by ecstaticist from Flickr

Today was pre-conference day here at the San Francisco Writer's Conference. It was all about arriving, getting settled into rooms and registering. 

I was a complete basketcase, of course. I waited until this morning to pack,—and attempted it on 5 hours sleep. The bellboy probably thinks I am staying here for a month! 

I was totally thinking that because President Obama was in the building it is going to be a mad house! I expected traffic to be hell and Secret Service agents at every corner to be eye-balling me. But it was the most peaceful arrival at a hotel in San Francisco I have ever had. If there were any agents in the hotel, they were "Raze"-like.

Actually.... there was this one man "guarding" a door around the conference rooms with an earpiece... wearing a hotel uniform. You think they do it like that? Wear hotel uniforms instead of badass black suits?

He was pretty stoic, that guy. Until I said that I could really use a Jack and Coke and he started laughing.

It was pretty intimidating walking into a crowd of 300 writers, when you just became one. So I did what I normally do and just barged right up to people and joined the conversation like we already knew each other. It worked. Got an amazing dinner date out of it. Already meeting some really interesting people and it isn't even officially day one!

By the end of the night, though, I was drinking martinis at the Top of the Mark with a couple of doctor/radiologists from Detroit and Florida. Leave it to me not to be able to stick with my own kind.

I can already tell I am going to be overwhelmed with information and come home with a "to do" list a mile long. In just 2 hours I filled 3 pages with notes to follow up on! My frontal lobe is throbbing.

But that may be the martini!

Okay! Off to bed! Early morning tomorrow!

Shannan

We live in the fiction.