Tour Schedule for Dana and Jess

I am going to be joining fellow mystery writer Jess Lourey on a Northwest Coast tour in May. Jess is the author of the humorous soft-boiled cozy Murder by the Month series, must read books for anyone who appreciates good plotting, solid writing with laugh out loud humor, and engaging, likeable and believable protaganists. Go ye and read, says Dana!

Blog Tour Schedule prior to the road trip:

Tuesday, April 22nd:
– Dana interviews Jess Lourey on Pointless Drivel
– Jess interviews Dana at Inkspot.com

Friday, May 1st:
– Jess reviews PERUVIAN PIGEON at GM Malliet’s blog on Amazon.
– Saturday, May 2nd: Jess at Cozy Chicks
– Dana & Jess at Dot Dead Diary

Sunday, May 3rd:
– Jess at Killer Hobbies
– Thursday, May 7th, Dana’s review of AUGUST MOON @ Mysterious Musings
– Saturday, May 10th, Dana at Cozy Chicks

Sunday, May 11th:
– Dana at Killer Hobbies

Coast Tour Dates:

Stay tuned for more additions to their tour schedule!

Blogroll

My blogroll is sadly lacking.

Jess and I have been looking into possibilities for a blog tour to promote our upcoming kamikaze west coast tour, covering stores from San Mateo to Seattle.  And there are just dozens of really cool blogs out there.  And these are just the ones relating to mystery writing!

So my vow is to add at least one blog a day to my blogroll for the next two weeks.   Reading each of them every day is another story, but I’m going to try and swing by each of them at least twice a week.  It’s hard, though.  I could spend all day noodling on the ‘net, reading other writers blogging about their experiences…and be perfectly content.  However I have about half a dozen guest posts to write before May 1st, not to mention writing up the schedule to post on my website.  And then there are my two pesky WIPs.  Oh yeah…and my day job.  And my nine cats (how I wish it was still 10…), my dog and my boyfriend.

My question to anyone who reads this post is:  how the heck do you find the time to keep up with your blogroll, writing, family, work and life?    ‘Cause I could really use some suggestions here!

A Week Without Blogging

Oh, the shame of it!  The stain upon my honor will never be washed from the fabric of the laundry of life.   Nay, there is not enough spiritual spot remover to expunge the…the…er…well…

Never mind.
I didn’t write any posts last week.  At this rate, it will be time for Left Coast Crime 2009 by the time I finish my series of posts about Left Coast Crime 2008.

Nah.

Last week was one of those ‘got a social event every friggin’ night except Tuesday night’ type of weeks.  And Tuesday night I got a stomach bug.  The weekend was taken up with more social activity; my sister Lisa was up visiting from Venice Beach (one of the cool parts of Los Angeles) and we had a full weekend of beach walking, ferry trips, wine tasting and exploratory drives up the 101 and 116 to the coast.

I did, however, finally finish the prologue for BAD RAP, my current WIP.  Third person is NOT my friend and it took me an inordinate amount of time to hammer it out.  But it’s done, I’m happy, I tasted good wine and took my first ferry ride since moving up to San Francisco.  I haf no regrets!

But I do have a hell of a lot of posting to catch up on.

I’m also doing another mini blog tour in prep for a live (not dead!) signing tour with fellow mystery writer Jess Lourey, author of the hilarious MURDER BY THE MONTH series.   She’ll be promoting her new book AUGUST MOON and I’ll be promoting MURDER FOR HIRE: The Peruvian Pigeon.  To check out our tour stops in the Bay Area to Seattle, starting the Wednesday before Memorial Day, go here.   I’ll be doing an interview with Jess on Pointless Drivel on April 22nd.  Don’t worry, I’ll post a reminder.

Jess and I are planning on a pacifistic Thelma and Louise type drive from San Fran up to Seattle.  Only problem is we both wanna be the Susan Sarandon character.  Which is okay ’cause even though we won’t get laid, we won’t get our money stolen by a sexy drifter either. 

LCC 2008 – Part 3/Suspicious Super Shuttle

The ride from the airport was, at least for the first 20 minutes or so, uneventful. The landscape was flat, covered with brownish gray scrub brush and patches of dirty snow. I could see mountains in the distance. I didn’t notice any immediate affect of the higher altitude, but my sinuses didn’t have much nice to say about the lack of humidity.
Lots of industrial complexes and hotels as we got closer to the city, Day’s Inns and Applebee’s territory. The driver exited the freeway (or do they call them ‘highways’ in Colorado?) into hinky looking industrial part of town, lots of chain link fences, graffiti’d brick walls, safety bars on windows and padlocked doors. The occasional bar, greasy spoon eatery (and one strip club) broke up the monotony of warehoused auto repair stores and parts manufacturers, but I didn’t see any people.

