On the road again: Bouchercon, day 2

Though multiple folks have asked me for pictures of last night's extremely cool dinner and of some big-name writers here at the con, I'm way too tired to post the former and forgot to take any of the latter. I'll try to do better, I really will, but right now my fumes are looking for fumes to run on, so I'll keep this short.

I really like Bouchercons, because everyone I've ever met at one is an avid reader. Aside from the fact that they put great panels at obscene hours (8:30 a.m. here), and they mostly shut down early due to the graying demographic, the cons are just fun for readers. The dealers room is full of--gasp!--books, and people talk about books and reading and writing. I wish I could simply attend and not have to cram in ten to twelve hours of work a day, but so it goes; at least I get to some panels.

One dealer had both my novels, so I signed stock and chatted with her. I was tickled to see that three people (as of about 1:15 p.m. today) had bid on my contribution to the charity auction, and even more pleased to see that the most recent bidder was best-selling author Toni L.P. Kelner. I'd love to get her into my Wild Side anthology, and though I don't expect much chance of that, if I can find her at the con, I will try. More to the point of this mention, however, is the fact that it's always cool when other writers like your work, and if you also like theirs, that's all the better.

The panel highlight for me today was one in which Ace Atkins, William Kent Krueger, and Lee Child just stood around talking shop. I enjoyed hearing Atkins and Krueger, but for me the best parts came from Lee Child.

I've watched Child on multiple panels over the years, and each and every time he's struck me as a sensible, grounded, intelligent man who's also witty and, of course, a very talented writer. If you don't read his Reacher books, you should try one just to see a master of spare prose and rapid pacing in action. Child had many good lines today. Here are a few of the bits, which I must paraphrase because I was not taking notes.

Some years ago, a fan asked him to sign a novel and to put above his autograph his favorite line in the book. Child wrote, "$24.95".

Krueger asked Child what the down sides were of being rich and famous. Child said, "None that I can find."

Krueger talked about how hard writing was. Child commented that we needed to put it in perspective, that yes, we worked as writers, but really, we had it easy. Coal mining is hard. Writing is, by comparison, easy.

In response to a question about how writers must hate Hollywood ruining their books, Child pointed out that the movie and the books were separate things. "The books are still out there, in bookstores and libraries. It's not like Hollywood scours the Earth and destroys every copy."

Child has spoken in the past about how hard Reacher could be to cast. At one point, Tom Cruise's company had optioned a Reacher book. In response to people commenting on how much too small Cruise is for the part (Reacher is, if memory serves, about six foot five inches tall and 220 pounds or so--about the same size as my own Jon Moore), Child commented, "For what they would have paid had they made the movie, Katie Holmes could have played Reacher."

Like I said, a fun, sensible guy, someone I'd love to get to know better.

Now, back to my own work. Maybe in some distant future my sales will approach Child's. How cool would that be?

(My apologies to Lee Child if the quotes are wrong.)