This is the final guest post by CalebJRoss (also known as Caleb Ross, to people who hate Js) as part of his Stranger Will Tour for Strange blog tour. He has been guest-posting since the release of his novel Stranger Will in March 2011. To read all previous stops on his tour, visit the tour page. Follow him on Twitter: @calebjross.com. Friend him on Facebook: Facebook.com/rosscaleb
Unbelievable. This is my 75th guest blog post since March 2011, as part of my Stranger Will Tour for Strange to support a couple books that came out/will come out in 2011. Big Other was kind enough to host my 2nd blog post, way back on March 21st, so it seems fitting to come back and offer a tour wrap-up. What follows is an absolutely true, behind-the-scenes highlight reel from one of the craziest blog tours (re: not real tour) the literary world has ever seen. Some of these images showcase uncouth debauchery. You’ve been warned.
March 23rd: Hello Thunderdome!
Early on in the tour my dedication to providing every single blog viewer with top-notch content is evident by the stern look in my eyes here. No amount of groupies—no matter how naked and pixilated—were going to distract me from the art of the blog post.
April 13th: Hello Matt Bell’s blog!
You’ll have to excuse the apparent frustration caught in this image. See, as a super famous, world-wide blog touring author machine all the cameras and adoring fans that come along with such a position can bring a guy down. It gets exhausting. There are so many tweets to @reply. So many fake endorsement deals to be ironed out. So many lawyers (re: popup windows and email spam messages) to appease. Unfortunately, I was just caught in a rare moment of weakness here.
May 1st: Hello ChuckPalahniuk.net!
Late nights, right? You little people just have no idea how hard it can be to give and give and give all day, every day. Despite the party atmosphere in this image, I was actually suffering quite the case of jetlag during this tour stop. I left my chair briefly to use the bathroom, which is two floors away from my office, so you can imagine how tired I was when I returned. My apologies to everyone at the ChuckPalahniuk.net forums if my performance seemed lackluster. Maybe jetlag isn’t the right word. Walklag?
June 22nd: Hello Electric Literature blog!
Here I am back to March 23rd form. I credit the lamp in the background. Something about a lightshow when performing reminds me why I do this. I’m here to entertain, people. I’m here to entertain.
August 12th: Hello Paul Tremblay’s blog!
About this time in the tour I started to sense the impending end. Bittersweet, for sure. I’m flexing my brow here and covering my mouth to hide the tears and shield the quivering lip. I’ve established so many strong relationships along the way, from the bird that kept flying into my window to the spider I found dead next to my keyboard one morning. You will each hold a special place in my heart. I hope to visit my own ground-level office again someday during my next blog tour…
There you have it. The 2011 Stranger Will Tour for Strange is officially over.
“But Caleb,” you are surely thinking, “Do you really expect us to believe that just because your shirt differs in each picture that these images were taken during the actual writing of the noted blog posts?” Yes, yes I do. “But what about that piece of paper hanging from the lamp in three of those pictures. Did you really have that hanging there for nine months?” It’s an important piece of paper, okay! “And you hair; always the same, huh?” WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME!?
1 thought on “VH1 Behind the Blog: a wrap up of 2011’s most insane literary blog tour”