It’s 9 o’clock at night here, and of course I have nothing written yet for this month’s blog post. We’ve talked before about how I am the world’s most disorganised person, right? And in addition to having nothing prepared for this post, my alarm is set for 4 a.m. because I have to get up early for a flight o Brisbane, followed by a flight to Los Angeles, followed by a flight to Denver for GRL! Yay! But also…ugh, travel.

It’s not that I don’t like planes. I mean, they sure beat the alternative, right? Which I guess is going nowhere. But I do hate being stuck in a seat for thirteen hours straight, dog tired and only dozing rather than sleeping. It’s especially annoying on my flights to the US, because I leave here in the morning, and it’s then daytime forever and ever, which makes it even harder to sleep.

No, the worst thing about travelling is all the waiting around in airports when you’re already tired and you just want to have a shower and a decent sleep, except no, you now have this five hour wait for your next flight, and the only thing to do is to go and have a look at the shops in the terminal again, and figure out which over-priced fast food you’re going to buy, because even though you’re not hungry it will at least kill some time.

Maybe other people have better strategies than me for travel, because I am the worst. I travel with a Kindle, and with my laptop, and enough  music on my phone to last until next century, but usually my brain is way too friend to actually focus on anything, so shopping it is. But I don’t want to actually buy anything, because even if it wasn’t all ridiculously expensive, who wants to lug around more stuff?

So yeah. I’m not a fan of the travelling part of travel (and I’m aware of what a first world problem that is!) but I am a massive fan of being in new places, and of catching up with old friends and making new ones.

So if you’re coming to GRL in Denver, I look forward to seeing you there. I get in on Tuesday evening. You’ll recognise me. I’ll be the zombie dragging two purple suitcases. Hopefully by Wednesday I’ll be human again!

I’m always really excited to go to GRL, because there is a part of me that, when I sent my manuscript away to Loose Id what feels like a lifetime ago now, never even dreamed that I’d be heading off halfway around the world to meet readers and bloggers and fellow authors. That still feels really incredible to me, and I’ll bet that there are writers out there now who are reading this who also can’t imagine doing something like that.

But you can! And I promise you that it’ll be amazing!