This week, my agent sent out pitches for That Subtle Knot, my opium-addicted hero gets married and gets straight Regency-set historical.

Now, much waiting ensues.

In the mean

Sorry this post is so late.

I just got back from attending the World Science Fiction Convention (a.k.a. Worldcon) yesterday.

I woke up this morning with a headache….and my new headache medicine apparently makes me woozy.

(Hmm…I wonder what the derivation of “woozy” is? If I weren’t so woozy, I’d go look it up in a dictionary. After all, I have three within reach right now. But that would take effort….)

So here are a few random pics for you…which will hopefully make more sense than I do right now!

I’ll talk more about Worldcon later…

But just a few tidbits for now:

The Guest of Honor was the amazing Lois McMaster Bujold.

And I got to ask her questions.

And hear her talk.

And listen to her read the first two chapters of her upcoming new Vorkosigan book!!!!!!!

I also got to hear Todd, who was on three panels, tell folks how to build a time machine in the basement. (Half of that sentence isn’t exactly true, by the way, but I’m too woozy to remember which half.)

Speaking of wooziness…(hey, that’s a cool word…wooziness…wooziness…if you say it three times fast, then it begins to describe your state of mind…)…I just attended two conferences back to back.

Does that make me an expert on hotel shower curtains?

Or finding cool restaurants? (I had Singaporean food with Elena in San Francisco, and German food with Todd in Denver…)

Hey, wait — wasn’t the Woozy one of those L Frank Baum magical creatures? (My woozy brain is coming up with a picture that seems to be a bendable doglike creature made of silvery metal… Does this make sense?)

Google, and ye shall find.

Here’s a picture of the Woozy (the fellow clinging to the tree) as illustrated by John R. Neill, in Baum’s THE PATCHWORK GIRL OF OZ.

Yep.

That’s my brain.

Clinging to a tree.

S-N-O-O-Z-I-N-G.

Cara the woozy (though not Cara The Woozy)

I read this horoscope yesterday:

“Here’s a passage from Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Breakfast of Champions: ‘Kilgore Trout once wrote a short story which was a dialogue between two pieces of yeast. They were discussing the possible purposes of life as they ate sugar and suffocated in their own excrement. Because of their limited intelligence, they never came close to guessing that they were making champagne.’ This scenario has some resemblance to what you’re doing, Capricorn. Fortunately, you’re much smarter than two pieces of yeast, and so you will not do the equivalent of drowning in crap. But I bet you’ll create something comparable to champagne.”

This is very encouraging, considering I have hit the point which comes in every WIP where the story seems, well, crap. A terrible idea from top to bottom. I want the characters to fall off a cliff and leave me alone. Yes, I am on the downhill slide, about 30 pages left to go. Along with recovering from RWA, it’s a slog. But hopefully, all unknowing, it’s slowly changing into bubbly champagne. I do like champagne, and luckily there was plenty to be had in San Francisco!

Here I am with Risky Megan!

With Diane and Michelle Willingham at the Harlequin party (I think this is before the infamous tree felling!)

Some mysterious dandy with Elena at the Beau Monde Soiree

And with Megan…

And with Deb Marlowe!

It was wonderful to meet so many of you “in person” at RWA! I can’t wait for next year. In the meantime, what were some of you own highlights of conference? And wish me luck on finishing my yeast, er, champagne…

I am, essentially, a man of peace.

Any of my fellow Exquisites would tell you so.

(After all, Brawling and other Low Sports tend to disarray one’s hair, and they can even lead to dust landing on one’s clothes.)

I say this to clarify what I am about to relate.

With only the most generous motives did I attend the Ball held by the Beau Monde. (I am, after all, a member of the beau monde, if not of the Beau Monde. And all balls and assemblies are delighted to have my attendance, regardless of whether or not I paid for a ticket with filthy lucre…or, rather, clean lucre, which is the only sort I would ever carry.)

Moreover, I had a purpose both simple and enchantingly noble: to dance with each of the Risky Authors, and thus bring great delight and honour and elegance into their authorly lives.

(And I cannot believe that authorly lives have much delight or elegance in them, in the general way; after all, what delight or elegance can there be to sit in front of a computing machine, all alone, with no one to admire one’s profile or envy one’s coat?)

But study carefully the picture above, and you may guess what my difficulty was!

The Risky ladies had been already claimed by a Mysterious Gentleman in blue.

When I asked Mme Frampton to dance, she responded that her dance was already spoken for by this unnamed gentleman.

What is even more astonishing — I was answered in the same manner by all of the other five Riskies!

(Very well, I admit — the other four. I never could locate Mlle McCabe. But I did ask Mlle Soleore, Milady George, and the Great Empress of All Canines, and they all responded that they, too, were claimed by the azure adventurer!)

In all good will, I decided to ask the strange gentleman what his secret was. And so I approached him, and asked him if he could meet with me to explain his mystical powers over the female population.

But the fellow misunderstood me!

Such an impatient man. As soon as I had said “Could you meet me–” he declared that his second, Sir Reginald SomeOneOrOther, would be calling upon my second!

Now, I ask you — why would women flock to such an aggressive male? I cannot understand it.

And after I took one look at this Sir Reginald fellow (shown here), I decided that discretion was the better part of keeping my cravat spotless, so I smoothly departed through the servants’ entrance.

Which is why I failed to dance with any of you.

But I meant to.

For the moment, I shall be at an undisclosed location. If any frightening gentlemen ask after me, please do not share any information with them…

Yours in elegance (which must be assiduously guarded),

Bertie the Beau