Dragon*Con 2008: Other aftereffects and “A Nose for Magic”

Something I neglected mentioning in my D*C08 write-up is that I had two, possibly three, Daily Dragon staff members come down with what they thought was food poisoning. They were out for a shift but came back within a day, shaky but determined not to miss anymore of Dragon*Con or another of their assigned desk shifts.

When I hear “food poisoning,” I tend to figure I’m pretty safe as I don’t eat meat, and most such poisoning episodes can be attributed to meat consumption. What I didn’t add to the equation is that the daughter of another of my Daily Dragon staff was recovering from the flu and that there’s been a lot of flu making the rounds this last month—also that this year the flu shots were pretty ineffective, missing the major strains.

I no longer believe the distress afflicting my staff was due to food poisoning. Rather, my main circle of convention interaction seems instead to have been plague-ridden. And, because my immune system is the stupidest immune system in the world, a fairly mild ailment which knocks regular folks out for a day flattened me for three. (*grumble* stupid human suit *grumble*)

So yeah, I had an uncomfortable weekend, and I’m still a bit wobbly. Also, my voice hasn’t come back yet, although my co-editors and husband assure me that I sound much less like a toad than I did last week. However, it means I got absolutely nothing accomplished all weekend. Ergo, I am playing catch up on my efforts to catch up from Dragon*Con.

Wah!

Writing Stuff

Received:
• Contrib. copies of The Pagan Anthology of Short Fiction: 13 Prize Winning Tales with my story, “A Nose for Magic.” Shiny cover:

“A Nose for Magic” is one I’m particularly fond of as it was directly inspired by Hobkin. After reading this newest one (he read it in zero draft, but I tend not to subject him to the final versions as I figure he’s already doing “above and beyond” duty as my eternal first reader) fosteronfilm said that I should have a collection of skunk stories published. I laughed, ‘cuz who would want to buy a collection of skunk-inspired short stories? Also, I didn’t think I had written enough of them to fill a collection. But actually, when I opened up my story logs spreadsheet, I think I actually may. But I’m still left with the question, would anyone actually want to buy a collection of skunk and skunk-inspired stories? Hmmm.