Yesterday writing consumed my brain. I revised 4 blog entries into stand alone essays, selected another dozen blog entries for the same treatment, revised some short stories, selected which stories will go on the website and which will wait for print, then wrote the next segment of my story-in-progress. Several times during the day I tried to stop. I told myself I had done enough. I told myself that there were other things which needed doing. But I couldn’t really focus on anything except writing tasks. It was strange and kind of cool. I got a lot of writing tasks done. Of course there were lots of other things that went undone.
One of the writing tasks which did not get done was blogging. I still have a stack of things that I wanted to blog about attending LTUE. I wanted to give each of these things a full blog so that I could relish them at length. But instead I find that they are staring accusingly from my notes page and my memories are growing increasingly fuzzy. So I am left with the choice of throwing them all together in a single blog or deciding not to blog them at all. I have decided upon the former.
Should you ever have the chance to go out to dinner with John Ringo, I advise you to take the opportunity. If you get to go out with both Howard AND John, you definitely should not pass. But don’t expect to do much talking. I sat between these two storytellers and listened as they traded stories. They did not deliberately exclude me, but their stories were so much more interesting than what I had to say, that I just stayed quiet to listen. I hope to get to spend time with John again in the future. I liked him.
One of the highlights of LTUE was being able to pull out a couple of the pictures that Angela Call has done for the children’s book we are collaborating on. The pictures were greeted with universal awe. Several people asked that I please inform them when the book will be available because they really want to see it and probably buy a copy. I loved having people enthusiastic about a project that is so close to my heart.
All the local cons are a place for local authors to meet and greet. Many of these people have become my friends. I got to catch up with Dames Dashner, Julie Wright, Bob Defendi, Eric James Stone, and Dan Willis. I also got a chance to really talk to Brandon Sanderson. I’d met him in passing before, but this time I got to converse which was nice. Even better, raisinfish showed up and I was able to introduce her to people that I know and she introduced me to people that she knows. Yay networking! I was very pleased to learn that Julie Wright sometimes lurks here on my blog. (Hi Julie!) It is wonderful to have someone I respect read and enjoy my writing. Another cool thing was that Brandon Sanderson asked Howard to be a guest lecturer at his creative writing class. That will happen next week. We’ll also be having Brandon and his wife over for dinner to talk about business stuff. His wife would like to help with the business stuff so that Brandon can get back to writing, but she isn’t sure quite how to do it. Being support personnel for a creative person is something I’m expert at, so we’ll have a nice talk. Again I say “Yay networking!”
Howard almost bought me jewelry. There were some beautiful hand made stone-and-wire medallions for sale by Michael and Judi Collings. Howard found a beautiful green one with matching earrings. He brought me over to it and asked if he was allowed to buy it for me. I dithered for a bit, but eventually decided that $140 was too much to spend on jewelry right now. I think my refusal to let him spend frustrated Howard, he really wanted to get me something nice. Someday we’ll have enough money that he won’t have to ask and I won’t have to say no. For now it is enough that he wanted to buy me something beautiful.
Ah. It feels good to have all of that cleared out of my brain.
Tomorrow begins yet another week. Hopefully I’ll be able to tone down the busy-ness. Though I fear that the hope is futile because we have two birthdays scheduled this week. Howard’s birthday will be celebrated on Wednesday. I need to ask him what he wants to do to celebrate other than open the presents. Patches birthday is on Thursday, but the big celebration will be on Saturday because that is when I’ve scheduled his birthday party. The move to Saturday is in part because the Cub Scout Blue and Gold dinner is scheduled for Thursday. I’ll get to spend most of Thursday slow cooking pulled pork.
AND I just checked my calendar which totally ruins my illusions of “Not busy.” Monday I volunteer at Art Club, take papers to our tax man, and do some necessary mailing. Tuesday has the regular accounting, laundry, gym for Patches, art for Kiki, and parent teacher conferences. Wednesday has a patriotic sing at Kiki’s school and Howard’s birthday. Thursday has the Blue and Gold dinner, volunteering in Gleek’s class, and Patches birthday. Friday has a Junior high transition assembly for Kiki. Saturday has Patches birthday party (small, only three guests) and a movie night with raisinfish. Why oh why do all of my weeks fill up in this crazy way? Next week looks empty. I hope it stays that way.
