Back on the road again, we hope!
O.K. I’ll admit it. With very few and minuscule exceptions, I have studiously avoided speaking to this terrible, frightening COVID-19 year. Why? A number of reasons. If I ignored it, I did not have to think about it so directly and thus it was pushed to the back of my mental assembly line, malevolent though it there lay creeping about. By not writing about it, I could almost pretend it was not about me and thus I became a pandemic ostrich.
Whatever works, right? Everyone else it seems wants to talk about it and talk about it some more and I refused to join that Greek Chorus. That rapidly became boring and being boring, in my mind, is a significant co-morbidity. I shudder to think of the number of books and short stories that have already been written about ‘My Year With COVID’ or some such similar riff. They’re all going to be the same, rather like an endless series of Dick and Jane books about illness, fear, being careful, staying six feet apart (why not five, why not seven…?), wearing a mask and washing one’s hands-a lot. Anyone see a pattern here? I wish the late Christopher Hitchens and Charles Krauthammer were still here to weigh in with something (and they surely would!) different, imaginative and pithy. And too, as the time went along, I became not so much emboldened but more positively fatalistic; “Hey if it hasn’t gotten me by now, maybe, just maybe, it ain’t gonna get me…”
Lastly, and as part of that fragile ‘near certainty’, aside from my age, I don’t, as best I and my physician can tell, don’t have any significant underlying health issues, have always been physically active, am emotionally positive for the most part (though I can surely lapse into some cynicism and stink-eyed reverie every now and then, do not inhabit a nursing home and do not meet the glaringly obvious demographics of so much that attends this hard year).
And now come the vaccines! Faster than a speeding bullet! And apparently, more powerful than a speeding locomotive! I am happy to concur in the general consensus that former President Trump was about as graceful about all this as a bag full of rocks in an alley fight and that in general, he was and is a narcissistic, bloated blowhard. And y’all can go ahead and fill in all the other blanks as you wish. There, I’ve also touched the third rail-politics But, and it’s Big But, he jammed the pharmaceutical industry by tantrum and threat and order and command to get these doses out there and I mean yesterday and they said it could not be done and yet they got it done in warp speed and record shattering time. Trump gets credit here. And just by the way, in the process, he has re-set big pharm’s approach to this sort of scenario and the efficacious drugs in the pipeline and going to be pouring forth with greater effectiveness and efficiencies.
I got my first vaccination on January 18th. That seems like so long ago and my second on February 11th. I’m feeling pretty bullet proof right now. And not only that, there seems to be a strong sense that this acute phase of the whole damn rotten thing is broadly winding down. May that please be so!
Now, why do I start this piece of writing with these introductory remarks? Because COVID has taken me and my books off the road for a year and I am ready to get back up on my bicycle and start peddling like topsy again.
This afternoon, I’m going to have a working lunch with my always-great publicist, Hannah, and we are going to meet with the proprietors of a local, nifty, tasty restaurant and bar and start planning a book event that includes actual, living, breathing human beings. And after this year, that is exciting.
My newest book, YOU HAVE YOUR WAY, the follow-on successor to FRIDAY CALLS, is ready to go and actually has been ready to go for a couple of months. But, because of COVID and the restrictions it has placed on gatherings, we have intentionally held it back, hoping that as Spring came on, we could have more latitude in planning for live events. I have done plenty of Zooms over the last many months and while they’re OK, they are nothing like the real thing in real time.
As frustrating as the wait and delay have been, there is a bit of a silver lining. The empty time block created between 'Ready To Go' and 'Line Up And Wait' allowed us the time to get the text turned into an audio-book. As with FRIDAY CALLS, I read the book in studio with my now-assigned master of the sound board, Michael, who patiently and firmly steered me through its four-hundred plus pages!! until he got what he thought was the best of it. We are all very pleased and are of the mind that as good as FRIDAY CALLS is, YOU HAVE YOUR WAY is better. And that’s fun. So on April 13th, the gate will be formally opened and you can get it all, in any format you desire-even Large Print-from either you local, independent bookseller or too, from Amazon and Audible.
The formal release will be followed up a few days later by a fun event sponsored by Charleston’s wonderful BUXTON BOOKS where the very talented Sara Johnson (most recent: THE BONES REMEMBER) and I will interview one another about this ‘Writing Thing’.
(Also, from the for what it’s worth department, both of my books are in the highly regarded and professional hands of a screen writer some will just have to wait and see on that score but it is certainly nice to have that kind of thing under consideration.)
Now, what is so much fun and so rewarding to me about book events that are alive and in person?
I get to meet and visit with old and new friends.
I get to read excerpts and my audience asks me questions and gives me feedback.
I get to field their thoughts and comments and always, there will be new ideas, new characters, new approaches.
And, I get to sell a few books too, stuffing the cash and checks in my pockets like a Vegas rookie on a junket, signing and autographing away. It’s a heady feeling.
(I should note that we try to put these little affairs together as a nice cocktail party-with adult beverages and some good snacks to lubricate and energize the proceedings.)
As of now, we are planning three or four main book introductions.
One here in Mount Pleasant at Community Table and possibly one more at a spot not yet decided upon.
One in my hometown of Winston-Salem at a wonderful room called Gas Hill, in the RamKat music venue smack in the center of a re-emergent, vibrant downtown.
One in beautiful Aiken at the venerable and venerated Willcox Hotel, a place that simply oozes ambiance and comfortable good taste
And that’s just for starters.
Then, as things go, we will start lining up readings at independent bookstores all over the place. These are fun affairs too, with the same feel as the first three noted above.
Winston-Salem, Greensboro, Charlotte, Southern Pines, Outer Banks, Asheville, Charleston, Savannah, Jacksonville, Palm Beach, Boston and I’m sure I’m omitting a few.
And there will be radio and newspaper interviews, podcasts and Rotary Club and Kiwanis gatherings. So, now it seems that the time has come to shake off the cobwebs and get ready to dive back into the world of words and reinvigorate.
And too, I need to give my team the football schedule for my beloved Tar Heels because there are priorities in this world. You know me!
And oh yes, time to write the next one. Plot structure is good to go, will be entitled: SLIM AND NONE. Other than that,I got nothing going on…
Y’all keep staying safe out there!