Back to Beantown from the Windy City

Chicago offered up excellent weather, good food, a hotel on the river and lots of writing panels and advice. Booksellers, too. I even sold a few books, and tried to do a lot of promotion. If you're the kind of person who likes to sit along in a cubicle most of the day, promotion is difficult, really exhausting, not your forte. Smile. Remember where you met someone. Smile. Crack a joke or two. Smile. Ask an intelligent question. Smile. Talk about your book. Smile. Talk about their book. Go to the bar. Smile. Schmooze. Drink. Drink! Now there's an idea. I saw a black plastic bag in the river and thought it was a dead cormorant. Saw a rat running along the riverside at dusk. Saw a monach butterfly. Hey, writer's notice stuff.

So I made some contacts and came home with three new agents to query. While I was gone, a nice email came from an agent who said no nicely, and actually read my book and even liked it. Still said no, but there is no and there is up yours, and I do believe I can tell the difference.

Bought food. Paid bills. Did laundry. Work tomorrow. Read the office email, so I know there's problems and a crisis and it is all so bloody boring. Because I want to write, now that I have all this new knowledge and tips and all.

Reading a terrific book I picked up at the convention. Blood Father by Peter Craig. This is a tremendous page turner and the writing is just blowing me away. My own stuff seems kind of boring and listless. The problem is, when you only know computers and cats and cooking and stuff like that, it's hard to pump out thrillers. Esp. is you are female. You tend to nurture, not kill people off in fiction.

Arrrrgh.

I'm going to turn off the computer and go back to Peter's book.

I did not feed the cows, who haven't seen me for weeks. I did not pass 'go.' The man burned and the temple burned and I wasn't there. Summer's over. Sort of. The hummingbird spent ten minutes in the garden this evening. Sometimes he perched and rested. He really liked some big tall purple flowers from the Wildflower Garden in the Woods. Hummingbird heaven.

So, back to this writing stuff. Chicago was my kind of town and Bouchercon was cool. Met some nice people. It's always fun to talk about and think about writing. Now it's time to suck it up and actually do some.

Aloha,

Grapeshot