Not Really Back

I'm still on hiatus of sorts. The writer in me is seriously frightened at the moment. The last thing I did was destroy a manuscript and it's made me paranoid about ruining any works in progress.

Despite that, I have made a few writing engagements. For instance, I read to the Grade 5&6 classes at my daughter's elementary school, Lynnwood. They were very receptive to the book and everyone wanted a bookmark (a problem because I thought it was a 5/6 split class, not two classes — not enough bookmarks!). They also love the idea for my NaNoWriMo novel. Did I sell any books? I don't know, but I donated a copy to the library that I can hope will be well read.

I'm also registered to attend the Surrey International Writers Conference in two weeks. I am booked in a pitch session and a blue pen session that I might have to drop. I'd intended to pitch/submit pages from the aforementioned manuscript. At the moment, I have nothing to take with me. Maybe some pages from Cargon 2 for the blue pen, but that's it. I'm also entirely bummed about publishing in general, so most of my high on attending this conference is gone. Hopefully attending will repair that.

Finally, I agreed to attend a book club meeting in Vegreville, a little town about 2.5 hours drive down the highway. My coworker's aunt is in the book club and read Cargon. I got a call from her a week ago to set a time and I asked about getting books to them before time. She said she'd get back to me. Tonight I got a call from the leader of the club and discovered it's not just one book club, it's several. They're looking for 20-25 copies. WOW. Problem is, I haven't restocked, thinking I'd just like to unload the copies I have left. I have 13. So... I've put in a call to my publisher asking for more copies ASAP. Worse comes to worse, I'll arrange with one or more of the clubs to deliver books at a slightly later date. Also, this means I'm not meeting with people who have already read and want to discuss my book, I'm pitching to people who run book clubs. Not what I was expecting and not exactly my favourite thing to do. On the other hand, if I can do a reading and discuss like I did with grade schoolers (well, obviously the discussion will go much differently!) it might not be so bad.

So, if you'd like to order a signed copy via my website, please do! Just be aware that there will probably be a delay in shipping until I get my new supply.

And hopefully, between all these events, I'll finally get enough of a kick in the pants to start writing again and be less of a depressed, anti-social lump like I've been lately. If not, well, it'll be a while until I post again.