Santa-wise, we’ve gone a little crazy in the realm of music in that we bought the music-playing children all new toys—a synthesizer, a double-neck guitar, and a digital drum kit (Lucas is tired of everyone yelling at him when he’s practicing). Plus we splurged on a PA system and a pair of microphones, for the complete garage band.

Speaking of music, here’s my favorite Christmas carol—The First Noel, arranged ala Pachelbel’s Canon.

Bookwise, it’s been a splendid year. Hotel has spent its second year on the NYT bestseller list, and will soon be available in 32 languages. Whodathunkit? 

As far as the new book it looks like 2013 is the soonest. The aforementioned Whispers of a Thunder God has been shelved in favor of the new book, with the working title, Summer’s Willow Frost. I’m hoping to have the new new book off to my editor come March/April.

And I have more book events in the works: Villanova, Savannah, Battle Creek, Maine, Delaware, and more to come.

Okay, enough of a respite. It’s back to wrapping, assembling, stuffing of stockings, and making sure the turkey isn’t frozen as solid as a curling stone.

Cheers, Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah—much love and peace to all.

The more I thought about it, the more these names kept popping up. Sure, I’m a fan of Shakespeare, and Stan Lee & Jack Kirby, or Amy Winehouse and Erykah Badu, or just my older brother, Kirk, or my grandfather.

There are everyday heroes, in life, sports, or pop culture. But as a writer, for me, there’s these three. I guess they’re my literary heroes:

Harlan Ellison

To avoid the stress of my job and the struggles of my unhappy first marriage, I’d escape to a local bookstore that stayed open until midnight. While some guys drown their sorrows at the corner pub, I’d hit the bookstore and drank hot chocolate with mint, reading Harlan Ellison until they kicked me out. I’d discovered his seminal short fiction years earlier, but in my late 20s, I stumbled upon what I would argue is his best work, his non-fiction, his collections of essays (rantings, ramblings, spleen self-extractions—choose your own descriptor) that ran in the LA Free Press.

His voice, his rage, his humor, his…utter vulnerability, was unlike anything I’d ever read. These stories were unprocessed. Unvarnished. And as a young man I had struggled with my own inability to keep quiet—to fit in. Because of this, I found fellowship in Harlan’s writing.

Sure, when I finally spent time with Harlan, I told him it was his writing that made me want to become a writer, but truth-be-told, it was his honesty that made me take the blinders off my own life.

Sherman Alexie

The one comment that follows a lot of my book gigs is, “You were so funny!” 

I guess this is a surprise to many people because my writing (admittedly) is rather melancholic and also because most authors are expected to be as dry as a stale slice of unbuttered wheat toast—like an uninflected NPR announcer, droning on and on and on and on and on. Sadly, many are like that.

And I had the same reaction the first time I heard Sherman Alexie give a talk. He was so irreverent, and charming, and hysterically funny, it gave a whole new layer of authenticity to his writing—because I’m a firm believer that humor comes from emotional pain. Suddenly I saw the non-fiction roots of his made-up tales.

I’m funny. But Sherman is hilarious.

Pat Conroy

Conroy once said, “The greatest gift a writer can ever be given is an unhappy childhood.” If you’ve ever read The Great Santini, or My Losing Season, or The Prince of Tides, you’ll know that Pat was indeed a gifted child.

In my own case, I lost both of my parents in my early 30s—that alone was painful. But long before they passed, whether by sins of commission, or omission, they managed to leave cracks in my foundation that I still struggle with to this day. That Pat turned so many perceived weaknesses into strengths is a wonder to behold.

Okay, that’s me. Who are your heroes?

But beyond that, their Hangout feature is what makes it truly unique. Hangouts are like Skype video chats, expanded to accommodate 10 people. So a few of us authorly-types have been hosting Writers Hangouts (mine are on Wednesdays, noon PST).

This week we were joined by my über-agent, Kristin Nelson, who spent time answering questions about genres, queries, and the mystery of ghostwriters who pen books for the likes of Snooki. It's a tough job, but some poor writer had to get all up in that.

In the meantime, here's a recent piece regarding Hotel and high school students.

In Skudenes. Photo courtesy of Jose Luis Zaragoza.

So what better time to catch up on recent doings, of which there have been many.

Did I mention Norway?

Yes, this trip to Northern Europe finally came to fruition and was absolutely worth the wait (and 23 hour journey each way, via Amsterdam).

Oslo was splendid and it was a pleasure meeting folks from my Norwegian publisher, Pantagruel. (Thanks Alex!)

And yes, Norway made my heart quiver with envy as I stared on the outside looking in, to a culture with universal healthcare, free college, and government-paid maternity and paternity leave (1 year for moms and 3 months for dads). All for a tax rate equivalent to what I’m paying now. Ah, America…land of the free, home of the reactionary, polarized, hyper-political obstructionist. Ah, but I digress…

Politics aside, the lucid dream of the week was the SILK Festival in Skudenes, a seaside village with a population lower than the student body of a typical Texas high school—small, but in a gorgeous location—pristine, persevered, and magical.

