Barnes & Noble Writer's Group

I've been reading chapters from Devil's Lair at a local writer's group that meets at Barnes & Noble. The book store has a reading room where the employees set up tables for us, and the manager comes to our defense when patrons complain about the noise (at least I hope they're complaining about the noise — it couldn't be the words).

We convene every Thursday night come hell or high water.

Of course, I bring the hell.

Last week I read Chapters 17 and 18. My medieval pilgrims haven't reached the gates of hell yet, but we may get to that next week. Can't wait to hear the group's reaction. Everyone's been liking the book so far, but once my heroes enter hell, that's where the real fun begins.

Last week we had a guest for the holidays: Pete, who was visiting his sister Barbara Jo, who runs the group. Pete's writing his own fantasy novel, and told me a little about it, and I encouraged him to keep plugging away at it. He lost the first seven chapters in a computer crash (ouch!), and now he's re-writing it from the beginning.

Now that's what I call a writer.

Pete had a nice comment about a horse chase scene in my book. He compared it favorably to Louis L'Amour. Now, I've never actually read Louis L'Amour, and everything I know of horses comes from research, but I'll take that as a compliment.

Thanks, Pete.