I usually write the blog on Wednesday or Thursday. Today I\u2019m writing it on Tuesday. Why? Because I\u2019m going to be very busy later on in the week.<\/p>\n
For one thing, a shipment of 800 books is due to show up any minute now, all of which will need to be signed. It\u2019s on occasions like this that I\u2019m tremendously grateful for the marketing guys at Avon Books who, in 1983, insisted I use my initials as my pen name because, as they told me, \u201cMale readers won\u2019t accept police procedurals written by someone named Judy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just like that, Judith Ann Jance went bye-bye and J.A. Jance appeared on the scene. Trust me, J.A. uses up a whole lot less red ink (I always sign in red ink!) than Judith Ann. And less time as well. So that\u2019s one of my Thursday things.<\/p>\n
By the way, those signed copies of Den of Iniquity will be part of the November Book Box for Brenda Novak\u2019s Book Club.<\/p>\n
As for the \u201ccrime\u201d mentioned above? Fairly early in my career, I was invited to speak to the ladies\u2019 spring luncheon at the Seattle Yacht Club. I grew up in Bisbee, Arizona, where yacht clubs were very thin on the ground, so the idea of my speaking to the yacht club ladies was daunting to say the least, and so was the idea of finding parking there.<\/p>\n
As a result, Bill drove me to the event and dropped me off at 10:30 AM for an 11:30 start time. Was I nervous? You\u2019d better believe it. When I walked through the entrance, I was greeted by a silver-haired lady with a smile on her face and a glass of white wine in one hand. She handed me the glass of wine. I was nervous, so I drank it. When that glass was empty, she handed me another. I drank that one, too, and when I arrived at my assigned seat, there was a third glass of wine waiting for me.<\/p>\n
In other words, by the time the luncheon started, it still wasn\u2019t noon, and I was already three glasses of wine ahead of the game.<\/p>\n
So when I stood up to speak, I started off by telling a naughty joke\u2014which I have no intention of repeating here. Over the years I\u2019ve occasionally heard from people who attended that luncheon. They\u2019ve all told me I was \u201chilarious\u201d during that appearance, and maybe so, but believe me, I learned my lesson. When I\u2019m going to do a speaking engagement, I might indulge in a single glass of wine, but nervous or not, I don\u2019t swill down three.<\/p>\n
My second appearance at the Seattle Yacht Club is due to happen on Thursday evening when I’ll be speaking to members of their three separate book clubs. That\u2019s concerning, too. My previous experiences with book clubs have been spotty at best. Many of the book clubs I\u2019ve encountered over the years tend to focus on \u201cliterary fiction\u201d as opposed to \u201cgenre\u201d fiction which is what I write.<\/p>\n
Once upon a time in Phoenix, Tony Hillerman, also with both feet firmly planted in the land of \u201cgenre\u201d fiction, told me, \u201cLiterary fiction is where nothing much happens to people you don\u2019t like very much.\u201d<\/p>\n
By the time you\u2019re reading this blog on Friday morning, it’ll all be over but the shouting, but rest assured. This time around I have zero intention of starting off my Seattle Yacht Club appearance with several glasses of wine and a dirty joke. Hopefully I\u2019ll be alive and well when it\u2019s time for me to turn 80 on Sunday morning\u2014still alive, still kicking, and still walking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I usually write the blog on Wednesday or Thursday. Today I\u2019m writing it on Tuesday. Why? Because I\u2019m going to be very busy later on in the week. For one thing, a shipment of 800 books is due to show up any minute now, all of which will need to be signed. It\u2019s on occasions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3nsBA-P4","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3166"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3166\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3167,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3166\/revisions\/3167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jajance.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}