Flight

Hooray!
Today's the day--
Up, up and away!


Your Fiorella is flying off to the big Romance Writers of America conference New York this morning.  Wish her well.

Quick Snippets

Fiorella is in a tizzy trying to prepare for the Romance Writers of America conference in New York. First off, she has to find a nice dress for the Saturday night awards ceremony.  Yes, we all dress up like we're attending Cinderella's ball.  It's our own fantasy because we spend our real lives in jeans and T-shirts.
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Several people have explained various electronic gadgets to Fio, but she has to work with then herself to understand them.  Yes, this monkey can't just see--she has to do.  Daughter would label her a kinesthetic learner.
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Fio decided to check back through the revisions she'd made and nearly died. She'll have to revise the revisions.

Stressed, You Say?

This has been a hard week for Fiorella,  That engine light was still on so Fio had to take the car to the dealer for a $400 repair, she was diagnosed with GERD (good-bye, chocolate), attacked by a herd of mosquitoes, hit the concrete face-first again, is still recovering from having her false vocal chords shot up with botox, is agonizing over revisions of her new book, and is preparing not only for the NY writers' conference, but for her birthday,

The good thing is that she's lost two pounds.

RWA Roommate

Has Fiorella told you that she's scored a roommate for Romance Writers of America's national conference in New York this summer?  Her name is Shiloh Walker, and she's multi-published.  Not only that, but Fiorella has started reading one of her books, and it gave Fio just the boost she needed to get over that middle-of-book hump in her novella-in-progess.

Times Square, here's to ya!

Enforced Time Off

Fiorella had a lot of house stuff to catch up on when she got home from the national RWA conference, which meant she got behind on her writing schedule.  So what was there to do but to write all Sunday afternoon?

But when she opened her documents file to her current masterpiece, the boldface, which Fio uses to call her attention to what she needs to look at again, seemed much too dark, and the documents pages seemed much too bright.  In fact, the whole room seemed too bright.  And every sound was an assault on Fio's ears. And the air was suffocatingly warm.  And she couldn't think.  And she didn't want to move.  Yes, Fiorella had  a migraine.  She doesn't get them very often and they're not as bad as some people's, but they are debilitating.

Oh well, today's another day.

My Husband, My Hero

Husband truly does love Fiorella.  When she came home from Conference, the house was sparkling.  Fio's packing-up mess had been taken care of, the floors were swept, the newspapers were waiting for her in a neat stack, the bedroom had been straightened up, vanilla ice creams was waiting in the freezer, and the dog was happy--although Husband had taken her on THREE walks a day, thus raising canine expectations of Fio.

Fiorella has crossed into an alternative universe, and she loves it--the conference was wonderful, and coming home was even more wonderful.

You'll hear more to come about the conference this week, but you'll hear about Husband forever.

Whoopee!

Fiorella is counting down the days till the national Romance Writers of America conference this July in San Antonio.  She's got transportation and a roommate, has worked out her wardrobe, and bought herself a glamorous awards ceremony dress. Best of all, she'll meet with her agent, her editor, and attend both her chapter's party and her publisher's party.

Fio never thought she'd fly this high.

Hip Hooray!

Fiorella, in preparation for the RWA national conference is taking walks around her 190-linear yard driveway not just once a day, but three times a day, and she's doing just fine.  Of course, she'll be stopped at the airport security gate because of the metal in her hip, but that's a small price to pay for being able to walk with ease.  At the New York RWA conference two years ago, she was in constant pain, and three months before the surgery, she couldn't even walk 80 yards up to the mailbox on the road.

Hip replacements work.

Ta-da!

Fio's back from the conference triumphant!

Yes, she placed third in her category on something she hasn't finished writing yet, and she had requests from an editor and an agent for partials of two of her finished manuscripts.

Plus, she had a great time! She rode to the conference with friend LuAnn, who also also triumphed at the conference by winning THREE raffle baskets in a row (graciously declining the third one)and placing fourth in her category.

In addition, the conference was small enough that Fio kept running into the same people again and again and had a great time getting to know them. Now she has to go through all her conference hand-outs and try to figure out what the heck their names were.

Fiorella thanks you for all your positive thoughts in her direction.