NWA Ren. Fest.

"I've been meaning to ask, where'd you go last weekend?"
"NWA Ren. Faire. I work it every year." The Thin Man raised an eyebrow at me. "Did you put it on the weblog?"
"You didn't tell me to."
"It's your blog, cat, not mine."
Well this was going nowhere so I asked, "How was it?"
"Good, except for my part of course. I'm a lousy performer but they keep me around for the novelty. Jingly Bits played both days and, of course, the Ladies of the Salty Kiss were there with their pyritical humor."
"Pyritical?"
"Yea, fools' gold," he said with a grin. "I'm rather fond of that pun."
"Seems like a strange setting for you, a Ren. Faire instead of a SFF convention."
"It's not so different really; it's still all about the stories. And this is the only Faire I do. I'm pretty loyal to it because of the people. I tell you, cat, Raccoon is growing like a weed. Easily six inches taller. Makes me want to sing 'Sunrise, Sunset'."
"Raccoon?"
"I'm not going to put a kid's real name on the web but the relevant people will know who I'm talking about. Anyhow, it's really about the extended family, just like the conventions. By the way, the Kiss has a new book so put them over on the links list and send people there way to take a look at it."
I decided to keep fishing for information as long as he was talking. "You doing National Novel in a Month this year?"
"Yeah, in theory. I'll support the people doing it and play along. I'll shoot for 50K more words on my current projects--won't get there but I'll try. I can't try a true novel in a month like most people do because I can't wait until November to start a new project but I support the idea."
"How come?"
"I support anything that makes people who say they want to write actually write. I'm sick of hearing people say 'I could write a book' like it's some kind of weekend hobby project so I'm in favor of anything that makes 'em put up or shut up. I love my job but it's work, hard work, even if all you're writing is junk. I figure most people don't even know how much labor is involved in just typing that many words."
"Does that mean you're going to start updating your 'work in progress' bars on the blog?"
"It's your web, cat, not mine."
"Well are you going to at least tell me the numbers so that I can put them up?"
"Okay. Current short story: done. How's that?"
"You're a real peach to work for, you know that?"
"I try."
"Can I have a hint for the contest? About the music?"
He shrugged. "No Styx. I have every Styx, DeYoung, and Shaw album they've cut but I don't have any of them on CD, just on cassette, and I only had my CDs while I was working on the book."
"Anything else?"
"Okay, one more. The first chapter, 'Subject Real', wasn't written to any music. I did most of the work on the road and during a convention. That's all you get today."
Well, it's a start.