On the way home...

I'm at the airport again, waiting to catch my return flight home from Portland, and even though this was just a quick trip (out early on Wednesday, back late on Thursday), I have had SUCH a great time. I went to the convention center yesterday to watch Dame Devon sign books, then we sat and talked and drank coffee for more than an hour, and it was so great to see another friend and author in person.

For me (and I suspect for many other authors), my dail life is spent in imaginary words, with people I made up. I work in jeans and tees, in my recliner (and recently, at my actual desk, to help ease wrist/arm pain). I have several opportunities every year to see my writer friends, mostly at the Romantic Times Booklovers convention, or the RWA national conference, but most cons take place in the spring/summer, which leaves long fall and winter months without much face-to-face time with my fellow writers. So this was the first time I've gotten to talk craft and industry with a friend (and fellow Dame!) in about nine months. And it was awesome!

Then last night I had a wonderful dinner with Robyn Carr, Elizabeth Somers, and Susan Wiggs, as well as the awesome staff from Harlequin.

Portland is beautiful, and green, and temperate (at least today), and I met so many great, enthusiastic librarians, not to mention the wonderful sales, marketing, and PR people from Harlequin, who are some of the friendliest people in the world, I swear.

My only regret is that I didn't get more pictures, though I did get several shots of Dame Devon signing, then one at lunch with her this afternoon.

Tomorrow, I'll be back hard at work (MSTSteal is due next week, and I owe edits on my Kiss Me Deadly short story), but today, I'm drinking coffee (There's a Starbucks about every hundred yards or so out here) and reading my ARC of Jennifer Lynn Barnes's Raised by Wolves (Love!). And, of course, enjoying the scenery. ;-)