Lisa Hendrix

So, Wednesday, I had a dinner meeting with a local group of writers, and they asked those of us who had gone to RWA to give a brief rundown of what we’d seen & heard. Easy, right?

Uh, no.  Apparently, my brain fell out somewhere along Highway 1—probably slid out the window on one of the hairpin curves and tumbled over the cliff into the Pacific—because I literally could NOT remember more than two of the workshops I’d attended.  In fact, if hard pressed, I would have sworn I didn’t attend more than three. I think it was the usual conference exhaustion followed by the immediate application of serious lazy vacation that did me in. Somewhere between Jenner and that beach horseback ride I mentioned last time, I stopped caring.

Now, fortunately, I’m a champion note taker—modified Cornell style, multiple colors of pens, fast and efficient summarizer—because I was able to learn that I’d actually taken six full workshops and popped in on several more between appointments. I applied those summarizing skills I just mentioned and let the other writers know what they’d missed.  Now, in the interest of memory preservation, I’m going to give you the most important/striking points from each of the full sessions (after the jump). Read the rest of this entry »

I finally caught my breath, I think.  It’s taken me this long to decompress from conference.

That’s mostly due to the fact that I was away for just shy of two weeks. My daughter and I went down early to visit old neighbors who now live in the Bay area.  Last January or so, they invited the girl child to go on a week-long vacation with them. They planned to visit Yosemite, then take a few days at one of the lakes to do some boating. I was supposed to house sit while they were gone, take care of their cats, etc., and then mosey over to SF for the conference after having 5 days of peaceful writers retreat.

Not.

Due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control, including *two* Read the rest of this entry »

They’re good kids. Really they are. I love them very, very much. They’re even old enough I don’t have to pay attention to them every minute.

But it snowed Sunday night, enough that the district cancelled school yesterday, so they were home all day. Wanting to talk. Wanting to eat. Wanting to play video games. Wanting to *breathe*. I don’t know about other writers, but I have issues with people who breathe while I’m writing, or at least when I’m starting a project. Until my characters manifest fully and are so clear in my head that they refuse to go away until the story’s done, the presence of other people in the same vicinity rips me out of the zone (Twilight Zone, Writing Zone, whatever). I need not just privacy, but solitude.

So, you say, that was yesterday. I have my solitude back today. Why am I bitching?

Because it’s snowing again. Big, floofy flakes right out of the last scene of White Christmas. Gorgeous. I should be smiling. Instead, I’m thinking that if it keeps up, they might cancel school again tomorrow.

Sigh.

Lisa

UPDATE! (Weds, 30 Jan 08) — Yep. They’ve closed the schools, and in the nastiest possible way. At 7am when I checked, there was only a 2 hour delayed start. Then at 8am, one of the kids’ friends called to say it had changed to a full closure. That makes 4 days off in the last 8. (A holiday and an inservice day last week, and 2 snow days this week. So far).

Sigh