On the road again: a long trip, day 1World Fantasy Con, San Diego, day 1

I hate this hotel's bandwidth. Hate it. Ready to go kill someone over it.

I'm getting ahead of myself.

I woke up after two and a half hours of nightmare-filled quasi-sleep. I was more tired when I got out of bed than when I entered it. Clearly, I'm having a stress crash.

Further evidence was my almost complete lack of voice. I coughed up green in the shower, my voice is still barely present, and I have to moderate a panel in well under two days. Oh, boy. The good news is that Rana persuaded my doctor to call in a prescription for antibiotics, and they will reach me in the morning.

The plane flights were reasonable. I was lucky enough to score an upgrade on the first leg, so I had space and all the water and Diet Coke I wanted. I also managed to doze fitfully.

On the second, I had an exit row aisle seat, and bandwidth was on offer, so I worked the entire flight and for a short focused time didn't worry about having almost no voice or a tumor in my face.

San Diego is, as always, an absolutely beautiful place. The hotel is lovely, the room is fine, the breezes are amazing, the balcony overlooks a pool...and the bandwidth sucks. Blows. It is the worst I've had in a decade, worse than the nightmare that was the blasted Omni in Austin. Amazing. If I can find other places on the grounds to work, I may be able to get by, but otherwise, I will have to find a local bandwidth source and spend time every day in it.

In the early evening, I paid the insanely high fare to go to the wonderful Mysterious Galaxy bookstore for a mass signing/party/author drop-in event. The staff were wonderful and gracious to all. The book selection was lovely; with a smaller crowd and some time, I could have dropped some serious coin there. To my pleasant surprise, half a dozen or more folks sought me out and had me sign books. Most of them had four or more books for me to sign. I was floored and grateful each time.

I dream of becoming a bestselling novelist whose autograph line stretches around the block. I don't expect that to ever happen, but if it does, I hope I am always and forever grateful to each person who shells out his or her hard-earned money for my books. I am now, and I think every writer should be.

Dinner was back at the hotel, followed by work and now, the crashing. Man, do I need some sleep.