i guess you better go and get your armor

I didn't write a damn word today, but that's not entirely a bad thing -- it's mostly a bad thing, but I'm not going to dwell on it. And I did spend a lot of quality time in the car thinking about Nick and Ellie and how to structure their story, and all the messy and bitter and desperate emotions at play beneath the plot, so that's good. But the whole day was focused on other romance activities; I got up at ten, discovered the internet was down, quickly checked my email on my ipad, and then thought I'd read a few pages of a book. And that inevitably resulted in me reading in bed, not eating, not moving, until I finished the book at 1:45. Oops. The book was "Private Arrangements" by Sherry Thomas, who is speaking to our romance chapter this weekend, and I'd had it on my kindle for three years and never read it. So I thought I would read a few pages just in case I needed to say something about her stuff, but I got sucked in and read the whole thing in one go. I'd been avoiding it because it also has a lovers-turned-to-enemies who reunite after ten years plot (sound familar?), but I ended up really enjoying it.

But when I was finally done, I was starving and running late. So I made a gluten-free peanut butter and jelly sandwich, took a quick shower, and drove over to Oakland so that I wouldn't be late to pick Sherry up. I thought I would work at a Starbucks for an hour beforehand, but traffic wasn't very good, so there wasn't time. So instead I sat in the cell waiting lot and brainstormed for a bit, then went into the airport and picked Sherry up. It took us an hour to get from Oakland to Emeryville (boo, hiss), but we survived, and I really enjoyed spending time with her, so that was totally fine. When we got to Emeryville, we had a three-hour dinner (delish: I had prime rib and some awesome desserts) with the chapter president, whom I really like, and the three of us had a great time. Then I dropped Sherry off at her hotel, came home, said hi to Terry, and now need to go to bed so that I can get up at 7:15 and make it to the meeting, where I will need to be in sociable mode for several hours rather than getting any writing done. Sadness. But I expect the workshop will be great, so at least there's that. Goodnight!