And the lovely people we hung out with (from the UK, Norway, Iraq, Spain, Nigeria, Vietnam) were among the most literate, interesting, and fantastically unpretentious folks we’d ever met.

It’s no coincidence that we’re planning on sending a daughter (or two) back to Norway as exchange students.

The view from the podium at the Thousand Oaks Civic Arts Plaza. What, no mosh pit? And before I’d even unpacked, I was off again, this time to California for the 5^th Annual Thousand Oaks Reads. Previous authors included David Eggers and Jonathan Safran Foer—heady company, to say the least.

The venue was enormous and the production first-class. I felt like a rock star, minus the contract clauses about no brown M&M’s in the dressing room. (There was a bottle of peach schnapps, leftover from a previous headliner, perhaps?)

So many cameras. Note to self: fix zipper and check teeth of spinach.And last, but not least, I had yet another film meeting. It’s still a long-shot, but in the search to find a proper home for my literary child, we’re getting closer and closer.

In the dressing room of infinity (San Ramon)

It’s been an incredible journey, and more of life change, than a book tour. But alas, I’ve had to learn a new word: No. Actually it’s usually more like, “Gee, I’d love to—honestly LOVE to, but I gotta say ‘no’ in order to get more writing done.”

Something like that, and it’s always tinged with regret.

To quote a line from one of my favorite movies, Cameron Crowe's Almost Famous: “This is the circus, everybody’s trying not to go home.”

I know how that feels. But I’m finally packing up the tent and dismantling the Big Top so I can get back to writing, in earnest.

This week takes me to the SILK Festival in Skudeneshavn, Norway, then Thousand Oaks, then Indiana, then…a story about a little Chinese boy, searching for his mother in 1931 will take precedent, for a while at least.

I hope we both find what we’re looking for.

My agent described Frankfurt as the "least charming city in all of Europe," and I'm afraid that description was painfully apt. Plus my impression was compounded by staying at Hotel Roomers—an ultra-stylish, avant garde auberge that featured carpet-less rooms with black walls, black floors, black furnishings, black bedding, black curtains, and painfully dim mood lighting. The ambiance was so bleak and depressing I now affectionately refer to Roomers as the "Shoot-myself-in-the-face-hotel."

The Agent Room. (Think speed dating for editors)But aside from that, the Frankfurt Book Fair was a sight to behold. Especially the agent room, which resembled an upscale sweat-shop or prison visiting room, with rows and rows of desks stretching on as far as the eye could see. Editors and agents flit from desk to desk, often having 20 meetings in a single day.

And I did manage to escape for a bit to visit Heidelberg and the Rhineland, where I was able to unleash my four years of high school German upon unsuspecting waiters, taxi drivers, and merchants everywhere. My apologies. Or auf Deutsch, "Es tut mir leid."

Here's a recap of recent travels, and travails:

Seattle, WA - Did a corporate read event at Vulcan Inc., which was an interesting change of pace. There was also a camera in the room live-casting the event to "employees in remote locations." I couldn't help but think of that scene in the movie, Contact, where Jodie Foster is pleading for research funding while billionaire industrialist S. R. Hadden watches remotely from some hidden locale. I waved. Not sure if Paul Allen saw me.

Next up was the big Bedtime Stories event for Humanities Washington, where we helped raise $115,000. I read ten pages of a new project. Everyone seemed to like it so I'm plowing forward, hoping the moral territory of the story is novel length.

Richardson, TX - Next morning I was off to Dallas for a splendid community reads event in Richardson. The turnout was amazing—1,400 people—my largest crowd ever. I guess things really are bigger in Texas. Fellow authors, Judy Kibler and Jaye Wells were there too (great to see you!) I also managed to sneak away and catch Monday Night Football in the new Cowboys Stadium. That mega HD jumbo-tron is incredible.

Mission Viejo, CA - On to California for the Mission Viejo Readers Festival—a great event in a lovely community south of LA. The best part was meeting Cindy Pon, and chatting with Cornelia Funke about time management—when to write, when to travel, and the fine art of saying, "No." I'm learning. Thanks Cornelia.

After spending the past several months working on the new manuscript, I've spent the last few weeks trying to squeeze a little magic out of summer. That included:

One more hike up in Glacier National Park. We set off to climb Mount Henkel, but the entire mountain was closed because of grizzly activity. We punted and hiked up and through the Ptarmigan Tunnel, a 13-mile jaunt that was breathtakingly scenic. And we still ran into a bear. But it was a brown bear who was more interested in huckleberries than gnawing on my femur.

Then I spent a few days in Bigfork where Taylor was attending the Crown of the Continent Guitar Workshop. Here he is doing his best Eddie Van Halen impression. (His solo is at the 3:00 mark).

I also made it out to Seattle once more (my 8th trip this year). But on this trip I was able to spend some time with family and friends and dine in places like the Lunchbox Labratory.

I haunted Chinatown and my grandparent's old neighborhood, enjoying my "back eddy, a pool of jetsam beyond the pull of the main currant."

Next week I'm touring again, traveling to Texas, Seattle, California, and then Frankfurt, where I have, at last count, 187 meetings. Okay, it's only 14, but it feels like a lot.

Now off to bed, where I will dream of things untwittered.