WRITING IN HOTELS part one

 Wendall -- every other Thursday

This week, my post is more pictures than words, as James and I are trying to both pack and unpack—our new apartment still resembles a bit of a bombsite and we are also getting ready for our trek to San Diego to see so many friends, authors, and readers at Bouchercon 2023. 

 

 

Right now, though, the thing I’m most looking forward to is staying in the hotel. 

 

Bouchercon's host hotel -- the Marriott Marquis!

 

I love hotels. Any hotel. Or motel, for that matter. I associate them with happy family vacations when my brother and sister and I were young—my Dad always made sure there was a pool and sprung for “Magic Fingers” just to watch us laugh. Once I had my driver’s license and could travel on my own, my heart leapt up every time I spotted a Motel 6, a Howard Johnson’s, or a Holiday Inn on 1-95 or the Jersey Turnpike.

 

Ice cream! Clams! Orange roof!

 

Seeing a hotel summons up my first visits to Europe, Australia, Santa Fe, San Francisco, and really, anywhere. For me, they scream travel, adventure, new restaurants, memorable sunburns, wake-up calls, free coffee and body lotions, and fresh sheets I will never have to wash.

 

When I worked on the film Young Guns, I lived in a hotel in Santa Fe for four months. I was in heaven.

 

Charlie Sheen once climbed into my room from this balcony, to hide from double-booked girlfriends...

 

Now that I’m a writer, hotels are still where I do my best work. I almost always go away alone at the beginning, middle, and end of every book, for the concentrated time I can create in a hotel room and its surrounding restaurants and bars, where I can work over coffee or a glass of wine. 

 

Here are my favorite places in Carpinteria.

 

Corktree Cellars.

Spaghetti and meatballs and notebook at Little Dom's

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Esau's great breakfast. Michael McDonald eats there. The back of his head is below.

There are a few hotels I’ve gone enough times, that they actually will always give me my “lucky” room, since, like many writers, I’m superstitious about things like that. So today, I’m going to share a few images of my hotel writing life in two LA-adjacent hotels, in Downtown LA and Carpinteria.

 

Here are a couple of photos from my "lucky room" in Carp.

 

 

 

 I love to write on the balcony, even when it's freezing in the morning.

And for "staycation" writing, the Westin Bonaventure is my favorite. They also always give me my favorite room...

 

By (obviously windy) day.

By night.

 

These are a few of the everchanging views from my lucky room.

 

 

And a few shots of the space age interior.

 

 

All the rooms are octagonal.

And some of my haunts when I actually leave the room...

Nick & Stef's for their Oaxacan Old Fashioned.

Drago for happy hour wine.

And when I'm really splurging, Bottega Louis, for the most expensive pizza in the world.

 

I'm sure more wonders await us all in San Diego, and will report back about Bouchercon, and its host hotel, the Marriott Marquis, when next we convene.

 

Here is my Appearance Schedule there, if anyone wants to stop by and say hello:

COZIES AND COCKTAILS

Wednesday night Aug. 30 8:30pm  Check schedule for location

 

SPEED DATING

Thursday Aug. 31 at 7am(!) North Tower Pacific Ballroom 15-17

 

HUMOR AND HOMICIDE: How Authors Kill At Both

Saturday Sept. 2 at 1:05 Rm 3 GB 3

--- Wendall