Sorry for the lack of bloggy posts (or tweets, or Facebook updates), but it was a very very busy weekend which didn't actually have much time for sitting at laptops and putting fingers to keys.

Friday afternoon I hopped on a Bolt Bus that took me down to Maryland. Friday night was a rehearsal for the next Boogie Knights CD, which we're doing because it's been six flippin' years since we released Many a Sleepless Knight, and it's the band's 30th anniversary this year, so we really need to have a new CD out. No title yet -- my first suggestion was 30 Years of Knight, but I have no idea if anybody but me thinks that's clever -- and I doubt we'll be able to have it out in time for Shore Leave, but we'll see how things go.

(We also have to get our web site back up and running. We're not sure what happened there, but we're working on fixing it.)

The CD and the Shore Leave 30th anniversary concert, by the way, will also debut our new singer, Mad Donna (really Lynn Cunningham), who is wonderful and has an amazing voice. She is replacing Lady Sarah of MacLachlan (really Heather Bagnall Scheeler), who is moving onto other things. Friday night's rehearsal was my first time performing with Lynn in a musical setting, and it was awesome. She's going to be a great addition to the Knights' sound.

After crashing at the manse of Lady Dionne of Warwick (really Sharon Palmer), home of two delightful pooches (Jack and Cassia), who were tremendous fun, I woke up Saturday morning to have breakfast with my friend Renee, then trained it up to Wilmington, Delaware, where Wrenn met up with me. We spent some time wandering around Old Newcastle, Delaware, which is full of nifty historical buildings and stuff, then went up to Folcroft, Pennsylvania to hang out with Wrenn's brother Tommy. We had dinner with Tommy, his girlfriend Joan, and our friends Stacey and Mike (who live in the area), then went back to Tommy's. Wrenn and I stayed up late playing a game we bought at Dexcon called Burn in Hell (Steve Jackson Games FTW!), then slept over at Tommy's.

After breakfast with Tommy and Joan, we headed down to Between Books in Claymont, Delaware for the Writers Coffeehouse -- a gab-fest among writers of various stripes, hosted by the Liars Club, in this case represented by me, Jonathan Maberry, Gregory Frost, and Keith Strunk -- followed by a launch party for V-Wars, the shared-world vampire anthology edited by Jonathan. He, Greg, and I each read from our stories -- Jonathan read from one of his supplemental pieces, "Escalation," I read from "The Ballad of Big Charlie," and Greg read from "Vulpes" -- and we sold out all of Greg's copies of the book, and signed 'em. As an added bonus, I sold a couple copies of SCPD: The Case of the Claw and Goblin Precinct, and Greg also bought some copies of those two and Unicorn Precinct for the store.

On our way to Claymont, we stopped at a bakery on Folcroft called Marie's, which makes the best donuts ever. Seriously, just amazing Pennsylvania Dutch-style donuts that beat the hell out of anything from Dunkin Donuts or Krispy Kreme. They were devoured by the folks attending the event.

Afterward, a big bunch of us -- me and Wrenn, Zan Rosin, Mark Wolverton, Wrenn's old buddy Leslie Ann, Gary Feldbaum, my editor on the Precinct books Elektra Hammond, and Between Books owner Greg Schauer -- went to a Mexican place for dinner.

The only damper (literally, to a degree) on what was otherwise a productive and excellent day was that Between Books's air conditioning isn't working. The place was actually okay thanks to judicious use of fans, but by the end of the event, I was baked. The restaurant didn't have the best AC in the world, either, but it was tolerable. (Our first choice for dinner was a barbecue place, but when we got there, there was a sign saying the AC was busted. No chance. We took our business elsewhere.)

Then we hied ourselves home where the season premiere of Leverage awaited us on the mighty DVR (along with Longmire and some other stuff).

For those of you who missed the V-Wars launch, the audio of it will be a spotlight episode of The Chronic Rift podcast some time soon.

Today I have to (FINALLY!) record a new Dead Kitchen Radio, work on a short story, and start an edit or two. Woo!

Current Mood: busy
Current Music: "Lay Lady Lay" by Bob Dylan