“The Book-Signing”

The winner of Michael Synder’s Return Policy and some random item from his desk (via random number selection via my husband) is…….

Katie Ganshert!! Congrats!! Please e-mail me at Krista @kristaphillips.com with your mailing address!

And now, for the answer you’ve all been waiting for (beside of course, who one the drawing!)

As I mentioned, Mike and I have never actually met. But how we know each other is kind of, complicated. The truth is, I bought his house a few years ago.

But, I didn’t know him or that he was a writer, I just happened to purchase his house. Anyway, this was around the time he was finishing edits on his first PUBLISHED novel, My name is Russell Fink, and they evidently didn’t get the address changed at Zondervan, so his edits were delivered via FedEx to my house. (The Hearth and side of the cow relate to the street our infamous house is on, but I won’t give you specifics on that because I really don’t want everyone in the blogosphere knowing where I live….)

I didn’t know who he was, so (long story short) I returned the package to FedEx. But over the next year… I kept receiving random packages. Once we kinda new each other from a local writer’s group, and I actually had his e-mail address, I began playing “delivery woman” and letting him know when his packages arrived, and trash woman by throwing away all his junk mail. We still have a flub up every now and then and receiving something… after 2 ½ years.

And that, my friends, is the weird twist of fate. I like to think of my house as the “writers” house and hope that the “published” energy will someday rub off on me. *grin*

That said, I want to tell you a little story today, in honor of Mike. This is one he hasn’t heard before, and will probably shed ME in a bad light, but will let you know why I say we haven’t ACTUALLY met… only kinda. (His wife usually picks up the packages… thus the reason I haven’t met him!)

Krista shifted her car into reverse. Call her chicken, she really didn’t care. But the plan now seemed juvenile and ridiculous, and there was no way she’d go through with it. As she turned her car out of Border’s parking lot, the jazzy ring of her cell phone blared at her like a warning sign. “Don’t answer me, Don’t do it!”

She debated on throwing the stupid thing out the window, but wasting money wasn’t in her vocabulary. Plus, her sister would kill her for screening the call, so she flipped open the contraption of doom.

“Kari, I’m not doing it.”

Her sister huffed. “Shut up, goober. You are to. I’m almost there, and you’re not backing out now. Grow up.”

Krista stuck her tongue out at the phone. “Fine. Hurry up though. We’re only staying a minute.”

She swung her car back around and parked at the end of the lot. “I can’t believe I’m going through with this.” Was she really turning into a stalker? Really? She was about to sink to an all time low, and in no way was she proud of that fact.

Kari’s car pulled in next to her, then she all but dragged Krista into the bookstore. “You’ll be fine. And you will say hello.”

Krista laughed. “Over my dead body. If you think I’m gonna do that, then aliens must have taken over your body, because my sister would never be that delusional.”

“What, you’re just gonna go in there and watch?”

“Something like that. I just want to see how it works, okay?” Call her stupid, but she’d never been to a book signing, and if she was going to take this writing thing seriously, she needed to do research on how it all worked. Do people have to buy the book and THEN get it signed? Or get it signed then buy the book? Or are they just handing out free books to the crowd? That didn’t seem right… they needed to make money at this thing, right? Would there be like a trickle of people, or a line out the door of people dying to see a real life author?

Once in the store, Kari started towards the table where a man with glasses stood. Krista clutched onto the back of Kari’s shirt and corralled her to the magazine section. “What are you doing? I told you, we are not going to meet him.”

“You are being goofy. It isn’t that big of a deal.”

The man looked their way, and Krista grabbed the first magazine she found and stuffed it in front of her face. “Shut up. He’s looking.”

It took her a second to realize that the picture she was staring at was a dude upside down without a shirt. Nice muscles, but not really her supreme choice of magazines, and it’d help if it was right side up.

A second later, she noticed a woman and a stream of kids behind her, all wearing yellow shirts, coming through the door and headed toward the dude behind the table. “Look, I think that’s his family. See? The shirts have the dog from the book on them!”

Kari planted her hands on her hips. “Are we really just going to stand here? Because it’s really kinda dumb, to be honest.”

Krista shook her head. “Now, let’s go to the other side so we can watch from there.” She walked with the magazine, a tasteful golf digest this time, between her and the book singing in progress.
This went on for the next ten minutes, circling the store, checking out the progress of the signing. A few times there was a line.

Finally fed up, Kari tapped Krista’s arm much harder than necessary. “Seriously? You’re retarded. I’m leaving.”

Krista nodded. She’d come, she’d seen, she’d researched. Her first stint as stalker was completed. Jenny, the heroine of Krista’s first book and amateur stalker herself, would be proud.

Please note, the above does not truly represent a GOOD sample of my writing, as it was written in about ten minutes close to midnight after a very, very long day. But… I tried. LOL

Discussion: What is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done when researching for your book?