On Turning 33…

The majority of my birthday was spent between a writing conference and bed, sleeping - or trying to.

You see, I was up early (for me) at around 6:30-7:00 AM. to go to the Women's Words conference at WPI on Saturday.  I managed, while at the conference, to not entirely appear plagued, fall into coughing fits, and even not cough over any of the other poor human beings in my vicinity.  In fact, I even managed to not exceed my tissue quota.

My presentation was at the end, and I still managed to be coherent, if not mostly well-spoken!

Once I made it back home, my body said, "That's it.  You had your conference!  I'm throwing in the towel."

And did it.

I spent the next three or four hours between fits of coughing, chills and sleep.  Around 8 or 9 PM I dragged my sorry butt out of bed because I was hungry.  I hopped online, utterly confused as to why I had well over 200 new messages.

Oh - it was still my birthday.

There's nothing like a couple hundred well wishers to scare away germs!  Most were Facebook wall posts, some were personal emails, some were on other social networking thingies that I use.  I pulled myself together to enjoy the delicious dinner Scott cooked and catch up on the rest of the week's television - including the latest Doctor Who.  Score for positive thoughts!

Of course, most people posted earlier, so I'm crediting my good show at the writer's conference to all those wonderful friends and colleagues of mine who sent me well wishes.  The Universe concentrated them into the time I needed them most.

It was an excellent conference.  All of the presenters were great, and I was very happy to moderate the last panel on getting published, where we tried, in the small space of 90 minutes, to give everyone a 101 Intro course on the business of publishing: differences, some pros and cons for indie publishing vs. small press publishing vs. "traditional" publishing; professional groups (Yay Broad Universe - here, take a pamphlet!); query letters and nonfiction proposals; copyright fears - justified and not-so-much (No you cannot copyright ideas; no, a publishing house isn't going to hand your idea to another writer; yes, when you publish on your blog it's publishing and someone can just steal it); and way more than I can possibly remember right now.  Afterword, I chatted the pros and cons of fan fic with some sisterly geeks.  And during lunch, children's author April Jones Prince and I sat with some college students and discussed more genre stuff as well as informal publishing stories.  I am truly glad I managed to stave off illness for this conference, and I truly hope my constant hand-cleaning prevented me from afflicting any of the wonderful folks with the current plague.

For pretty much all my life, I've been sick on my birthday.  I think I've managed a few years where I've managed to only be afflicted by controlled allergies… and spring sickness has come back with a vengeance.  Regardless, it was a good birthday overall - because I say so and I feel so. 

Thank you everyone for all the happy energy!  I'm plowing forward and feeling better today than I did on Sunday… which, for the sake of happiness, we won't discuss.  I had a happy birthday!