My Book Life

I think I mentioned it a few blog posts ago, but Christopher Moore is officially on a book tour for the second book in his Dirty Jobs series.  I'm calling it a series because I'm not sure if there is going to be a third.  In fact, according to Mr. Moore the second book wasn't suppose to even happen, but he felt bad after the ending in A Dirty Job. I won't tell you why, because no one likes spoilers, but I'm glad it happened.  Anyway, this week he was in town and it was on one of my days off.  Last year I was sick and had found out too late to make plans to be in the city, but this year that was not the case.  Not since our great move put me driving distance of these wonderful events.  So, needless to say this week I've been pretty excited for Wednesday to roll around.  Christopher Moore is one of my favorite authors.

When I got to the book store the place was packed and everyone had a hot pink book in the hand (yup, that's the cover color of the new book).  Seems like I wasn't the only who was eager to see Christopher Moore talk about the new book.  I got their a little later than I should of, so I was stuck somewhere in the middle, squished next to the people next to me.  All of us waiting for the same thing.  And waiting.  And waiting.

He was a bit late getting on stage, but that's okay.  I was enjoying my small talk with the lovely ladies to my left.  Finally, though Christopher Moore came on stage.

It was well worth the wait, he is as hilarious in person, as he is in print.  After finally getting to hear him speak it's not hard to see where the humor in his books come from.  For an hour he talked about both A Dirty Job and Secondhand Souls, and where the ideas for both sort of came from.  It was a fun look into how his writing was influenced by the changes in his own life, and to hear him talk about books he published many years ago.  Let's face it, Pocket is one of my favorite literary characters ever created.  In fact, when he mentioned the possibility of one day there being another book with Pocket, I might of squealed.  Okay, there's not might of about it.  I full on fangirled at the idea of a second Pocket book.

After he was done telling us about the book there was a small Question and Answer section.  I didn't get to ask my question, but that's only because someone beat to me to it.  As someone who wants to be an author when she grows up, I wanted to know about how he writes.  It's something I try to ask whenever I get a chance to go to these events, because I still haven't found a thing that works for me.  His answer was that he does everything in the morning with his coffee.  He sits down and gets it all written out first thing, and then goes about whatever else he needs to do.  He says it's because he writes humor, and that spending all day writing makes the humor seemed forced.  While I don't write anything nearly as good as Christopher Moore, I might try out his method.  See if the mornings work better than me starring into the abyss of my laptop after work at night.

Hearing Christopher Moore talk wasn't all I got to do.  I also got to meet him!  Naturally, I was the awkward human being that I always am in social situations, but I got to gush about my love for Pocket.  Not to mention about how Charlie Asher (the main character in the Dirty Job series) was adorable and I wanted to wrap him up in bubble wrap.  He handled my awkwardness in stride and was very sweet.  In fact, he even signed a book for my roommate who was away with work and couldn't attend.  He's amazing with his fans and I'm glad to have gotten the time to see him talk.  It's definitely something I'm looking forward to to do again when his next book comes out!

This event was one of two I've been really excited to attend this year, the second isn't until October.  It was an honor to get to meet him, even if it was brief so the line to keep moving.  If you haven't read any books by Christopher Moore, I cannot recommended them hard enough.  He writes with a lot humor, a lot of satire, but he definitely writes for adults.  There is language and graphic scenes in a most, if not all of his books.  Pocket even got some made obscenities to fit his time period, ones that I use from time-to-time.

My next order of business is to get a review typed for A Dirty Job and to plow right into the second book, Secondhand Souls.  I should also finish the nonfiction book I started as well.  Oddly enough, also on death.  I'm beginning to see a theme in my reading the last few days.  Also, I got to meet Lish McBride while I was at this event.  If you don't know who she is, holy monkeys.  I fell in love with her first duology, and after talking to her about the new book I've bumped it up on my TBR.