I’m home today. This is noteworthy because I’ve only been home two out of the last eight days. And I’m heading out again tomorrow…for IRA in Minneapolis (and lots of visiting along the way: visiting family…hopefully visiting my brand new niece…visiting my college roommate, my best friend from 6th-12th grade, and another high school friend I just recently reconnected with via Facebook…she and I haven’t seen each other since my wedding day).
And since I’m home, I am, of course, at the coffee shop with my friends. But I feel a little like the black sheep of the group today because everyone else is WRITING and I am updating my blog. I am going to try and write chapter one of book two in my series this morning, though. Emphasis on try.
So…highlights of the last couple weeks:
1) SCBWI conference. I’m going to sound really bad if I say the highlight of that was hanging out in the bar, but well…it sort of was because I was with some of my favorite people (outside my own family, of course!). And I learned important things that night…like tilapia are mouth breeders. (I guess you probably had to be there…)
2) Lasagna/chat at kelcrocker’s house
3) Great school visits that remind me how lucky I am to have never had a truly “bad” school visit experience. I did one young authors conference years ago where they didn’t have a check ready on the day of the conference…and then the person who invited me quit her job, so it took FOREVER for anyone there to even realize who I was and why I wanted to be paid. But the actual speaking part of that event was fine. I’ve also done one school visit where the school didn’t have a single one of my books in their library and the kids had no clue who I was or why I was there…but considering they had no clue who I was or why I was there, they were extremely attentive and asked good questions. But the vast majority of my school visit experiences have been like the ones I’ve had this year – well organized, great kids, great staff, and everyone has an obvious appreciation for literature.
