Yesterday, I went to Boston for the ALA Midwinter Conference. It was my first time at one of these events and hopefully I'll get the opportunity to go again. I haven't been to Boston in so long I was delighted that I was flawless driving and taking the T. I would have loved the opportunity to see Al Gore speak, but not for over $200.

As you can see from the photograph, I picked up a "few" things. If not for the weight of eighteen books, a mug and a bunch of other stuff, I might have stayed longer than the 5 1/2 hours I was there. I met some folks in the publishing industry and browsed booths brimming with new books. It felt like I was in a candy store.

I learned some new words. A blad (I have no idea what the spelling is) is a short thin summary book of the real thing. An ARC is an advanced reading copy and may contain errors. A whole pile of ARCs can get quite heavy. It seemed to me, quite a bit of money to spend on an imperfect copy of a book for the sake of reviews. Like everything else, I'm probably not fully understanding why they do it this way.

I am grateful that another nonfiction writer pointed out a problem with the "writing" portion of my website. Since I view it using Firefox, it looked fine to me. But when viewed using Internet Explorer, the HTML code shows up. Ugh. Not a pretty sight. I am currently working to fix this problem.

I have been reviewing maps of Boston, T-maps, and the ALA conference exhibitor list. All systems go for a Saturday trip into writing land.

Today I reviewed three thrilling videos that really helped me to turn actions into words. I watched each several times and wrote down descriptive words that I will work into the paragraphs I'm writing.