran and brought his general contractor expertise. We bought a Rubbermaid shed, but then reinforced it with wood and rewired all the well parts, in some cases, updating the wires from the 18^th century museum pieces we found there. Methuselah’s uncle was the one who originally put things together and was the inventor of the term “spit and bailing wire.” We’re just lucky things hadn’t sparked into flame before. But now the shed is built, the well is rewired and I can return to writing.

If Yvonne and I could, we’d spend a hell of a lot more time riding our motorcycles than we do. It’s such a joy and Arizona is made for it with the wide open spaces and the sparse traffic. For Yvonne’s Birthday, I arranged for an overnight trip to Douglas. Douglas is a small town in the southeastern corner of Arizona with a history dating back to the mid 1800s. It was big in the silver boom and was frequented by Pancho Villa. In fact, the grand old hotel we stayed at, which has Tiffany stained glass, marble columns, real gold leaf, etc, is the site of one event where Pancho Villa rode his horse up the winding marble staircase. It’s a pretty cool old hotel. I had a pass for a free suite we won a few years back which I had been hanging onto for just something like this. We cashed it in and were given the Harley Davidson-themed suite. Black and orange everywhere. Two rooms open to each other. 1970s furniture. King Bed. Jacuzzi garden tub. It was awesome. That night we went across the street to eat. The food was pretty bad, except for some sort of queso appetizer with chorizo that was fabulous. Still, I think we found the only Mexican restaurant in the universe dedicated to Marilyn Monroe. Not only were there over a hundred different photos, but there was a fresco set up like and altar on the way in. Creepy crazy cool. The next morning we ate in the hotel restaurant. It is always great. They have this concoction called Lorenzo Beans, which is refried beans, cheese and enough jalapenos to make you want to slap your momma (shout out Mike M). It was a nice trip and our first overnight.
Pictures from this trip. Pictures of the inside of the hotel from 2007

On Thursday we leave for five days to the Grand Canyon. Yvonne managed to get us on a 4 day rafting trip down the Colorado. We went to Tucson yesterday buying some of the gear. It should be an utter blast. I’ll take lots of pictures and share them. We won’t be taking a laptop with us on the river, but Yvonne will have her NEO, so writing will get done.

In the meantime, pick up a copy of Empire of Salt. Read it. And post about it. I need everyone to get out the good word. Ask your bookstore to put them on their shelves if they already haven’t. If you work in a bookstore, make sure you have this. And don’t forget to join the Empire of Salt Victim’s League on Facebook. Lots of info and prizes to reward your loyalty.