For those of you who have seen the Swiss Days videos,
I apologize. For those who’d rather read about my adventures (or who’d rather not
hear me sing when I’m bored), I give
you the C. P. White Media Blog. I recently drove more than 800 miles in less
than 72 hours; a feat that favors the young (-er than I). I did it for Swiss Days. And it was pretty fun.
A good friend and colleague invited Aaron and me to pop on
down to Utah from Idaho for this event, which regularly draws more than 80,000
people to the tiny village of Midway, UT. It’s been going on for 65 years, and
it’s a great chance to experience a bona fide slice of Americana, with a Swiss
twist. Aaron wasn’t able to make it, so I took his Honda and set off, staying at
our friend’s house, where I slept on the couch and dreamt about miniature
Schnauzers and talked in my sleep very slowly: “Geeeeeeeet ouuuuuuuuut,” I said
at about three AM to the trespassing evil dream dog, which woke me up and
probably alarmed the other people sacked out in the living room. One doesn’t
expect to hear an authorial guest going on at literally all hours; I’m sure it was a little more than just irritating. So I
apologize to the people I offended/ horrified, and I have a feeling there’s
more of that kind of action in my professional future. Just cuz. It would
figure, that’s all.
I met some outstanding people at Swiss Days this year. I
signed lots of books and met tons of fans, some of whom had actually heard of the Airel saga, imagine
that! One young lady just couldn’t stop talking about how much she loved Airel
and Michael
and how she really hates that we keep leaving the reader hanging at the ends of
our novels. I’m going to blog soon about Les Edgerton’s book Hooked,
which is about hooking the reader from sentence one (a great idea), but in
today’s world of the series novel it’s almost as important to hook the reader
at the end of books one, two, and three, assuming there’s only four books in
the series—it’s really the hook before the hook. And technically, the hook at
the end of book one is really the hook at the beginning of book two and so on.
Anyway, this young lady was chomping at the bit for book three: Uriel,
which is coming soon (hopefully before the end of the year). If you want to be
in the loop, subscribe
to this here blog.
I’ll be headed back to Swiss Days next year. I was stunned
by the beauty of the event, and that includes the gracious people that
organized it, staffed it, and attended it. I’m super impressed. I’ll be
bringing my family back next year, and I probably won’t even have to bribe them
with a stop off at Lagoon in order to
get them to go. And I woulda stayed longer, but my oldest boy got baptized that
weekend, so I had to leave early because I prioritize my fam—especially for
things like that (I actually got the be the one who baptized him, and in the
Boise River, no less). It was a momentous weekend for me. I’ll be sharing more
of what I learned as the blog pages turn. Until then.
