Bearing in mind that A) my family was far from wealthy, and B) I know damn well this wouldn't be considered safe gun storage and plan something more secure if/when I start my reproduction 18th-19th century gun collection, my dad kept his guns in the master bedroom closet, unloaded, with the ammunition on the shelf above, which at least was well out of a small child's reach.

Your character's house would probably be somewhere between "English great house with designated gun room" and "blue collar rural Southern good ol' boy."

Heh. Susan, I'm thinking the "guns locked in a nice walk-in closet in the study" is probably right around the midway point.

Another possibility is to put the gun safe in the garage or his workshop, with the other cabinets of tools.

On the extreme end of the scale, he could do like B. W. Edwards and get a museum to keep his collection for him: [link]

Okay. Thanks, all. Sounds like I was pretty much on the right track.

On the extreme end of the scale, he could do like B. W. Edwards and get a museum to keep his collection for him:

Yeah, that is just a tad bigger a collection than I was aiming for.

Speaking of guns, I have a an honest-to-gosh question about a book I'm working on.

I have a backwoods Grizzley-Adams kinda guy who goes into town once a month for supplies. This is modern day. He carries a gun, and it needs to be in plain sight. Where in the US would it be legal to carry a sidearm in plain sight? Or a rifle, which he also has?

Not because this guy gives a crap about the law, I just don't want any complications with the legalities.

As long as it's a legally registered gun, in pretty much any state. Carry restrictions usually are concerned with concealed weapons.

Huh. Possibly parts of Colorado and Utah, or maybe Nevada. There are places where technically you can carry a gun openly because the law doesn't explicitly state you can't (ie, requiring a permit to carry a concealed weapon but not saying ones is required for a visible one), but it would most likely be a local ordinance. In most places, though it's technically legal, people would make a fuss.

Okay, Chapter 13 is done. 49,500 words total so far. Unfortunately, on reading over the chapter, one of the scenes feels like it might be better served as a "this happens" paragraph. I was trying to poke fun at how in TV/Movies the Internet has the magical ability to answer all your questions instantaneously, but actually writing about somebody doing a web search is not so much with exciting, even with a couple jokes to try and liven it up.

Thanks, Ginger and connie.

I'm having a Moment, and I'm going to indulge myself. No meatspace names, please.

I've been taking a break from Cruel Sister; ahead of schedule, I treated myself by rereading Rock & Roll Never Forgets.

You know what?

I am so damned proud of the Kinkaid Chronicles. There is not one single thing about these books that doesn't make me proud.

I'm proud of these characters. I'm proud of their story, their life, their consistency. I'm proud that I can take the reader who's never been there backstage into rock and roll, without smearing it on one hand, or glorifying it on the other. I'm proud for the humanity of these people, that they live and die with their own selves and mistakes, the way we all do. I'm proud there are kickass stories going on.

I'm proud of being able to write Bree, annoying and too damned saintly sometimes and remarkably stupid about certain realities. I'm proud of being able to see her. I'm even prouder of having John Kinkaid finally figure out how to see her - it's what should have happened in the real world, and I doubt it did, for all the love and all the need and everything that did and didn't happen.

And I'm proudest of John Kinkaid, of his voice, of my ability to hold it and send it out into the universe, giving him voice again, giving him my own kind of life back, when I wasn't strong enough to stay with the original and help him keep the real thing. I'm proud of how clear he is, of that fact that my friends who knew the original inspiration recognise him with no effort at all in these books, recognise his inertia, his perfect honest unconscious charm, his essential kindness, his emotional laziness, his complete lack of malice, his illness, his fragility, his musical brilliance as hot as a meteor shower.

I wrote them as a kind of therapy, but they're a whole lot more than that, and a whole lot better than that.

I'm proud of these books. They ought to be on shelves. They're so readable, it's ridiculous.