And now it's happening on a NaNoWriMo month no less! How sweet is that?
Only the third time I'd ever attended an author event, and the first time I'd traveled outside my home range was to see Marissa Meyer. It was 2014 at the Baltimore Book Fest. 6 hours to my brother Edward Aubry’s home in PA. Thankfully I could stay with his family and he drove me the 1+ hours into Baltimore. I don’t know if I would have been brave enough to do any of the trip if I hadn’t had that home to stay in and a ride. Driving to PA on my own was the single longest trip I’d ever done solo in my forty-nine years up to that point.
I can't even keep track of how many author events I've been to since. Seriously, I think I may have developed an addiction. Or an obsession? Meeting the authors, collecting the books, reading them, reviewing them, mentioning them on social media, and naturally getting them signed. Sometimes buying them twice just so I can get one signed (shhh, don’t tell my Hubby).
I have two copies of Cinder and two of Winter, also two copies of A Torch Against the Night. The second copy of Cinder was so my collection was all hardback. Yeah, I’ve decided I’ve got enough of a book buying problem that adding weird idiocies to the mix was not beneficial in any way whatsoever. Also after buying the hardback I found out there was an extra in the paperback copy so I certainly couldn’t get rid of it! Man having a book obsession has some odd difficulties!
I’ve traveled the furthest so far to Baltimore for an event but I’ve seriously eyeballed some in TN & SC. The second furthest will be Boston Teen Author Festival this September, a close third to that was the recent 3.5-hour trip to Plainville, MA. I have a trip planned to Concord, NH in October. It’s the last book in a series – seriously how can I refuse to go to that??? A crazy amount of book events this year. My fifty-first year has been a lot of fun!
I might even work in a business aspect to the adventure by visiting fishing tackle shops. My “real” job is running a tackle shop and I’ve been writing a series featuring a protagonist who joins her father in running his tackle shop. Wouldn’t that mean the trip qualifies for a tax write-off?
I can only hope turning fifty-two costs me a bit less but is equally fun.