in another life

I'm totally exhausted, but I'm in my secret writing hideaway (which I will divulge the whereabouts of to loyal readers who make it to the end of this post). And I was v. productive today, even if productive includes packing and getting ready for my trip. I had a guest post up at a romance review blog today (see where through the 'press' section of zee romance blog, since I try not to link directly to them from here), so I had to deal with comments on that (of which there were several, which was nice). And I had to print out the latest version of my manuscript, pack copious quantities of pens, inks, markers, highlighters, sticky notes in a variety of shapes and colors, and all sorts of research and grammar/usage books so that I can start editing in earnest tomorrow. I also packed some clothes, and hopefully I brought the right ones -- but since I intend to spend all my time either in the hideaway, or at nearby coffee shops/beaches (hint #1!), I suppose it doesn't matter.

Anyway, I finally left San Francisco around 1:30, which was later than I anticipated, but earlier than totally necessary. I sped down to Palo Alto and had a late lunch at Sprout, which was v. satisfying since I've been low on my salad intake, and I got some work done there. Then I went to my old place of work and had coffee with Katrina to make up for our aborted dinner from last night; she's leaving for New Zealand this week, so we got all caught up before her trip. I left Katrina sometime after five and went to the Starbucks down the street, where I worked like mad for forty-five minutes before dinner.

Dinner was awesome -- I met up with the Heathers (Heather aka dear respected madam + another Heather we used to work with/I used to manage) and their spouses (Salim, who needs no introduction, and Eric, who married the other Heather last fall) at Fiesta del Mar, where I confused the waiter by sticking to diet coke instead of getting a margarita (which he always upgrades to top shelf 'cause he loves me). We spent some extreme quality time together, which was v. entertaining. And the Heathers are organizing a talk/interview for me at our former employer, which should be hysterically awesome/embarrassing, particularly since apparently the big boss and Alan, who's now a VP, will be interviewing me. Ha.

I finally parted ways with them, went to the bank and got some gas, and then drove to my secret hideaway....which is a studio cottage in Santa Cruz, a block or two from the beach. The place is a little strange (isn't everything I do a little strange?) but totally lovely, with a gorgeous outdoor patio that I can use, and some very quirky/charming furniture. I settled in easily and quickly, and then spent the past three hours writing two more guest blog posts and reformatting my manuscript so that I could share it more easily. And now that I'm done with all the most pressing tasks for the night, I'm going to go to bed, get up, go to a cafe for breakfast, and read straight through the book tomorrow to start making notes on what I need to fix/change/delete/etc. I'm going to try to stay away from the internet as much as possible while I'm here, so yell at me if you see me doing stuff online. Goodnight!