My best laid plans went ridiculously awry tonight - but it looks like I'll be in bed before 12:30am, so it's better than last night. Today was utterly lovely; the conference doesn't officially start until tomorrow, but I had a full-day retreat for current/former Golden Heart finalists, followed by a signing, followed by dinner, so I already feel exhausted by the whole endeavor. Shockingly (both in light of my hatred of mornings and my eyebrow-raising scotch consumption), I made it up in time to have a real sit-down (my Iowa roots are showing) breakfast before going to my nine a.m. event. Crazy, I know.
The retreat was awesome; I don't know that I particularly learned anything, but I was v. inspired. Susan Elizabeth Phillips started it off, then Courtney Milan talked selfpub (the most useful part of the day for me, since she's crazy smart), then Nora Roberts (aka Nora, since there is no other) gave the keynote. She happened to say that we should 'do your writing a solid', which I thought was rather hip phraseology for the queen of the genre, so needless to say I was impressed (if having two hundred books out wasn't impressive enough). Then I ate a v. hurried lunch so I could sneak back to my room and take a thirty-minute nap, which totally saved me today.
The afternoon session was mildly interesting, if I'm being frank, so I left as soon as it appeared to be wrapping up and wrote in the lobby for forty-five minutes before grabbing coffee with some writer friends. Then I went to the huge literacy signing and signed books; the event lasts for two hours and I sold five books, which I was actually thrilled with considering that I was competing with 400 other authors and am relatively unknown. Then I had dinner with the Rubies (we rented a bus to take us away from the hotel, which was a good move), then came home and was about to go to bed...but when I got to my room, my keycard was demagnetized. So I went downstairs, got it reprogrammed, was coming back upstairs - and then ran into my friend Kathia, whom I've been writing with in SF. So I had a gin and tonic with her and nibbled on her fries while she had a late dinner, and it was all v. lovely.
And now I must really go to bed - I'm giving a workshop tomorrow, and having high tea with some historical writers at the Ritz Carlton, and generally being my fabulous Sara Ramsey self instead of my hermity regular self. Goodnight!
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