You’ll be pleased to know I didn’t flub my keynote speech at the Lake County Library’s 30th annual Endowment Dinner. I even got a few laughs, some of them for things I actually intended to be funny.The real treat of the weekend was my stay at Summer Lake Hot Springs. The library folks were kind enough to set us up in a wonderful little cabin just a few hundred feet from the warm rock pools I’ve been dying to soak in for years.
The cabin itself was cozy and charming and very, very rustic. The first thing I did when I walked in after a long road trip was look for a place to wash my hands.
The ancient taps groaned and coughed up a few tablespoons of mineral-saturated water. I wandered back out to the kitchen and picked up an antique looking tea kettle, pausing to consider whether I was supposed to use it or just admire the decoration.
My gentleman friend walked in and dropped our bags on the bed. The springs squealed in protest and the entire bed shifted twelve inches to the right.
I stared in horror for a minute. “Did we break the bed?”
He surveyed it. “Not yet.”
“I can already hear them buzzing at the library fundraiser,” I muttered. “‘We brought in a romance author, and wouldn’t you know it, she broke the bed.’”
“Aren’t you speaking on stereotypes about romance authors and the romance genre?” he pointed out.
“Exactly!” I shrieked, feeling a little panicky. “And you know if they’d brought in a sci-fi author, he wouldn’t have broken the bed.”
“No, he’d just make it into a fort.”
I considered that for a moment. “What would a historical author do?”
“Take down the curtains and use them to make a canopy for the bed,” he said without hesitating.
“Crime fiction?”
“Corpse under the bed.”
“Young adult author?”
“Replace the comforter with a Justin Bieber bedspread and put a telephone shaped like lips on the nightstand.”
I stared at him for a minute. “You’re good.” I looked back at our suitcases weighing down the end of the mattress. “At least that’s what I’ll have to tell them at the library if they ask why we broke the bed.”
Got anything to add about what authors from different genres might do to the bed? Please share!
Got anything to add about what authors from different genres might do to the bed? Please share!
And for the record, the bed was perfectly fine when we checked out. I swear.
15 comments :
Sci-fi: Turn the bed into a time machine.
Children's author is most likely to make the fort.
And I'd say that it's dreadful to hang Justin Bieber on young adult authors. Tsk. Young adult authors would probably tucked their locked diary under the bed pillow and add a couple of neon colored accent pillows to curl up with while their on the phone.
But, man, is he good.
Is he good ... Sorry. Being nosy, I mean curious, is a writer characteristic, of course. ;)
He was pretty good, except for that last one. Justin Beiber? Puh-lease. I have a teen and a tween living in my house (what, they're my kids) and we don't know anyone who likes the Beibs.
Otherwise, good stuff.
I could see a Fantasy author using the bed spread to play come-into-my-castle.
"Not yet.". Hahahaha!
What if they had a sitcom screenwriter come to town? I bet they would make stale "bed jokes" you've heard 100 times then play canned laughter so you would KNOW they were funny..
LOL! Now TG is jealous -- he wants to go live in a cabin just like that.
A *cough* certain light urban fantasy author I know might practice hand-cuffing someone to the bed, just to see how, um, practical that situation might be. Purely in the name of research.
"Not yet" That was funny! He's a quick thinker. :) Those pictures are great. What a tiny little cabin Awesome!
Love this. You sound really happy. :)
Crit-lit authors don't sleep on the bed. They're redefining the "bedtime" paradigm in non-linear ways.
Haha :) Wow! Totally cracking up here. Thanks for the laugh :)
Sarah Allen
(my creative writing blog)
You shared a cabin with someone who can riff like that off the cuff and the bed was fine when you checked out?
Why?
And I think SciFi writers would invent anti-grav to deal with the springs.
Horror authors would put a monster under there (or in the plumbing).
Erotica authors wouldn't bother with the bed -- wait, is that what happened?
Shakespeare, ooh, good one!
Skye, a lady never tells :) Wait, what do you mean I'm no lady?!
Matthew, funny, I've never met anyone who likes Justin Bieber either, so I can't figure out why the guy is always in my news feed. SOMEONE must be buying his stuff (I have no idea if he's an actor or a singer or what) but WHO?!
Jessica, nice! Maybe I'll start bringing my own canned laughter to events.
Linda G, bwahahahaha! I once handcuffed a female friend for the sake of research. I needed to see if someone with an exceptionally skinny butt can be cuffed behind her back and manage to step over and through the cuffs to get her hands in front. For the record, YES.
LynnRush, indeed, the quick and clever mind is sexy as hell. Um, among other things :)
Pen, you could certainly say that! :)
Geoffrey, bwahahahaha! Love it! What IS a bed, really?
Sarah Allen, always glad to amuse you!
Sarah W, OK, I'm not saying the bed was FINE when we checked out. It just wasn't smashed in a million pieces (from luggage or anything else!)
Thanks for reading, guys!
Tawna
Those were great answers! Definitely brought a smile to my face :).
OMG! JUSTIN BEIBER!
*reads comments*
OOOH I have a story.
Once, in 5th grade, my class had a cop come into our class to teach us about drug and alcohol abuse and stuff, right? So of course because we were little hoodlums (in sixth grade, the same class gave our teacher an ulcer - literally), we asked if he would handcuff us.
So he did. And one of my guy friends was very skinny and the policeman didn't have the cuffs on very tightly, so he managed to pull his hands out from the cuffs.
Then, of course, he ran down the class room yelling, "I'm free!!!"
In the same course, we got to see a video tape of someone disecting a person who'd died of alcohol poisoning. All I remember is there was a brain in a bowl. This *cough* might explain more about me than I'd like.
Okay, those last two posts sold me! LOL!
I've been following your blog for a while, but my TBR pile is SO HIGH!!
But I can no longer resist MAKING WAVES!
Thanks for the yuks.
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