Back On The Chain Gang
It’s been a very odd week or so. Note to everyone in the conga line: if I ever volunteer for signings on opposite sides of the state less than a week apart, check my head for trauma. I must be crazy. Not that I didn’t enjoy them–I had a blast! But coming down with the flu-ish thing is Not Fun. I suspect it was traveling between biomes (Spokane is dry dry dry, and Vancouver is wet wet wet) plus the stress of two long car trips and the sudden shift into winter (people jamming together inside and transferring germs as an afterthought) as well as lack of sleep.
The signing in Spokane was wonderful, and I was home for Hallowe’en before I zoomed up to Seattle for a dual reading with the loverly Kat Richardson, author of Greywalker. Kat and I almost immediately bonded, and I look forward to being her Partner in Crime any day. She lives on a houseboat and has a ferret, and she nodded when I yammered about characters messing about with the inside of my head. How cool is that?
After the University Bookstore event (big thanks to Duane and Art, as well as all the Readers who showed up and made it fabulous), we all jammed into a cab (Richelle Mead and Caitlin Kittredge went separately and got us a table) and went to the Ram in University Village. Where there proceeded to be much fun, and even more margarita. We did have to wait an hour and a half for a table, but it was Friday night after nine. I suppose it’s what we deserved. Still, it was a great deal of fun even if half our party was almost fainting from low blood sugar.
I finally got back to the hotel room about midnight and settled in to…not-sleep. Yes, I had a fever and a cough, not to mention that scratchy run-down feeling that means one’s body is rebelling against an invader. Seven hours and no sleep later, I cancelled breakfast with my sister (sad, sad, sad face) in order to drive home.
Which was when I found out my car needed new winshield wipers. They were fine for about-town drizzle, but the torrential rain we were hit with all the way from Seattle to Ridgefield was a bit much for the poor darlings. They have since been retired, having served with honor.
I moderated a poetry panel Saturday evening, still sleepless and feverish but capable of keeping everything on track. I bailed right after the panel (for the Writer’s Mixer at Cover to Cover) and came home, falling into bed for a twelve-hour unconscious spurt broken only by fever-dreams about elephants and (oddly enough) giant weaselly creatures. Yesterday, still sick as a dog, I tooled around the house a bit. I thought I could get some writing done, as well as some housework, but exhaustion seemed to be the rule of the day. Another twelve-hour stretch of unconsciousness later, I’m feeling a bit better but still by no means myself this morning.
Ah, the life of a writer.
So today is for getting back in the groove of home life, hitting the treadmill and going back to Ghost Hunter. I like the spur of NaNoWriMo–a self-imposed deadline. Now I just wish Danny Valentine would cooperate and stop dragging her feet over the fifth book.
Yeah. The life of a writer. I wouldn’t trade it for the world, even when I’m sucking on cough drops and sweating with fever.
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November 6th, 2006 at 2:22 pm
“The life of a writer. I wouldn’t trade it for the world, even when I’m sucking on cough drops and sweating with fever.”
And the margaritas. Don’t forget about those. They’re key.
November 7th, 2006 at 12:52 am
More margaritas. Or at the least, big, fat, hot toddies and big, soft bunny slippers (the Monty Python kind with fangs, of course). Hope you’re feeling better soonishly.