S.G. Browne

This Wednesday, May 23 at 6:00pm EST (or 3:00pm for those of you here with me on the west coast), I’ll be doing a live chat and reading of Lucky Bastard on Shindig, a new customized video chat space for live events. We’ll be connected globally via webcam online where you can ask questions, get live answers, and socialize with other participants. Or if you’d prefer, you can just sit back and watch and listen.

Here’s how it works. About 15 minutes before it starts go to the following link and log in:

http://www.eventbrite.com/event/3553934915

At this point, you might want to test your microphone and camera to make sure everything’s working. Then when the event starts we’ll have an interactive reading and discussion, complete with a question and answer session that will last about an hour. The talk is hosted and sponsored by Shindig Events.

Obviously, I’d love to have you join me and ask questions to make the event fun. And please invite your friends to join us! The more the merrier. So feel free to spread the word.

I hope to see you on Wednesday!

I don’t deal in happy endings or plots that don’t leave anything unresolved. The best you’re going to get from me is an ambiguous final chapter with the ultimate outcome for the main character yet to be decided. Possibly in a sequel but not necessarily. And even if there is a sequel, the ending of that one is probably going to leave some loose strings.

So if you like your endings wrapped up in a nice tidy package with a big shiny bow, then you’re probably better off watching a Hollywood movie.

But life isn’t like a Hollywood movie. Things are always left unresolved, and my novels echo that. I realize a lot of people read books and watch movies so that they can escape from reality and have the satisfaction of coming away feeling like someone rose above their circumstances. It gives us hope in our own lives that maybe it can happen to us, too.

The guy gets the girl.
The heroine overcomes her fear.
The underdog saves the day.

The truth is, things don’t always work out the way we want them to.

You don’t find Prince Charming.
You don’t overcome your fears.
You don’t realize your dreams.

And that’s what I like to write about. How things don’t always work out. Or how they might work out in one fashion, but ultimately the ending isn’t what the main character had hoped for. So if you’re picking up one of my books expecting a Hollywood ending, then you’re probably not going to get what you want. But if you try sometime, you just might find, you get what you need.

With apologies to Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones.

I’ve added some new dates where I’ll be signing Lucky Bastard over the next month. In addition to my upcoming events at Copperfield’s Books in Petaluma, CA (May 18) and Barnes & Noble in Roseville, CA (May 19), I’ll be appearing at the following locations:

First, I’ll be at Towne Center Books in Pleasanton, CA (May 30), where I’ll be interviewed by Penny Warner. The event kicks off at 5:30pm with a happy hour complete with cocktails and finger foods, so bring your thirst and your appetite!

Next I’ll be signing at Inklings Books & Things in Capitola, CA (June 2) from 2-4pm in the Capitola Mall. A week later, I’ll be at the Barnes & Noble in Dublin (June 9) signing from 1-3pm. Both of these latter two will be meet and greet events.

After that, you can find me back in San Francisco at The Variety Preview Room (June 16), where I’ll be doing a reading and discussion at 7pm along with Lev Grossman, NY Times Bestselling author of The Magicians and The Magician King.

Times, locations, and all other relevant information for all of these events can be found on my website page for Lucky Bastard Tour Dates.

I’ll also be attending San Diego Comic-Con July 12-15, signing at Dark Delicacies in Burbank on July 17, and reading at the KGB Reading Series at the KGB Bar in New York on October 17. More details about these events will be forthcoming, so stay tuned.

And as always, thanks for reading!

I came across a tweet today from John Hornor Jacobs, a friend and fellow word slinger, who posted the photo on the left along with the sentiment: “Days like today remind me that humans are supposed to spend a large amount of their lives under the open sky.”

As writers, we spend a lot of our time indoors in front of a computer, which is not what humans were created to do. Throw in all of the Facebook updates and the Twitter posts and the online social networking and you can become so connected that you forget to unplug.

Even when we go out, we’re still plugged in, taking our electronic leashes with us, be they cell phones, smart phones, iPads, laptops, etc. We’re always checking our e-mail, our Twitter feed, posting what we’re doing and when we’re doing it and who we’re doing it with, calling friends and family while we’re out and about. We become these share-whores, unable to experience a moment without wanting to post about it or tweet about it or talk about it.

So in effect, while we strive to stay connected to all of these people who are not there to share the moment with us, we become disconnected from experiencing the moment ourselves. It’s impossible to be in the present when you’re constantly connected somewhere else. But we’ve become conditioned by technology to take us out of where we are and electronically connect us somewhere else.

And so I took John’s advice and went outside to enjoy the afternoon sunshine of San Francisco. Granted, my sky wasn’t nearly as beautiful as his, for it lacked the clouds to give it texture, but I don’t have any photos of it to share because I left my smart phone and my laptop at home. That’s not to say I didn’t jones for my phone, but for a couple of hours, it felt good to disconnect.

So I’m sitting in a booth at the Cup & Saucer Café in Portland on Wednesday morning, having a late breakfast with my friend Shannon before leaving town to head up to Seattle, when a stocky gentleman with a shaved head and a pleasant face approaches our table on his way out, sticks out his hand, and says:

“I just wanted to say hi.”

Naturally, I reach out and shake his hand because that’s the polite thing to do in this culture. Plus, being a published author of three novels, I’m always under the delusion that people who recognize me are fans who have read one of my books. It doesn’t occur to me that I have one of those faces that looks like about 10% of the population.

So when I ask him for his name, because I have no idea who this person is who just walked up to me to shake my hand, he gets this slightly puzzled expression and says he thought I was someone else and apologizes for troubling me. He also says his name is John, or that he thought my name was John, I can’t recall. Either way, I’m not who he apparently thought I was.

I tell him no worries and say it’s nice to meet him, anyway, then he walks out with his female companion and doesn’t look back or smile, apparently embarrassed.

It’s not until he walks out of the Cup & Saucer that I realize he could have been a luck poacher who just stole my good luck.

Like Nick Monday says, most people will shake a stranger’s hand without giving it a second thought, so you don’t even have to think twice about what you’re doing and poof! Your good luck is gone. And you won’t notice a thing.

I’m just hoping this guy really did think I was someone he knew. Or else recognized me because he read one of my books and didn’t realize it. The delusion lives on.