Field Trips

I had a great time last week, on what I hope will be the first of many Sequential Writer Conventions. I had several fellow writers I wanted to visit with in a nearby town, but we each wanted to visit by twos or threes, or couldn’t get our schedules together. Rather than spend a billion bucks in gas making multiple trips, I scheduled myself around everybody else’s doings and made a two-day loop. Went Wednesday and met with friend A, then spent the night with my daughter (also a writer). The next day, my daughter and I met with writer B, then daughter and I and her husband (ALSO a writer) visited for a while, then I met writer C for coffee and came home. It took very little more gas than it would have taken to drive to my daughter’s and back. Cool!

Saturday, most of the Southern Indiana Writers Group carpooled to Nashville, Indiana, to have our pictures taken at Yesteryear Tintypes. Our 2008 anthology is called MOST WANTED, about crimes and desires, and we had our pictures taken looking like a bunch of wild west hard types. What a blast!

There’s nothing like spending time with fellow enthusiasts, no matter what your enthusiasm might happen to be. It’s even headier when your enthusiasm is as solitary an enterprise as writing is. Sometimes you just really need to get with other writers and talk story or exchange challenges and triumphs or give and get pointers. Even a short visit can be refreshing and recharging.

 

Small Favors

Lucky for me nobody reads this blog, because I didn’t post anything yesterday.  I don’t suppose it’s MANDATORY to post every day, which is another small favor.   I did my Chronicles for next week today, so I might actually get some writing done during the rest of the week.  I worked on a book trailer for Marion Zimmer Bradley’s SWORD AND SORCERESS XXII, which has a story of mine, “Child of Ice, Child of Flame”, in it, but I can’t get it to play….  As soon as I figure out what goofy thing I did wrong, I’ll see how many ways I can mess up trying to post it.

 

Jumping in with both feet

It’s cold in Southern Indiana today, but I’m cozy at the library, where they have high-speed internet.  I’m supposed to be writing my food history column, but I’m messing around getting a blog started. 

 If I don’t get back into fiction writing soon, I’ll start hallucinating.  It’s just a matter of making the time–I have time here and there, and I could easily use it to write, but I’m so bone lazy I end up playing Mahjongg or the Linux Tetris.  Pathetic.  Maybe a blog will help.  Maybe I’ll think, “I need to update my blog.  No, that’s too much like work–I think I’ll write something instead.”

 Here’s hoping!