Tag: Book signing

Create Something Magical. And Jell-O Shots.

I’m headed up to the Liberty States Create Something Magical Con this weekend! Tons of fabulous authors, and there will be a book signing open to the public on Saturday 3/16 from 4:30 to 6 at the Renaissance Woodbridge Hotel. Come join us!

Jell-O & Cream

I have a hilarious joke, wanna hear? OF COURSE YOU DO. Okay, so a pirate walks into a bar with a steering wheel in his pants… Nowaitaminutehere… ahem… 

Do over: So I turned in Chronicle of Yavn book 3, Hunter by Night, to my editor. I am super thrilled and relieved to the gills (and psst! I’ve gotten a sneak peek at the cover art. It’s GORGEOUS!). The joke part? Oh, well see I told everyone “I’ll be much less busy in March!” AHAAHAHahahahahahaha! Not getting the joke? See everything I’ve been putting off for the past month while I feverishly tried to finish and rework and oh, hey, that plot point doesn’t work at all… All that stuff kinda has landed in a massive pile on my head, plus there’s anxiety, because I’m dead certain I am forgetting something. Thanks to the anxiousness, plus daylight savings time and kids that won’t sleep, plus the beeping “low battery” smoke detector that woke me at four AM thank you, I haven’t slept in days. I’m sort of stumbling around like a moron, in that dizzy haze one gets after too many Jell-o shots. Sure, you can still walk to the bathroom with dignity, but you shouldn’t drive or do heavy math…not that I’d know.

Dear Universe, it’s me. Elisabeth. Can I please have my shit together? 

No worries. Next week will be better! Elle Magazine promised.

OH! Also!

Leave a comment at Books Make Me Happy Reviews for a chance to win a free book or a pack of swag! Contest ends 3/16
 

Holy #%*t! My Zipper is Down.

 

Been feeling overwhelmed, so I decided to post something lighter today, that I wrote awhile ago and saved for just such an I’m-too-busy-to-blog kind of occasion:


So. I am one of those annoying people who FREAKS when they meet someone famous. They don’t have to be mega famous like the President or Madonna, just someone I respect and admire and do not know personally.

My friend Katie has a saying: “Donald Trump poops too”. Apparently reminding herself that all beings great and small go to the bathroom helps her keep things in perspective when she’s about to encounter somebody famous.

I think it’s a great philosophy.

I have been fortunate enough to meet a reasonably sized handful of well known individuals whom I admire, and with a couple of exceptions I handled them okay. A couple, not so much. When I managed to make my mouth open I walked away going “What the fuck was that, I sounded so stupid!” The times that I didn’t, I think were because I was too drunk to know better. So instead I hugged them, because I am very outgoing when I’m drunk.

Perhaps I should be drunk more often.

Anyhoo, I have mentioned before in previous posts about how much I love JR Ward. I mean, I love many authors (not in the creepy way, mind you), but reading JR Ward’s dark, sexy, and humorous style of storytelling was what opened my eyes and made me want to write my own novel. In my ignorance, I had previously thought that romance novels all involved flowery language and horseback-riding women in very large dresses. It never occurred to me, for example, that a bisexual Dom vampire could be the hero of a love story.

But he can, and that is AWESOME.

So, I decided a few months ago to take a trip to meet JR Ward (she doesn’t fly so we adoring masses come to her). The trip, sadly, was a total clusterfuck. I had to bring my youngest and flying with a 10 month old is no picnic. The airline rescheduled me several times, ultimately putting me on a flight that didn’t leave until AFTER her Lover Mine book signing. Then we bitched and complained until they agree to put me on a flight leaving, oh, RIGHT NOW which resulted in a mad dash to the airport with a migraine in my head and a screaming child in the backseat, only to be told they wouldn’t let me check in because it was too close to departure time. We wound up having to buy another ticket on another airline and pay for an extra hotel night, thus turning a reasonably priced trip into a ridiculously expensive trip.

Geeze.

So, the dust finally settles, and I’m in line at the signing, AND MY ZIPPER IS DOWN. I had chosen to wear a pair of pants that a friend had given to me because “They don’t fit anymore.” Mmmhmm…or maybe she didn’t want them because of the faulty zipper?

So I check and recheck, and I tug at my shirt because I do NOT want to be the sicko fan who approached JR Ward with a gaping hole in their pants. Of course by the time it is my turn to meet her, the freakazoid deer in headlights is back, so when she very graciously smiles at me and says “Hi”, which is generally the thing to say when you meet somebody, I’m stuck in place, too damn worried about that stupid zipper to move, and everyone is staring at me expectantly. Probably thinking “Move, you idiot!”.

I wind up propelling myself forward, and I think I managed to mumble a hello or maybe a thank you. I don’t remember. I spent the whole rest of her Q&A time checking and rechecking my zipper, to the point where I’m reasonably certain her security guard was keeping an eye out to make sure I didn’t do anything freaky. “Better watch that one, she keeps messing with her pants.”

Luckily my mom lived nearby, and had come with to hang onto the baby for me, or someone might have called child services.

So the whole thing was fun, Ms. Ward was gorgeous, charismatic and SO entertaining with her creative use of salty verbiage. Totally worth the trip, and if I can I will do it again in a heartbeat, presuming her security folks don’t have me on a watch list.

And next time, maybe I’ll just wear sweat pants. Or a skirt. Definitely something zipper-less. Which one, do you suppose, would be safer?

(Author note, updated July 4, 2012. I wrote this post before selling King of Darkness. I think perhaps even before I finished writing it. I have since become better at acting normal when I meet authors who are well-known, and I have also since met…JR Ward’s assistant. LOL. She appeared at RT 2012 and as both a good and bad thing, I was too busy promoting a book of my own to be able to wait in line to meet her.  A lot has changed! But it’s kinda cool to read back and remember.)