My mind immediately went to ‘this would be a great setting for a zombie movie!’ My mind often travels this path in its spare time, along with ‘if I were here when the zombie apocalypse hit, what building would be the most easily fortifiable and practical?’ Hey, I’m not the only one I know who thinks this way.
Before I could decide if I’d rather hole up in a bolts manufacturing company (totally surrounded by chain link) or Zeke’s Autoshop (solid sliding metal doors and next door to a Mexican restaurant that could be raided for supplies), a large car, Cadillac or Buick or some other big American gas guzzler (the old fashioned kind, before Humvees came into popular use – damn you, Ahnold!) pulled up next to the driver’s side of the shuttle. Both drivers saluted each other with a wave. Ours rolled down his window; the front passenger window of the Caddibuick was already open. Both cars reached a red light and a conversation commenced in a foreign language I didn’t recognize. Which means it wasn’t English, Spanish, French, Gaelic, Cantonese, Mandarin, Polish, Russian or Japanese. I don’t know all these languages, mind you, but I do hear them on a semi-regular basis here in San Francisco.

What I didn’t assume (using one of my barometers for logical thinking, which is ‘what would George Dubya NOT do’) is that the drivers were Islamic terrorists on a suicide bomb mission. Then, of course, my mind started concocting a South Parkian/Team America scenario in which it WAS a terrorist plot to destroy the Adams Mark Hotel and take out the mystery writers of America. Why? Didn’t matter. I was having fun picturing myself and the SinC members I’d met so far as Thunderbirds style puppets.
Meanwhile the stoplight changed to green and both cars moved forward about 20 miles an hour, conversation still going. I exchanged looks with my fellow passengers. This was kind of weird, not to mention potentially hazardous to our health if other cars came along and our driver didn’t start paying attention to the road.
They reached another stoplight and our driver picked up a white wrapped package next to him and tossed it into the passenger window of the Cadibuick. Eyebrows raised all around this time. “Some extra money on the side?” said the woman next to me just loud enough for us to hear. The driver was oblivious, still talking to his buddy as the light changed and they began rolling again. They reached a fork in the road and our driver went straight while his friend/business acquaintance drove off to the left.
I was dying to ask what it was all about, but didn’t quite dare as the super shuttle driver settled back into stony-faced silence. Chain link fences and graffiti gave way to a much more upscale downtown area and we reached the Adams Mark Hotel in short order. I got out along with the man in the backseat.
Heh. If he was another LCC attendee, I wondered which of us would use the incident in a book or story first.

Super Power

Ever played the ‘if you could have a super power, what would it be?’ game?  Y’know, the power to fly or turn invisible or whatever takes your fancy.  My super power of choice has always been teleportation.  This would include a guarantee I would always teleport successfully (correct location, body not turned inside, internal organs where they should be, etc) and be able to take person/persons and inanimate objects with me.  This way I wouldn’t have to pay for gas, plane fare, rental cars, or animal sitters.  I could go out of town and teleport back to clean out the cat boxes and feed the little darlings.  Pretty nifty super power, eh?

As of this weekend, however, a new power has supplanted (at least temporarily) my tried and true dream of teleportation.

I want to be able to make people fart at will.

MY will.  None of this ‘pull my finger’ stuff.

Now before you dismiss this ability as being worthless to anyone over the age of 10 (or not a drunken frat boy), think about it for a minute.  True, the idea originated because of an unworthy desire to see a particularly pompous acquaintance taken down a few pegs in his own self-esteem, but then the ramifications of this gaseous power began to occur to me.  Imagine what would have happened to, say, Hitler back in the days before he obtained real power, had he been seized with uncontrollable bouts of flatulence whenever he tried to give a public speech?   Would anyone have taken him seriously?   He’d just be known as that farty little gasbag with the doofy mustache instead of one of history’s greatest monsters.  And had George W. let a few wet and juicy ones rip on the campaign trail I seriously doubt we’d have had to put up with him for the last 7 plus years.

Think about it, ladies and gents.  The power to change history without raising a finger.  Or pulling one either.

My super heroine name?

The Fartiste, of course.