8 Billion Things I Need to Do Before Conference

1. Edit Lying Eyes into some semblance of a decent novel. I'm told it needs more Bad Guy and less fainting. The heroine tends to get light-headed with her new found psychic powers, and the literal fade to black-- or passing out-- is one of my favorite cliff-hanger endings. I may have gone a little overboard with it. (Do you hear that noise? That's the sound of Skye violently rolling her eyes. Or it might be the sound of her wailing, "God! She fainted again! Check her blood pressure or something."

2. Edit the Lying Eyes pitch for more power. I may need to make it longer. Editors tend to let you get through your whole spiel before interrupting to ask you questions about motivation and stuff (unlike agents, grr), and right now my spiel is only about 30 seconds long. That leaves a lot of time for the editor to come up with awkward are-we-done-yet questions for me, or answer her cell phone and then request my manuscript out of guilt for answering her cell phone during my pitch. The latter I'm kind of ok with, but I don't like awkward are-we-done-yet questions.

3. Track down the "Love In Shadow" cards that are supposed to be coming from Vista Print. They are stupendously cool and I got an excellent deal on them and I really want them in time to take them with me. The order supposedly shipped on June 27 but I don't have it yet. Eek!

4. Finish my Wild Rose corsage for the welcome reception. We dorky Wild Rose authors decided that we shall find each other by the corsages we'll wear to the welcome reception, in the colors of our lines. Since I'm published at Faery Rose and almost published at Black Rose, my corsage has a black rose (shut up, I'm tacky and proud of it) and two little lavender roses. I still need ribbon though. Must have ribbon.

5. Make an itinerary. Yes I know that the workshop schedule has the potential to change and that I should wait until I get there, but I live in mortal fear that when I get there I'll be too busy and then I'll forget and then it will be like the first day of school my freshman year of high school and I won't have my schedule and I won't know where to go and the bell will ring and I'll be standing all alone in the deserted hallway, just spinning in forlorn circles, wondering which direction to go.

6. Do something with my hair. I haven't decided what yet. On the one hand, I could cough up some cash and get a nice haircut. On the other hand, I could cough up some cash and get a nice dye job. I refuse to cough up for both. But I did buy a box of black hair dye. I'm debating whether being remembered as the goth girl is actually better than not being remembered at all. The jury is still out.

7. Lose 40 pounds. Ha, just kidding. Lose 20 pounds. Well, I'm not kidding about that, but it's not going to happen anyway, so I'd best forget that one.

8. Decide what I'm wearing. I can't just pack the same stuff I packed last year because, um, you know that 20 pounds I was supposed to lose? That would have been so I could fit into the clothes I wore last year. So I'm going with fewer suits this year (since, um, they're kind of not fitting) and more stretchy Size-12-Is-Not-Fat (yay Meg Cabot!) pants and some nice tops. I might need to purchase a few more tops. Darn, I just hate having an excuse to buy pretty tops... and matching pumps... and earrings... and hair clips...

See you in Dallas!