When the universe speaks...

I spent several days running around doing a decent impression of a headless chicken, followed by being gone all day yesterday, and today I woke up with a raging headache, which is killing my plans of going to the coffee shop to work. Apparently the universe is (a) telling me to take a day to veg in front of the TV and (b) forcing me to accept that Ghosted won’t be finished this month, either. =8-0

Let’s see. Thursday night I went to a local writer’s group session, called Third Thursdays, hosted by a guy who was on the book signing panel at Barnes & Noble with me in January. I’d suggested to him that I organize a panel/talk on writing romance at a Third Thursday, and he’d invited me to come check it out. It was…interesting. Packed with newbie writers, which was great to see. We’re looking at the possibility of a romance talk sometime in the summer. I also found out that the used bookstore where the meetings are being held is also starting to host book signings, so I talked to the owner about doing one at some point. Not too soon, since I just had the one at B&N. Maybe I can do it in conjunction with the talk… Anyway.

Friday I finished writing and designing a handout for the talk on romance some fellow LARA members and I were doing on Saturday. Others had sent stuff for the handout, so I was fleshing it out and making it look pretty. It took a little longer than I expected, but it came out quite nice. We went to Albra’s birthday dinner that night, carpooling with Morgana and Brian, who came over afterwards. Ken and Brian started getting into geeky engineering/electronics talk, so Morgana and I grabbed Afalwen and started going through the I Can Has Cheeseburger archives, because she hadn’t read it in awhile. We laughed until we cried, and then Brian dragged her home.

Yesterday was the panel talk, which was at the huge and lovely Burbank Library. There were six of us, from all stages of our writing careers (well, no best-selling authors…yet!). We had 30-40 people in the audience, and got some good questions, and gave away lots of fun prizes (Ken won one! A LARA mug, which I didn’t have and in which I had my tea today, and an issue of Romantic Times, which I do have a subscription to, and a pen. :-) ), and had a good time. Then I changed into my concert-goin’ clothes and we were off to the House of Blues in Hollywood for the second time in two weeks, this time for Queensrÿche, with our friend Jeff in tow. (Jeff patiently sat through the 2-hour romance panel only to be approached afterwards by a photographer who wants to use him in novel-cover shoots. It must have been the leather pants…and the piercing blue eyes… :-) )

Oh, and a fellow LARA member (alas, I’m blanking on who) told me I needed a new website/author picture, because the one I have makes me look somber and I’m actually very animated. Not the exact words, but it made me laugh. I’m always surprised at how people perceive me vs. how I perceive myself. Someone I’d known casually online for years via Styx fandom spent a few days with me (as part of a group) last year and afterwards referred to me as “a force of nature.” I had a headache the entire time and thought I’d been quiet and miserable (although I’d tried to be personable at the very least). I kinda like being a force of nature, though. Do I get to pick which force?

Queensrÿche were fabulous; all the standing around waiting for them was not, but we survived. I also learned not to share appetizers and then eat the entire “side” of skillet macaroni and cheese beforehand. And the mac-and-cheese wasn’t even as good as it should have been.

The best part, though, was looking up several times during the show and watching individual pieces of confetti from the Styx show a week and a half ago flutter down. I even reached up and caught one. Because it was appropriately silly.

Afterwards, we stood in the rain forever waiting for our car, but I like standing in the rain, so it was all good.

And now we’re back to today and the throbbing head of doom. We’ve watched an ep of If Walls Could Talk, the latest Torchwood, two eps of Supernatural, and one ep of Alias. One more ep of Alias to go and we’ll have finished Season One and can send back that DVD. We also have the extras from Season One of Torchwood from Netflix. Then we have to decide what to watch next: another season of Alias, or the first season of another show, and then swap back and forth.

I also made a huge batch of my killer coleslaw and a cheesy-stuffed meatloaf, and Ken handled the parmesan roasted potatoes for dinner. And we’ve done four loads of laundry. Sitting at the computer? Not so much. The light hurts my head more, as does reading words. I answered a few e-mails, but that’s about it. Have I mentioned I have 33 stories to read before Thursday evening when the Denise Little Workshop in Oregon begins…?