Wednesday's Words for January 30, 2019

We’re getting ready to take our first trip out of the country in a couple of years. In February, we’ll be flying to San Antonio, Texas. I’ll be appearing at a reader/author event called “Wild Wicked Weekend”. The event is hosted by author Cate Beaumont, and I gave my word two years ago I’d be there.

There will be a lot of my friends attending this event, some friends who are readers and some who are authors. Friends I’ve missed and haven’t seen in person for a very long time. So, I am very much looking forward to this—but it’s not a trek I undertake lightly, and it will require a fair bit more than my last book event in the U.S., which was quite some time ago.

Getting older is not for the faint of heart. It’s been, as I said, a couple of years since we’ve gone beyond our border. My last trip out of the country was a drive to visit friends outside of Fort Wayne, Indiana in the early fall of 2016. I managed the drive in less than eight hours and stayed with them for a few days. Prior to that, we’d gone to Pennsylvania to visit our friends in the eastern part of the state. That trip we’d taken in early July. It, too, is a single day’s drive.

In the last couple of years, we attended only one writer/reader event, and that was in 2017 and just down the road from us - a thirty-five mile drive to one of our neighboring cities. It was hosted by American author Kallypso Masters. I’ve actually never attended a Canadian event hosted by a Canadian group as a published author. The stars just never quite aligned for me.

This trip is different from the one in 2017. I have “swag” to get ready, though I’m not taking a lot, because we’re flying. I have some new pens and note pads, and I also have some book “covers”. I had wanted to take some actual print books with me for the book signing, but this whole going across the border thing makes that challenging.

When I used to go to the RT Booklover’s convention, I could arrange with the organizers of the book fair to have them get the books for me. I just had to guarantee my sales. I didn’t have to lug them and fill out forms and pay extra freight for them.

This event is a smaller a scale event than RT, and there is no bookstore organizing the signing. Most of the authors attending are self-published. That’s not a complaint by any means. It’s just the way it is. Each author is responsible for their own appearance at the venue, and for me that calls for a creative approach. So I’ve announced, several times, I won’t have books there, but that readers should feel free to bring whatever books they’d like me to sign.

The event itself is scheduled to last a few days, Thursday through Sunday. The schedule looks like fun and provides a lot of interaction between authors and readers. It doesn’t sound too overwhelming.
Ah, but there’s a catch.

For the last two years, I’ve let my age catch up with me a bit. My pace has been steady around the house, and I’ve had a routine of sorts, and I’ve kept moving, more or less. But I’m not really busy. Busy and I don’t seem get along as well as once we did. I’m really looking forward to this trip. At the same time, I know it’s going to be a challenge for me, and for David, too.

Of course, I’ve reserved a mobility scooter for myself, for the period of time I’ll be at the hotel in San Antonio. After the event, we’ll be traveling a small distance away from the major city to see friends for a few more days. We fly back to Buffalo on March first.

I’ve got my lists started, but again, I’m moving much slower than in the past. I never thought it would happen, but I strongly suspect that I’m mellowing out, where my anal tendencies are concerned.

I’m trying to decide if that’s a good thing, or not. I guess I’ll know for certain, after this event is over.

Love,
Morgan
http://www.morganashbury.com
http://www.bookstrand.com/morgan-ashbury