GRL & the Upcoming Aaron & Matt Short Story!!

So I went to my first GRL this weekend.  It’s still such an anomaly for me to travel alone and go places where I’ll literally know maybe one or two faces.  I’m not shy by any means but it’s stepping outside of my comfort zone, and in the case of GRL I didn’t know what to expect.  I won’t go into major detail but I will say this… it was very fun and certainly a worthwhile trip.  I went as a general attendee and ultimately, I think that was very wise.  It would have been too much pressure to figure out the logistics of going as a Supporting Author and I’m not quite ready to go in a Feature spot.  Everyone was very friendly and it was fantastic to talk to people who enjoy reading the genre.  Let’s face it, I can’t open any conversation with a casual acquaintance I meet at the market with “hey, did you read KA Mitchell’s new book?”.  At GRL… yes!

My one “out there” moment was co-hosting “Nothing Better Than… Blue Notes” with Shira Anthony.  Shira is a former opera star who graciously shared her amazing voice with the crowd on Friday evening.  She was… wow!  Really wonderful.  My part was karaoke.  LOL.  Not everyone is into karaoke (while sober at least 😉 ), but we managed to corral the crowd to sing a few songs and it was a blast!  Major thank you to Will Prater for rousing the group and to Dani from LoveBytes for belting out “Love is a Battlefield”.  So honored to meet you Dani!  You’re fabulous! And to my friend and fellow author, Andrew Q. Gordon for quietly volunteering to sign up to sing while seriously hoping he wouldn’t be called upon. He lucked out but I appreciated the support.

I volunteered a lot thinking it would help me meet new folks.  I worked the Supporting Author Signing and Featured Author Signing.  All the authors were very gracious and fun to talk with.  My bummer moment was that I didn’t work up the nerve to introduce myself to TJ Klune. He was always surrounded by friends and fans and… total fail on my part.  Maybe next year.  On the bright side, a major highlight was when a woman overheard some say my name and turned to me and said, “Lane?  Are you THE Lane Hayes?  OMG! You’re an auto-buy for me!” … Damn.  That’s the best way to leave… on a serious high note!

Back to reality.  I have a novel to finish and I’m soooo close.  I’m hoping to wrap it up this week.  Wish me luck.  As promised, I will release a short story in honor of Aaron’s birthday.  I mentioned his birthday is October 21 in another blog post so I will work on getting this short posted by midnight tonight.  I’m going to divide into two parts, one of which will be very NSFW ;-).

Happy Monday!  Have a beautiful day.

Lane xo