My 10-year-old daughter Madison wanted to hang out with her Dad today, so we both went down to Irvine for my talk with the Orange County chapter of Sisters-in-Crime. My brother Tod was there, too, and we talked about the craft and business of writing with the lovely ladies for two-and-half hours…and then Madison and I schlepped up to Hollywood in bumper-to-bumper traffic for the MONK season wrap party at the Lucky Strike bowling alley.
We chatted with showrunner/creator Andy Breckman, and producers Tom Scharpling, David Breckman and David Hoberman, as well as USA Network head honcho Jeff Wachtel. My old friends Terry Erdman and Paula Block, authors of the upcoming MONK COMPANION, were also there. Andy made Madison’s day by taking her picture with Tony Shalhoub and Traylor Howard (I’ll be sure to post the pictures when they arrive).
Madison says she learned a lot from our talk and that she had a great time at the party, so it looks like she may be tagging along with me more often… which is fine with me!
That’s kind of impressive. My oldest son is 12 and I’m not sure how he’d do having to listen to me give talks or chat up people at a party. My youngest, who’s 7–well, I have a pretty good idea how he would do. He’s got ants in his pants on the best of days.
I brought my five year old along when I gave a talk to some young women at Figure Skating in Harlem and he only interupted once, which was quite an achievement for him. I’ve also brought him along when I’m selling books in conjunction with an event, like a skating show (I write figure skating mysteries so it’s not as out of left field as it sounds) so he has something else to occupy his time. He accepts our odd mother-son bonding as a matter of course, even asking a friend one day in Barnes and Noble, “So which of these books did your Mommy write?”