On the road again: a long trip, day 6World Fantasy Con, San Diego, day 6Silicon Valley, day 1

As you can tell from the overly long title, today was a travel day.

I awoke in San Diego feeling awful but definitely a tad better than the day before. Progress. After so much work I made us late, we did the pack/check-out/taxi/check-in/security tango and found our little commuter jet for LAX.

That flight was so short it barely had time to become unpleasant, which was quite nice. Unfortunately, a coughing spell hit me not long after boarding, so I had about half an hour of wracking pain.

LAX passed in a rush from plane to gate to shuttle to gate to plane, which was boarding when we reached it. Fortunately, a first-class upgrade had come through, so I was able to get plenty to drink and stave off the coughing during the slightly longer flight to SFO. I unfortunately could not fight the effects of a faster than normal landing process, so I emerged from the plane half deaf from the pressure in my head.

Go, decongestants, go!

After reversing the earlier dance, with a stop at a Safeway for crucial room supplies (water, Coke Zero, soft pretzels), I spent the rest of the day working.

Dinner was take-out from a nearby Max's. Mine was, of course, the traditional patty melt.

I passed exhausted a few hours ago, so I'm crashing. Ignore the timestamp of this post, for it is a lie.

Tomorrow, I have meetings, so I hope to be feeling a very great deal better.

On the road again: a long trip, day 5World Fantasy Con, San Diego, day 5

Today was not a good day, but today was, finally, the day I was expecting: I awoke feeling marginally better than when I went to sleep. I still have the fever and the draining and the coughing and the chapped nose and the raw lips, but I am ever so slightly better--or, at least, I believe I am--than when I crawled into bed. Plus, I did not wake up every single hour, a great treat.

My one con activity of the day was the awards banquet, which I did not want to miss. The food may have been the worst WFC banquet food ever, which is saying something. My entree, the inappropriately named tri-tips, looked and tasted roughly like what you'd expect if a pair of Shaquille O'Neal's dress shoes were chewed up and then spit out by the aliens from Attack the Block. By comparison, the paste-like mashed potatoes supporting them were miracles of culinary achievement.

Still, I am on the mend, and though the banquet left me shaking and exhausted, that is good news indeed.

Tomorrow, we head to another city.

On the road again: a long trip, day 4World Fantasy Con, San Diego, day 4

This is the con my sickness ate.

I hate it.

Each night when I go to sleep, I think that I will wake up in the morning having turned the corner toward good health.

Each morning, I wake up worse.

This morning was no exception. I saw every hour last night with a mixture of drainage and fever. It sucks.

Nonetheless, I decided I would keep all of my day's commitments. So, I got up early to take advantage of a gracious invitation from the redoubtable Bill Schafer of Subterranean Press to join the annual WFC breakfast. I was moving slowly, however, and so ended up arriving over an hour late. I apologized to Bill and moved on.

A few of us ate breakfast at another table, but I couldn't handle much. My sinuses were draining wildly, and my fever was spiking. I went to Dave's panel on krakens from the deep, but after stewing in my fever sweat and sinus drainage for an hour, I headed back to the room in defeat. Eventually, I ended up canceling a dinner I had very much wanted to attend. Aside from about two hours outside this morning, I will have spent the whole day in my room.

As I said, this sucks.

Today, though, has, I believe, brought the right combination of treatments to let me get better: antibiotics from the doctor for the sinus infection, Benadryl to stop the insane amount of drainage, and aspirin for the fever. (Don't suggest ibuprofen; I can't take it.) I am still measly, but this time I am confident: I will wake up feeling better tomorrow.

That's good, because I am going to the WFC banquet.

For now, though, I'll go back to stewing and feeling lousy.

On the road again: a long trip, day 3World Fantasy Con, San Diego, day 3

Today, probably aided by the antibiotics, my body went to war against the sinus infection that has robbed me of most of my voice. The good news is that I'll benefit from this battle in the end. The bad news is that today was pretty hellish.

I slept and worked until as late a lunch as I could manage. When sick and headed for a panel, you stick to health food, of course, so I had two hot dogs and some Coke Zero.

Thus fortified, I moderated my panel on the role of the misfit in fantasy. Thank goodness Jennie had persuaded the con Operations team to bring in a mic, because without it no one in the audience would have been able to hear any of us. The panel went reasonably well, the roughly 75 folks in attendance seemed to enjoy it, and I was generally pleased.

The one downside was that partway through the panel my forehead broke into a sweat as a fever overtook me.

After watching the next panel, I checked out some of the art show and then rested in the room for a while before dinner. Aspirin helped the fever, but my body is clearly not a happy thing right now.

In the evening, I went to a Baen dinner and then the WFC group signing, in which each writer sits in front of a folded sheet of paper with her/his name on it and hopes desperately that someone will bring by books for autographing. I'd had a pretty decent crowd the other night at The Mysterious Galaxy, so I wasn't expecting many folks tonight--and my expectations were correct. At least a few folks came by, which is better than some past years.

I'm fighting the fever again, so it's off to more rests. I sincerely hope for a better health day tomorrow.

On the road again: a long trip, day 2World Fantasy Con, San Diego, day 2

The antibiotics arrived today, which is good, and I am now taking them. I have to moderate a panel at 2:00 p.m. tomorrow, so I am hoping my voice is far closer to normal than today's version, which sounds a lot like a large frog croaking. At least you can hear me now from more than three inches away.

Most of the day went to work, but I did get to make a pass through the dealers' room (always a treat) and spend about two minutes browsing the art show. I plan to spend more time on the latter tomorrow.

The con highlight of the day was a presentation by some very entertaining and knowledgeable folks from the (deservedly) world-famous San Diego Zoo. They brought with them many very cool animals, including a great horned owl, a three-banded armadillo, a North American porcupine, a white-bellied tree pangolin, an African serval cat (which would never come out of its travel crate), and a binturong. Seeing them all in person was a great treat, and the lead presenter from the zoo made sure we were always entertained. The room was full of writers, everyone there no doubt making mental (and sometimes physical) notes for use in future works.

Tomorrow, I hope to have more voice back and to feel much better!

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.