Lunch at ICFA yesterday with Cecilia Tan, who is always a joy to talk to, about life and love and the business of writing and publishing. The first editor to buy a short story of mine, a very long-term friend, whom I don’t see enough of. But we had two hours yesterday, walking to Neo Asian Kitchen and Boba Tea, eating together, walking back, and it was terrific.
Big advantage to adding on a day or two to conventions when you can — time to relax with friends, rather than trying to just jam in hurried meet-ups with too many people….
Aren’t those the cutest crab rangoons? I love a place that’ll let me do an appetizer sampler for lunch. Taste all the things. I had Thai iced tea with boba added for the first time — fun! Though I admit, I was a bit envious of her brown sugar boba concoction; something to try another time! So pretty.
Cecilia gave me some publishing advice that was helpful; this a lot of why we go to conventions like this. You can spend years working in frustrated isolation as a writer, and then you have one five-minute conversation at a con, and it just clicks everything into focus. The challenge is balancing writing time and con time….no point in going to cons to learn about writing and publishing, if you’re not actually doing the writing!
Cecilia has a novel making its way through the publishing process that I’m dying to read — hopefully soon! She’s a gutsy, boundary-pushing writer, and we need more of her work in the world. If you’re looking for a starting point, you might check out _Telepaths Don’t Need Safewords_. 
