Why so quiet?

Hello, campers —

No, I haven’t gone uncharacteristically quiet over the last few days because I suddenly ran out of things to say about the writing life, nor because, having gotten you all excited about the concept of writing retreats, I couldn’t come up with any practical suggestions for pulling one off. I am, in fact, overflowing with suggestions, yet as you may have noticed, you’ve all be staring at (well-deserved) congratulations to my friend Phoebe for quite some time now.

Or quite some time by my posting standards, in any case.

The culprit: a nasty flu. So I guess Suggestion #1 for constructing your own writing treat is TAKE LOTS OF ZINC AND VITAMIN C. Or perhaps DON’T LET STRANGERS BREATHE UPON YOU. (You wouldn’t want to pick up this kind of thing on the street, would you?)

I’m still a bit shaky, so I’m going to hold off on finishing up the writing retreat series for the nonce. it’s a hefty topic upon which I have not written before, so I want to make sure to do it justice. I also have some thoughts about NF book proposals that I’d like to flesh out here, or so my SO claims I’ve been muttering feverishly in my sleep. Not to mention lots of good questions to answer about craft.

So never fear — November will be a meaty month here at Author! Author! But not right away.

In the interim, and as soon as I can work up momentum, I’m going to revisit how to construct an author bio. I’d been threatening promising to update my advice on the subject for quite some time now, as part of my ongoing quest to make sure that all of my readers have necessary marketing materials ready to go the second an agent or editor asks for ‘em, and frankly, it’s less energy-consuming to return to a topic than attack it for the first time.

In case we don’t talk again before you go to the polls, US-based readers: please don’t forget to vote on Tuesday, whomever you support — and PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE vote all the way down the ballot, even if you’re in a hurry. Statistically, people don’t, and it’s a shame.

I know that it’s tempting to regard the most important races as, well, the most important races, but since my readers are well-known to be some of the most intelligent and thoughtful people in North America, it seems like a waste not to bring such insight to bear on gubernatorial, city council, and referendum races.

Oh, and please be extra-nice to the poll workers. Even in a low-turnout year, it’s lousy job, paying close to minimum wage for a 15-hour day, requiring abnormally high levels of community spirit to pull off at all, let alone with élan. This time around, it promises to be an even longer day with more snafus than usual.

Bring ‘em cookies. But don’t let them breathe upon you.