you'll still be standing next to me

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!

and he talks like a gentleman, like you imagined

I'm bitterly tired - even nine hours of sleep last night wasn't enough to restore me. Sadly, the day job beckons tomorrow; yes, I'm still in Iowa, but I'm answering emails and doing projects and taking meetings from home all day, so it will be business as usual in that respect. But I'm predicting it's going to be a brutal, shocking reentry. Spending the past ten days focused more on writing/industry stuff and less on day job stuff (although it's still kind of the same industry) has my head spinning with all the cool things I could do with my writing, and all the limitless potential of the future (no, I'm not on cocaine right now), and all the amazingly fun and cool interactions I had with readers and writers and booklovers of all kinds.

So, needless to say, I had fun at my convention. I wasn't sure about it at first, mostly because all of Thursday was insanely busy and I didn't feel like I had a chance to sit down and enjoy myself. But Friday and Saturday were slower, and I got to hang out with a lot of really awesome authors as though we're friends and colleagues and I'm not just their fan (which is, oddly and awesomely, becoming the case with many of them).

I was going to leave Saturday morning by noon so that I could make it home at a relatively early hour, but as I was checking out I ran into Jenn (who shot the photos for my most recent covers), her assistant Kati (a blogger who likes my books), this other author Hillary (with whom Jenn/Kati/I had spent a v. fabulously hilarious evening eating prime rib and then making jokes about me writing a male/male tranny-surprise Regency duke romance the night before), and one of my roommates in the lobby. They were waiting for Maire, who I'm friends with, and then some of them were going out for dim sum (yes, Kansas City has dim sum) with Courtney Milan and Sherry Thomas. I know Courtney vaguely and admire her hugely, and I got to know Sherry when she came to visit SF last year - so when they invited me along, I couldn't resist. And it was the perfect cap to a fun weekend, even if the gluten-filled shrimp family coma made the drive back to Iowa a little rough.

But I got home in time for dinner last night, and then I spent some quality time helping my father set up his first smartphone (something he could have done himself, but I insisted). Today, I slept in a bit and got up in time to have breakfast with them. As a result of their low-carb life, the potato and muffin-filled brunches of my youth have been replaced by a pound of fresh side, twelve strips of bacon, and six fried eggs...not that I'm complaining. Then I kind of half-assed worked all afternoon, attempting to make a dent in some of my email and not having a very good time of it. Eventually, my father and I went to see my grandmother (a sad and depressing endeavor), then came home and ate supper. My mom and I watched the finale of the Amazing Race, but my head was killing me after, so I demurred from the implicit invitation to keep watching CBS with her and instead came downstairs, where I gave up on productivity and read most of DEVIL IN WINTER by Lisa Kleypas - which I somehow failed to read years ago and now deeply regret having missed all this time.

Now, sadly, I must sleep - tomorrow requires massive productivity, and I'm hoping tonight's break will give me the willpower necessary to focus. Goodnight!