I’m going to try to do a proper ICFA post. (ICFA, for those of you who don’t know, is the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts.) That’s where I was last weekend, and it was absolutely lovely. But honestly, I don’t have the energy tonight, and I’m in the difficult position of typing on an external monitor. My computer monitor broke and the part hasn’t come in yet, so I’m waiting. Sometimes my monitor works, sometimes it doesn’t, and working on an external monitor makes typing anything difficult, even though I’m a fairly competent touch typist.

I haven’t been updating a lot, and there are a couple of reasons. One is sheer exhaustion. One is the problem with the computer monitor. One is the workload I’m dealing with right now. Sometimes, it’s just all overwhelming, and the problem isn’t so much that I can’t find the time to type 500 words; it’s that I can’t think of 500 words to type. The internal peace that would allow me to write eludes me. That goes for actual writing as well, not just blog posts.

Which makes me wonder if I should write my story here, kill two birds with one stone as it were, although I would never hurl stones at birds. What do you think? The one I’m working on right now is called “The White Cat,” and I could do a first draft here. It’s a thought . . .

So last weekend I was in Orlando, Florida, at ICFA. On the first day, I had dinner with Ann and Jeff Vandermeer, which included a long talk with Nancy Hightower. Then I had a panel on monsters and some socializing to do. Finally, I had a long talk with my roommate, Karen Meisner. We hadn’t seen each other forever, and it was lovely to catch up.

The next day I wasn’t at the convention at all, because I had a photoshoot with Jesse Walker of Walker1812 Photography, which deserves a post of its own. (And yes, I will be posting pictures. If you want to see the first ones, go ahead and friend me on Facebook, where I’ve posted a few.)

The final day of the banquet, I did a reading with Karen Lord and Steven Erikson. I read my story “Beautiful Boys,” which is coming out in Asimov’s Science Fiction sometime in late summer or early fall. Then it was time to change for the banquet. I’ll post a picture of my ball gown in the next few days, but in the meantime, here is another picture you might like. James Patrick Kelly took this fabulous photo of me with Kat Howard and Maria Davanah Headley. We were being Charlie’s Angels. (Isn’t it obvious?)

And that’s it for tonight. Working with the external monitor, it’s taken me an hour to write almost 500 words, and there’s something exhausting about trying to write this way. But in the next few days, I’ll try to update you on everything that’s been going on in my writing life. (Not enough writing, of course.)

And I’ll think about whether I should post that story . . .