As you all know, this blog – Brainpan Leakage – is mostly for me to blow off the silly that runs around in my head, along with the occasional opinion piece. However, since the #COFFINHOP only has a couple of days left, I thought I’d post about it over here as well…

AND SO, LET’S GET TO THE #COFFINHOP!

1. Links for a free e-book, discount codes on other e-books, and entry into the book giveaway can be found after the daily Halloween picture…

In honor of said bouncing about betwixt coffins – what with this being all about Halloween and such – I am going to toss some silliness out there each day. It may be a picture of costumes from some of our more legendary parties, or it may be something altogether textual… say, for instance, why I actually like candy corn. You just never know. HOWEVER, there are a couple of things which shall remain the same throughout:

1. The strong – and I do mean STRONG – suggestion that you HOP around to all of the coffins on the circuit. You can do this very easily. Simply click on the COFFINHOP Badge below (the pumpkin impaled by a stiletto, courtesy of my wife) and there you will find all sorts of information, including a list of the COFFINS (author blogs) on the web tour. Each of these fine authors has something to say about Halloween – maybe scary, maybe informative, maybe funny… you just never know. However, you owe it to yourself to swing by and scream trick-or-treat, because not only will you discover a whole slew of new authors, most – if not all – of the stops will have a chance to enter contests for spectacular prize type stuff: Autographed books, swag, and what have you… So, DO IT, or I’ll let my wife get hold of you, and you can already see what she’s capable of doing to a poor, defenseless Jack-o-Lantern that she liked. Just imagine what she might do if she’s angry…
2. I will be running a contest here on M R LAND as my part of the COFFINHOP. See details after each day’s Halloween oriented post (as in, keep scrolling down). Right now I will definitely be giving away an ARC of IN THE BLEAK MIDWINTER (due in bookstores 11/18), and even some selected books from the Rowan Gant Series, both paperback and electronic.

COFFINHOP HALLOWEENAGE FOR BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

COFFINHOP CONTEST DETAILS FOR M R LAND

Enter the random drawing for a chance to win an Autographed ARC of In The Bleak Midwinter, my latest novel, which will be released 11/18 – To enter, email me by clicking this link: COFFINHOP CONTEST

And…

• If you have an e-reader, be sure to check out the special discount codes for epub and mobi versions of all the Rowan Gant Investigations novels HERE
• Get a FREE e-novella – MERRIE AXEMAS: A Killer Holiday Tale HERE – Use Coupon Code: MS74K
• Check back often. More cool stuff could happen… Seriously.

There you go… Make sure you visit all of the other CoffinHoppers!!

More to come…

Murv

Okay… For this one we need a little “reminder background.”

First, most – if not all – of you know what kind of books I write. If you don’t, well, then what the hell is wrong with you? I have a family to feed. Go out, buy my books, then come back and read this. I’ll wait for you…

{Insert Jeopardy Theme Here}

There… Much better. So, as you can see, in order to write dark novels about dark things – in particular serial killers and predators – one must do an enormous amount of research into same. Eventually it starts to get to you and makes you a little paranoid. This is exactly why I walk my kid to and from school. By the time I was in the second grade, I was walking myself to and from school, but that was a different time, and it wasn’t as scary – or, at the very least we didn’t know that it was scary. At any rate, the O-spring is way beyond first grade, but I still walk with her. That way, if a predator shows up, I can just kill the bastard and be done with it. ‘Nuff said.

Second – O-spring has a friend living nearby whose parents pretty much feel the same way, but don’t work from home like moi, so they don’t have the flexibility in their schedules to do same. No problem. O-spring, O-spring Friend, and I walk together. Problem solved.

Third – As I’ve noted before, O-spring is freakin’ brilliant. She’s in the Gifted program, qualifies for C4K classes and all sorts of stuff. And, on top of being brilliant she is “gifted”… What that means is that all that brainpower comes with a quirky personality, hyper-excitability, and things like that. Not ADHD, mind you. It’s just a whole different set of personality traits. Because of that, she can be a bit dramatic. Okay… A LOT dramatic. Most of the time. So, when she approaches something in a calm fashion, sans drama, it tends to take you aback…

Where is all this going? Well, I’ll tell you…

We were walking to school, and as per the age bracket, “Dad” being along is just cramping their style, so they tend to ignore the 800 pound, Bermuda shorts, ripped tee shirt, black socks with sandals, worlds greatest dad hat wearing parental unit trundling along behind them. While there is a certain sadness for me in that, I get it. It’s a phase that should end sometime around when she hits 30. All good. Hopefully I’ll still be around. However, by the same token it gives me an opportunity to observe them like a cultural anthropologist or something. They prattle on about the things that are important to their tween brains, and some of the conversations can be a bit off-the-wall.

This past Monday, for instance…

As we came within a block of the school, the overpowering scent of tater tots filled the air. Obviously, “hash brown nuggets” were on the menu for the kids who buy breakfast at school. At first, the O-spring was thinking she smelled waffles. Of course, that’s possible. I’m sure her nose is better tuned than my half-century old olfactory sense. Be that as it may, it’s where things went that took me buy surprise.

O-spring friend, we’ll call her Mary for anonymity’s sake, launched into a sudden rant. It wasn’t terribly heated, but it was definitely lively. The subject? Waffles. It seems that whenever they have “Breakfast for Lunch” at the school, the cafeteria refuses to provide them with plastic knives to cut up their waffles. Per Mary, they cite safety concerns… Howwwwwevvvveeeerrrrrr (trying to write tween here… forgive me) they have no problem at all providing them with a plastic knife whenever they have, oh… say something on the order of turkey and gravy. So, why not with waffles too?

O-spring responded to this with, “I just tear them into strips and dip them into the syrup.”

Mary went on undaunted, “But do they think we are going to do? They say we might break the knives and hurt ourselves. But we can have them with the turkey.”

“I just dip the waffles,” O-spring said again.

“And we can break anything that’s plastic. It could happen with anything, so why just the plastic knives?” Mary’s rant was still gaining steam.

As much as this diametrically opposed behavior surprised me, it was only the cake – I mean, after all, I could see the ramping up out of O-spring, but Mary is usually the calm one. The icing was about to be applied.

Mary started to launch into another litany of observations about plasticware and ridiculous school bureaucracy when my daughter stepped even further out of character. Gently placing her hand on her friend’s shoulder, in a soothing voice she said, “Calm down, Mary. You’re scaring the squirrels.”

I’m pretty sure I ruptured my spleen trying to contain the guffaw that wanted to exit my gut. After all, I didn’t want to be accused of frightening the rabbits. Apparently the wildlife was already tortured enough…

More to come…

Murv