I DON’T HAVE TIME FOR THIS

by Rob Lopresti

I don’t have time to be writing this. Just got back from Bouchercon. Got a million things to do.

At Bouchercon they give you a big pile of books to take home. I left half of them in a pile there. Don’t have time to read them. (On the other hand I picked up some books that other people had left on the pile – and what lunatic discarded an advance copy of A Drop of the Hard Stuff, the new Matt Scudder novel by Lawrence Block, which won’t be out until next year? Gotta read it, but I don’t have time.)

Chatted with three editors there and got ideas from two of them, which may lead to stories. Gotta write them fast. No time for blogging. No time for reading.

Heard a panel with a woman (don’t have time to look up her name) who writes three books a year. I don’t write three books a decade. So, no time to waste. Gotta put the seat on the chair and the fingers on the keyboard. Everyone else is getting ahead of me.

Went to a panel on e-books. A friend has been urging me to put my book up for the world to download. (My novel, I mean. The book I edited is already up and I got my first e-moolah while I was in San Francisco. Let’s say it didn’t pay for the airfare home.)

Heard a lot of panels. Heard a lot of new authors whose books I want to read. Don’t have time, though. Got to write.

So, Mr. Lopresti, what’s the primary reason you attend mystery conferences? To see your friends, to get information, or to make contacts?

None of the above. I go to get motivated to write.

And how did San Francisco work out for that?

I don’t have time to tell you.