Care and Feeding of Authors

Some of you may have noticed that I fell off the Internet Social media presence early last week. If you didn’t notice, don’t worry, I’m back. What happened was I got slammed with pneumonia. Yep, you read that correctly – pneumonia. Luckily, I was able to get in to see my doctor a.s.a.p and promptly put on antibiotics (Gods, I so love being in a country with national health care.:) Now this did not instantly put an end to my illness, but I had to do something I hadn’t done in YEARS, which was to sleep as much as possible. No writing. No editing. No reading. Just sleep. I don’t think I did any eating either. For the first time in years I was living the life of a cat, albeit a very sick cat.

It also happened only days before I was meant to attend SFContario. I had never had to cancel my attendance at a conference I was a panellist guest at before and I did not want SFContario to be the first, but it came oh so close. Despite the antibiotics and the copious amounts of rest I seriously considered emailing the organizers to say I wouldn’t be able to attend, but I decided to wait and see how I felt on the Friday morning.

Friday morning rose and I tottered upright. I decided I could go. I arrived at the convention with a tired smile on my face. It, unfortunately, did not hide the fatigue that recovering from pneumonia causes. Many of the other authors there were concerned and offered their assistance in helping me make it through SFContario. Never before had I truly felt such community and friendship with the other authors at a convention. It truly solidified in my heart that these wonderful and creative folks, who were there for the same reasons as I, would rally around and be so caring.

I’m used to the corporate dog-eat-dog style of business when dealing with peers. This past weekend was a solidifying experience that in the world of the creative writers this is not the case. I’ve experienced it before through my attendance at many other conventions, making new and wonderful author friends, but this time, it wasn’t about professional niceties, it was about genuine human caring and compassion.

By Sunday I was feeling more of my normal self. Not 100%, but close enough. I believe that the reason for my positive experience and increase of health over the weekend to be the amazing capacity of the other authors’ compassion.

I look forward to the next convention I’ll be at – AdAstra – to see so many of these wonderful folks and be able to reciprocate their generosity and compassion.