Right now I'm on Long Island, at the Southampton Writer's Conference. Which, I have to admit, I was not as excited for as I should have been, because after seven solid years of workshops it's hard to get keyed up for yet another workshop. Except the entire conference is excellent, and Alan Alda is here, which becomes more relevant if you know that I had elaborate plans to kidnap him when I was fifteen and first found M*A*S*H at my local library. So good workshop, good lectures, good god my high-school celebrity crush is presenting on the importance of accessible and engaging science writing.
It's been a weird summer, which began with the utterly unexpected acquisition (if you can call it that) of an agent and a frantic exodus from Norwich. Then my sister came to be dragged through London, Paris, and assorted bits of the English countryside. Then I went to find my brother in Berlin and succeeded in not killing him while we kicked around, then I flew back to London so I could fly to New York for the conference, and now I am on Long Island, still jetlagged with stress hives, dragging along with me the draft of my dissertation, the draft of my novel with a double-weight of agent's line notes, and the visa paperwork that needs to be filled out and sent in sometime before my current visa expires. So that's where I have been, and hopefully at the end of it there will be a bed, and the time to finish the masses of work that have accrued over the time on the road. And, if I am luck, enough peace for the hives to clear up.
At least I'm not afraid of flying any more.
