Off to Nashville....Wish me luck

Well, dear blog followers, tomorrow I leave for a week, well a school week anyway. Five days away from my cherubs and their challenges and their joys. I am headed to Music City....Nashville, Tennessee. Why? you ask? I am headed for the only national conference on independent living. It focuses on the needs of children aging out of foster care into the wild world, and how to equip said kiddos for a successful transition. Sponsored by Daniel Kids of Florida, I found it online and decided to attend this one rather than the regular foster care conference because of its focus. On top of that, I am actually presenting a workshop there. The workshop is called "Build Your Own Parachute" and will [hopefully] teach foster parents how to use independence trunks, independence notebooks, and practice apartments to prepare their charges for a successful transition. Getting everything ready and set for presenting has kept me busy and offline for over a week, but I think I am ready. I even managed to put all my workshop handouts in pdf form onto CDs so that participants can carry home a CD rather than a stack of papers. Wheee... score one for the trees and the environment!

I am going with the world's scariest looking splint still on my hand. I am sure its wires and contraptions will make the airport security people scurry about and will set off countless alarms. Getting ready and going would be much simpler if I had the cooperation of that still pretty useless hand. The porters and bell boys will profit from my inability to pull the bags of books etc. that I am taking.

This will also be the debut of my new book, The Caring Heart Speaks. Hot off the press I am hoping that it is well received. That is something like hoping everyone thinks your baby is cute. Of course, you aren't trying to sell your baby. All the locasl folks have made the appropriate oooh and ahhhhs about the book, but this will be the first roll-out not in home territory. All in all, a slightly intimidating looking week. I'll be out of touch until I get back. Wish me luck...see you soon...and if any of you happen to be going to the same conference...Say Hello!!

Booksignings

Friday I did a book signing at the Portland Jetport.  The Friday before April vacation is a high volume travel time at the jetport and I've done book signings there at similar times before.  A book signing is a lot like a middle school dance.  You go by yourself and hope that someone nice will notice you.  Before you go, you plan possible conversation gambits in case they do.  You think of a few possible scenarios and plan accordingly.  Then you go to the dance and stand there trying to look approachable and interesting.  People go by you and some glance your way, some fixate on a point several yards beyond you and focus firmly, avoiding any chance of eye contact, you keep smiling in a way that feels forced but you hope looks natural. Eventually someone stops and chats and you pull out you practiced conversation. Sometimes it ends at that, sometimes you discover more in common and the conversation becomes natural and comfortable.  Then in a blink they either buy a book, you sign it, and they leave OR they say thank you, good luck, and they leave.  Either way you go back to sitting and trying to look interesting and approachable.  See what I mean about it being like a school dance?

I am always willing to do book signings, even though I find them the waits between chats uncomfortable.  I figure if a bookstore owner these days is willing to give valuable shelf space to a book I've written, the least I can do is show up once in a while and help him sell them.  This time it was my book on Maine [It Happened in Maine].  I am still waiting for a book signing for my new New Hampshire book [More Than Petticoats: Remarkable New Hampshire Women]. A signing at the jetport is always a bit different because of the security screening and the pattern of rush rush as people come and go on planes, and wait wait in between flights. But the place is busy, the staff friendly, and the sales always nice.  

Hopefully sometime in the next year I will be planning a book signing for my foster/adoptive parenting book.  Or maybe signing a contract with a publisher for my book with Pat Miller about parenting children who chronically lie and steal. Both are still in the stage of have people volunteer to be readers and give us feedback for final revisions, of finding experts to read them and write glowing blurbs about them for their covers, etc.  IF you are curious for more info, or interested in being a chapter reader, let me know!  But for now, the signing is done, and as soon as the school vacation is over it will be back to the nitty gritty of writing, revising, and submitting.