This is RadCon weekend up in Pasco, WA. We'll be hitting the road after X gets off of work. It'll be a five hour drive.

Jay Lake will be there as well as Bronwyn. Jay's mom will be there again, too. Deb Layne, Frank Wu, Alan Clark, Paul Groendes, the Swensons, Bridget and Marti Mckenna, Harold and Eve Gross. Joe Haldeman is the guest of honor and that's pretty cool too. He was one my Clarion instructors back in '93. His wife Gay has a better memory for his students and it's great to see both of them when I go to conventions. It's a great little con with a lot of people I'd like to hang out with! I just wish all of you reading this could be there too.

I'm doing a reading. I'm also on a panel about writing YA fiction. The only reason I'm doing this panel is because of the YA novel I'm writing. Otherwise, I haven't published a YA novel or short story. About the only thing I have done is write stories with young protagonists. I'm not sure if I'll have much to add, but I will try to learn something from the panel to bring back to my novel, whether it's craft or marketing.

And I mailed that short story for the upcoming Denise Little workshop. Yuck. Writing that story was long and, well, dreadful. I couldn't get a spark in me to just dive deep into it, so the words came out slow. The shape of the story came out slow. But I still made the deadline. That's good. But I'll want to write a story faster when that workshop weekend comes next month.

Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating. There's some things in the story I did that I like, but where's the love? Thankfully not every story I write (fast or slow) comes out making me feel this way.

I'm done with that mood and emotion lab study. And it didn't involve electric shocks or questions about how I feel about bunnies. I had my third and last lab session yesterday and then I got paid $139 in cold hard cash. Talk about emotional reaction!