Pumpkin pie and coffee. Mmmmmmmm. My homemade prozac for the wet, cool and dark fall days.

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As I'm stuffing my face with pie and slurping my coffee, I might as well give a weekend report.

The train ride up to Seattle was pleasant and uneventful. Not crowded at all. And I watched Spiderman 2. No sleep on the train.

When came to the bus from Seattle to Surrey, now that's where the sleep came in. In fact, I woke up just as we reached the Canadian/U.S. border.

Once the bus dropped me off at the Pacific Inn (called the Pink Palace by the Surrey locals) I grabbed a cab to take me to the main Conference hotel. Lucky thing there was a woman from Eugene who was also going to the conference, so we split the cab. We talked of writing and she talked of writing her memoirs, which included a voodoo curse that had once been placed on her.

Once I was at the Sheraton, I checked in to the hotel and the conference. And I was just in time for the Don Maass master class. Just like last year, Don was entertaining and illuminating on plot and structure. However, I didn't enjoy this master class as much as the one I took last year, which had to do with character. There was much audience participation, telling stories of the saddest events of their lives. Don had a point to make--putting real emotion into our novels. I think I could have done with just one example from the audience.

Other workshop panels I enjoyed over the weekend included two by bestselling author Elizabeth George. Setting and Landscape. Point of View and Voice. She did great at breaking everything down (P.O.V. especially!) and I got lots of notes.

Canadian thriller writer Michael Slade gave a great keynote speech on Friday night. Man, the guy knows how to entertain. He got up to the podim and leaped into a series of stories from his life and linked them up at the end. He was talking about writing talismans. Inspirational.

Since my next novel is going to be YA, I attended a panel on the Young Adult market. Alas, I can't report a good panel on this one. The speaker was new to publishing. Seven years earlier, she was with us in the audience (so she said). She has a couple of YA books published with another on the way. All this is fine and great, but the problem was she spent far to much time on new writer stuff, like cover letters and submitting. She author-bashed the Goosebumps series and Buffy The Vampire Slayer books in the YA section of bookstores. Author-bashing is a petpeeve of mine. I rather focus on improving my own writing instead of badmouthing someone elses. Her enthusiasm was great, though. And the conference had a wide range of writers, beginners to seasoned veterens, so perhaps I can't fault her for covering the basics. She was trying to appeal to everyone, after all.

At the genre lunch on Saturday, I was brave and sat at a table where I didn't know anyone. It was the YA table and, as you know, my next novel is going to be YA. I talked to a woman by the name of Bond. The topic: male puberty.

Just like the last year, the food was great and the dessert table spetacular.

It was great to see Dean again, but Kris was missed. They had just got done teaching the two-week workshop and Kris was exhausted. Steve and Chris York were also there, which was a pleasant surprise because I wasn't expecting to see them. I was also surprised to see Johnzo and Victoria in the lobby on Saturday. They had come up from Seattle to do bar-con.

On Sunday I decided to take public transit to the other hotel for the bus into Seattle. I thought I'd save money by not taking a cab. This meant I had to leave early and quickly, so I didn't get a chance to say goodby to anyone. I didn't eat breakfast and the bus across town took about an hour. By the time I got to the "Pink Palace," I was starving. I still had a few minutes before the bus arrived, so I went into the lobby, asked the front desk clerk about the Trailwinds bus, and made my way to the restaurant.

Now the restaurant had a fairly open view to the lobby. While I was at the counter ordering a muffin and OJ, all I had to do was step back and look around an archway to see the front door. I tried to be quick. The only kind of muffin they had was carrot, but that would do. I had to use a creditcard which added time. I didn't see a bus outside and only saw one man in a blue shirt go down the hallway to the restrooms.

Then I sat on a bench with my muffin and OJ. The carrot muffin surprised me. It really was quite good. I only had a couple of bites. When the desk clerk saw me, he said, "Didn't you catch the bus?"

What?! I had just missed the bus. The carrot muffin was a good muffin. But it wasn't worth missing the the bus for.

This caused a little adventure. The desk clerk dialed up the Trailwinds busline and I noticed a cab pulling up outside. My only hope of catching the bus would be at the border. The border was only five minutes away from the "Pink Palace" and going through customs would take about twenty minutes. I talked to Trailwinds busline on the phone and he told me to do what I had just thought of.

So I was off. I told the cab driver the situation and he took off. The ride costed me ten U.S. dollars because I had no more Canadian currency and I didn't want to take the time to use a credit card. The driver dropped me off as close to customs as he could. I walked a ways with my suitcase and muffing, and I asked a customs officer for directions.

I walked through a line of semi-trucks and I found my bus at the front of the line. It had already started through customs and all passenger belongings had been removed from the luggage compartment. I found the bus driver and it was that guy in the blue shirt I saw earlier. With two custom officers standing nearby, I told the driver I had missed the bus at the hotel. The driver understood and asked for my ticket.

The custom officers weren't so understanding, at least not at first. One officer said the bus can't pick up passengers at the border and he chastised the driver by saying, "You know that!" The driver gave me my ticket back and returned to loading the baggage back on the bus. The officers then asked about me and what happened and I showed them my passport. One of them asked if I had anything in my suitcase I shouldn't be carrying and I said no. Then, the officer who chastised the driver told me that I couldn't get on the bus here at the customs office but customs couldn't stop me from getting on the bus off the premises. "You know where I'm coming from?" he asked. Gone was the stern, uncompromising face of authority, replaced with a sympathetic one. He told me I could talk to the driver about meeting the bus outside, so I did. The driver questioned what they said and looked over my shoulder at the officers. He then asked for my ticket. I held onto my suitcase because that probably would be just like me physically getting on the bus at U.S. customs.

So I walked back over to the officers. They asked if I made arrangements with the driver and the chastizing officer explained, again, about not getting on the bus at U.S. customs and said again, "You know where I'm coming from?"

I did understand. I just wanted to get on the bus because I had no other way to get home. I asked them how do I get out of here and the other officer pointed me the right direction--beyond another checkpoing and another slab of pavement to the exit to the highway.

So there I was, standing at the side of the road with a suitcase like I was hitch-hiking. I still had my muffin in my hand and I waited as semi-trucks and SUVs passed. I began to think I might have missed the bus somehow again. But that fear was short lived. The bus came, the driver stopped, and I got on. I left my suitcase with the driver and I found out why it took so long to get through customs. The bus was full. I missed three available seats at the head of bus as I made my way down the aisle. That's because there were suitcases or bags on the seat. I can't blame those people. If I wanted a row of seats all to myself, I would have done the same thing. So I found a seat and sat down to eat the rest of my muffin.

I had a great conference, even with the little adventure at the border. Next year, I should have at least one novel done. And I heard there is a train that would take me all the way into Canada without a bus. I just need to go to Vancouver and take the skytrain to the hotel (Surrey is just outside Vancouver, after all). Yes, next year, I'll be sure to get the right train at the right time to take me from Eugene into Vancouver. That's gotta be easier to deal with than buses through customs.