Four Days & Counting

I still have to clean the house from top to bottom. I still have to write my pitches for the agent/editor meetings. I still have to update my website, pack, finish my formatted outline for D&B, do my nails, pick up groceries, get my American money, take the pooch for a quick vet check to make sure her sutures are healing properly (btw, tumor turned out to be benign and shouldn't grow back!) and a host of other things that will probably strike me as I go along. And I don't care because I'm goin' to Reno in four days - woo hoo!! (insert image of me doing little happy dance here)

The more I think about it, the more I can't believe it's finally here. When I made the decision to go a year ago it seemed a vague idea. Then, as the year progressed, it became more real. There were plenty of ups and downs where I didn't know if I was going to have the money to pull it off. Flying from the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia to the West Coast of the US ain't no cheap proposition and funds were tight. There was a point in time when I thought it just wasn't going to happen. But with some creative finagling I figured things out, walked a bit of a financial tightrope and decided sometimes you gotta spend money to make money. The opportunity, especially with the documentary taking place, was just too big of one to turn down. I had to go.

And now I am. Now it feels real, like the last two years leading up to this where I revamped my priorities and my life in many ways, were not all in vain.

I have no idea what this conference will bring, and in truth, I have no real expectations other than to go down there and experience as much of it as I can. I am not expecting to go in an unpublished author and walk out of there with a contract in hand. I'm crazy, but I'm not delusional. I do hope to make some contacts, meet some people, make some new friends, learn some new things.

But more than anything, I expect to have fun.

And how could I not? I'm going to be surrounded by hundreds of other writers. For a kid from small town Nova Scotia who grew up thinking she, along with her best friend, were the only freaks in the world, it's nice to know that isn't so. There are thousands of freaks just like me, people who spend a large part of their time living in their heads, creating people and worlds and lives and loves and jotting them all down on paper for others to enjoy. It's a strange profession, not one easily explained to someone who doesn't share it. And it's a hard one. Rejection sits at every corner waiting to poke you in the eye, and some days it’s a struggle to remember why the hell you even do it. But that's the thing about writers - they really can't envision themselves doing anything else. I know I can't.