I’m heading to Los Angeles tomorrow with kids where we’ll meet Surfer Ty who is also flying in from Hawaii. In the evening we’ll board a Qantas flight to Australia, landing in Sydney on Thursday before hopping to Cairns on Saturday for 5 nights. All told, we’ll be gone two weeks with four of those days spent at the Romance Writers of Australia’s annual conference, taking place this year on the Gold Coast.
It’s been another long day at the computer, today especially rought since the damn thing has decided to freeze up every ten minutes or so. I don’t know why it does this. I just want it to work so I can wrap up my last minute emails and details along with the workshop I’m presenting at the conference.
I get nervous about cocktail parties, ladies brunches, and conference lunches, but speaking never makes me nervous. Whether there’s two people or two thousand, I feel comfortable at the microphone, confident that I’ve got something to say.
I suppose I say the things I need to hear—be strong, take risks, have compassion, laugh, love, forgive. I talk about craft and how to strengthen the book. I talk about the challenges in this profession and the need to honor the muse. But ultimately what I convey is that you’re not alone. We’re all working hard, and we’re all struggling along, and even if some people seem to be breezing through…they’re really not. Life is life. Life is hard. But that doesn’t make it bad. It just means the world–our world–is complex and we’ve got to be good problem solvers. We’ve got to want to make lemonade from lemons. We’ve got to want to see the glass half-full.
In just hours I’ll jump on yet another plane but this time there aren’t any goodbyes as the kids and Surfer Ty are coming with me. It should be a great trip. Should be a perfect combination of work and fun.
As long as spending two weeks in hotels and on planes and in rental cars with a chick with kids won’t be too much for Surfer Ty. I know he grew up in a big family, and I know he’s handling dating me very well, but he’s about to get a whole lot of togetherness.
Jet-lag style.
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