Oh yeah.  I am absolutely wiped out after Day 3 of this marathon conference.  No wonder writers drink.  Heavily.  I did figure out today why so many of them write fantasy.  They are so tired they become delusional after sitting through writer's conferences.  And from the delusion comes brilliance.  Evidently.

It is another great day here in the land of sunshine and no mosquitoes.  Not that I would know because I've been sitting in a conference room on my chair all day that is locked to the next chair in a row of twenty chairs in a room of a zillion locked-together chairs.  Did I mention these chairs are extremely uncomfortable?

I did manage to take a half hour walk after today's activities.  It's a weird feeling to be the only one walking on these big empty sidewalks in Los Angeles.  People probably thought I was an escaped mental patient.  It probably didn't help that I had a glazed look in my eyes and was muttering book revisions to myself. 

I have heard so many amazing kid lit authors these last three days.  They had the Golden Kite awards luncheon today and the non-fiction winner was an 87 year old author, Ashley Bryan, who had been up half the night dancing at last night's party.  While I was sleeping.  Soundly.  He made us shout a Langston Hughes poem with him as his acceptance speech.  His 87-year old voice is very loud. 

My day actually started with an awesome panel of non-fiction authors.  Did you know that stories about dogs are always popular?  I am now contemplating a true-life story of Jack the Pug, the dog from hell.  I'll detail his eye surgeries, his inability to make it from the second floor to the backyard in time for you-know-what, his silent but deadly aroma, and his need for a sleep apnea mask.  I think kids will love Jack the Pug, don't you?

The final speaker was Rubin Pfeffer, an industry veteran.  It was refreshing to hear him talk of the e-book revolution and the changing face of publishing platforms.  It was the first time someone here admitted that the agent-publisher bottleneck might be preventing a lot of good writers from being published.  I have lots of options available for my book, I think....

So, one more day.  I can't imagine what else they can talk about, but I'm sure I'll take even more notes and slide further down that slope of incoherence by day's end.   It's clearly going to take me all week to recover from this.  I'll leave you with one of winners of the Jokes contest that's been running throughout the conference:

The contest was  - what is the memoir that hasn't been written?  Answer:  Devil With the Blue Dress, by Bill Clinton. TTFN.