Getting readier

Tomorrow morning my wife and I fly out of Little Rock to finally arrive in Denver in mid-afternoon. I ran into a scare yesterday when I went to my Orbitz account--to run off my flight schedule--and found that I "had no trips planned." Oh yeah? Mild panic. Did I forget to make the reservation? Then my wife reminded me that you can't make reservations for Southwest Airlines on Orbitz. Ahh. So I must have abandoned reliable old Orbitz those many months ago when I made our arrangements. Checked my email for a message from Southwest and there it was: our flight data. So I guess I'm going after all.

I'm packing my novel via portable hard drive, the paper I will present (along with multiple copies of a handout), and as much cash as I can pull together. AWP isn't cheap. But, truthfully, for all its unbearable size, I almost always learn something handy at AWP, something I can bring back to my classes. Besides that, it's good to get away from teacher craziness for a few days and just think about writing as a writer. I'll post when I'm there to let everyone know how it's coming. And, yes, I am still determined to work on the novel, conference or no.