Moving On

My itchy feet/urge to move was not helped by a letter I got in the mail today from a Realtor who has a client who wants a house in my complex, and there are none currently on the market that suit his needs, but mine is one that fits what he wants (the letter also went to other people with my floor plan). Unfortunately, I've got at least a month of heavy work on repairs, decluttering and cleaning before my house would be remotely ready to show, and I'd really like to see how the new books do before I commit to a new house so I'll have a better sense of what I can afford, so I'm afraid this client is going to be disappointed. But it is a good sign that I may be able to sell when I'm ready. That may be a benefit of living in Little India. There are a lot of young professionals coming over to work in the tech industry or at the medical center, and I've got a condo on the bus line with easy access to the medical center and the tech employers in this area, and there aren't a lot of places like mine in this neighborhood, where you can usually either rent an apartment or buy a large house.

But first I need to finish dealing with copyedits on this book. I'm done with the part that needs to go to the publisher, so if I had to, I could send it off today. I just need to enter the edits into my file so I'll have my own copy and can compare the galleys to my file. Then I need to revise a book. And start that decluttering project. Well, resume it. I started and then stalled.

I'm off tomorrow for ArmadilloCon in Austin. I won't be too terribly busy, with just a reading on Friday, a panel on Saturday and two panels on Sunday, so I can attend a few things. Mostly, I'll get to hang out with friends and see some of my friends from college.

One place I won't be is at the Romance Writers of America conference being held in San Antonio the same weekend. I'm letting my membership in that organization go. It was a great help to me when I was starting out because that's where I learned about the publishing business. The conferences were so exciting because that was the rare time when writing seemed glamorous. I'll admit to feeling a bit of a pang when I see the pictures and reports on Facebook. But that organization doesn't really fit me anymore. What I write isn't considered "romance" by the organization, so I technically don't qualify for full membership, and they've dropped the "strong romantic elements" category from their awards. I've also come to realize that I don't even really like romance novels. I love having love stories in other things, but I don't like the structure and form of the romance genre. There's a lot I'll miss about the group, but I've been pulling away for a long time, and no one seems to have noticed. I dropped out of my local chapter a few years ago and haven't been to a conference since 2007.

Instead, I'm trying to get more involved in SFWA. I might have offered/been recruited to work on publicity for next year's Nebula Awards weekend, and I should probably go to that anyway because it's that organization's equivalent of the RWA national conference, only smaller and more focused on published authors. That's where I can get my business info, and then I can focus on getting publicity at other conventions.

It does feel like the end of an era, since I joined RWA in 1991. But the organization and I have grown away from each other and it's time to enter a new phase.