Reading tonight at Posman Books at Grand Central Station

I changed my Chicago trip to tomorrow (a mini vacation) so I could read tonight at 6 at Posman Books at Grand Central Station (9 Grand Central Terminal) with an amazing lineup of readers from the new BenBella Books anthology Fifty Writers on Fifty Shades of Grey. I'm dressed appropriately!

I'm doing very few readings these days, because I sortof feel like a wasteful fraud to take time away from writing and income-generating work to do something that feels frivolous, which is pretty much how I feel a lot of the time, so this will be the last one for a while. The more I see comedy and theater, the more I know that I am not a natural performer, I don't enjoy it, I don't excel at it and it gives me the kind of nerves I'm trying to banish from my life. I've done it since 2011, and will continue to do it on occasion, but it's not something I plan to seek out any longer unless it's a special occasion.

But I am nothing if not vain, and the chance to read in such a special location and have my own books stocked there won me over. I'm also talking to a few colleges about going to teach classes, which I do enjoy, because newcomers to erotica bring a zeal that I am always trying to recapture when I write a new story. Lately I've felt like I'm kindof watching myself from afar and even things that should excite me feel more like chores than anything else. On the plus side, I am sending out fun holiday cards and have a few possibilities dangling in the air that would be dreams come true. In the meantime, one word at a time. They're coming, slowly but surely, and I'm doing my best to write and pitch and hope and dream and journal my way out of this slump.