byoc (bring your own crazy)

I will freely admit that I kind of hit a wall today in terms of my participation/level of engagement/enthusiasm. It wasn't helped by the fact that I didn't sleep well last night and still managed to drag myself out of bed at 7:15am so that I could get dressed, blowdried, made up, and caffeinated for the 8:30am start of the first workshop I wanted to attend. I went to three workshops, a keynote lunch, another workshop, and a reception, then came back to my room and took care of some insurance- and move-related stuff before rendezvousing with Terry for a night o' fun.

Now don't get me wrong -- much of today was quite cool. While I wasn't enamored with every single workshop I attended, I did love the keynote lunch. Eloisa James spoke, and her speech (which heavily featured her relationship with her dead mother, who was a celebrated American author and never approved of her daughter's decision to write trashy romance) made me and half the audience cry. Also, the reception was cool -- we drank champagne and the board of directors handed out certificates of acknowledgement to all Golden Heart and RITA finalists. So all in all, the romance portion of the day was quite good.

However, I'm just a bit exhausted, and I think the stress of figuring out how I'm going to accomplish everything I have on my plate in the next eight weeks (plan/execute a sales conference, pack and move all my stuff, restart production on book two, plan a trip to India, and keep my fingers/toes crossed that the book currently out will sell and not be horribly rejected by every editor who currently has it) is really getting to me. I'm not in the bad state I was in before I took a leave of absence -- but I know it's only a matter of time before my thumb starts twitching. Clearly I need to do something before then.

Dinner and drinks with Terry went a long way toward restoring my good spirits. We wandered around and found a great Italian restaurant with an outdoor patio near Dupont Circle, where we had salad, dinner, dessert, and a whole bottle of wine while enjoying the early evening sun. She regaled me with tales of her European travels, and her account of the cemetery and beaches at Normandy made me cry. Then, we came back to the hotel and had another drink in the hotel bar while she told me about Egypt. Sadly for her, I was really distracted by the portrait of Andrew Jackson on the wall of the bar, and somehow we ended up discussing a possible bid for the 2016 or 2020 presidential election. I will not reproduce any of our conversation here for fear that it will someday be used against me, but clearly I need to be laying the groundwork now!

At this point, though, I really need to go to bed. I'm going to sleep late (if I can) and only go to two workshops (one of which is by my agent, so I feel like I should support her), and then take the afternoon easy so that I can get ready for the awards ceremony tomorrow night. By this time tomorrow, it will all be decided, and I can move on with my life. Yay! As crazy as it sounds, I'm ready for a return to some normalcy so that I can stop thinking about Malcolm and Amelia and focus on Ferguson and Madeleine. Then again, if I sell, I will have to think about Malcolm/Amelia if the editor wants revisions and when it's time to market it -- but I'm quite willing to compromise there, so long as I get a few weeks now to move on to the next project. Goodnight!