Normally, I wouldn’t consider working the weekend as a guest speaker and panelist at a major science fiction convention to be the RELAXING part of the tour, but it was great just to stay in one place for a couple of days, unpack my suitcase, sleep in the same bed. On Saturday I had a worldbuilding panel with Ken Scholes, Brenda Carr, and Stephen Gillette, an autographing, a panel on Sail to Success, Superstars, and other high-end writers workshops with Arc Manor publisher Shahid Mahmud, Nancy Kress, and Jack Skellingstad, a panel on marketing for people who don’t like marketing. A quick dinner with Elton Elliott in the green room (some of the most delicious and fresh food I’ve ever had in a con green room), then I spent some time at the Baen Books party.

Sunday I had a great breakfast with Ken Scholes (one of my former Writers of the Future students), then a reading of a new Dan Shamble, Zombie PI piece, a panel on “Should Writers Leave Their Caves?” with Cat Rambo and Jack Skellingstad, before I was done with my official con duties. I went out to lunch with Andy Olson, who runs NeilPeartNews—which did a great job of helping to spread the word about my HELLHOLE AWAKENING tour. The Rush fans have really come out strong, giving the 501sters a run for their money. Andy took me to the Elliott Bay Brewing Company and we had excellent burgers and brews. For dinner, I met up with Michael Laine from the Liftport project and a major space-advocacy group (we’ll have an exciting new project to announce soon). In fact, Norwescon weekend generated *three* exciting new projects, not to mention a whole afternoon brainstorming NAVIGATORS OF DUNE with Brian Herbert.

Very early Monday morning it was back on the HELLHOLE AWAKENING tour, arriving at the SeaTac airport at 6 AM for an all-day flight to Atlanta, which would land at 4 PM…given Atlanta rush hour traffic to get all the way to Decatur for the 7 PM signing, it would be close but comfortable. Alas, I woke up with a constricted throat and a malfunctioning voice—serious onset laryngitis, making it impossible to talk. Now that was going to be interesting for my talk at Eagle Eye Books!

Then, when I arrived at the airport, I learned that my Delta flight was delayed by three hours, now scheduled to land in Atlanta fifteen minutes before my scheduled talk at the bookstore. That wasn’t going to work at all. It was April Fool’s Day, but that isn’t the sort of joke I expected. I immediately rushed off to customer service and explained the situation. They searched other airlines and got me the last seat on the only other flight that would get me into Atlanta in time, on Alaska Airlines. So I spent a 4.5 hour flight crammed in the middle seat in the back of the plane, trying to do some heavy editing and rewrites to THE DARK BETWEEN THE STARS manuscript without moving my elbows! But at least I landed in time.

My friend Dr. Amy, who is a medical researcher, ER physician, and also the granddaughter of Robert Heinlein, picked me up from the airport in her really amazing new Tesla luxury electric car. Wow, very impressive! I even got to drive it…I definitely want one next time I have a spare $60K (and those who poo-poo electric cars as being wimpy have never been in a vehicle like this). Dr. Amy also saved the day by taking me over to their home to round up the family for a quick dinner—and she gave me a very effective steroid that loosened up the laryngitis enough for me to speak! (As an added bonus, I got to see the Heinlein library in their home, as well as Bob and Ginny’s piano, the bookcases, bedroom set, and dining table they had build.)

The Heinlein Room

After dinner at Capozzi’s (our traditional pizza place where we often have pizza parties for fans after an Eagle Eye signing (no time today, though), we went over to the bookstore, where I surprised some 501sters getting armored-up in the back room. The bookstore had arranged for a microphone so I didn’t have to use my voice too much, and we had a crowd of over 50 people, my best ever at that store.

Robert Heinlein’s great-grandson greets at the bookstore

Admiral Daala in the flesh!

When the signing was over a group of 12 of us went to the Brick Store, a well-known local tap room with an extensive selection of interesting beers, where I struggled to maintain a conversation with a weak voice and strong background noise. I talked with Rebecca on the phone, and she gave me some very cool WordFire Press news regarding an icon of science fiction (yes, more tantalizing…but I’ll announce it later!) and I finally made it back to the hotel by midnight. In bed at 12:30, alarm off again at 4:45. Even though I didn’t spend many hours there, I had enough time to miss my own bed! Home again tomorrow after tonight’s signing in Dayton.