Well, just outside Chicago if you want to get technical.  I’ll spend tomorrow, Saturday and Sunday at the best little convention I know - Love is Murder - http://www.loveismurder.net . Love is Murder is an annual convention for writers, readers, and publishers of genre fiction held in the Rosemont Wyndham O’Hare Hotel in Rosemont, Il. If you love a good mystery, thriller, romance or horror novel, this is the place for you. Aside from providing a showcase for first time authors, LIM offers an environment where they can mingle with, learn from, and work alongside more experienced writers. Publishers and agents are in the mix too, in an informal atmosphere ideal for making new friends.  Fans mix and mingle with the writers too!

You’d fall asleep before I could name all the great writers who will be present this year, but the names Lee Child, Tess Gerritsen and Barry Eisler should be enough to whet your appetite. Aside from the panel I’ll share with Barry on Friday, I’m on a panel Saturday morning called "We Walk the Mean Streets" with four other private eye writers. In addition to about 55 panels, there will be presentations on hand writing analysis, lie detectors, DNA… and there is that afternoon tea with the martial arts demonstration. If you are anywhere near Chicago you should come by and visit with me at this one.

When I look at my ambitious plans for the year it hardly seems there could be enough time to do it all. However, I have learned that we can’t trust our perceptions because time is always relative. For example, how long a minute is depends on what side of the bathroom door you’re on.

This week’s bad news is that we’ve had a computer meltdown at home, making it impossible for us to update my web site. This means that none of the real news can appear there. It’s a good thing you read this blog.

The good news is that I had a good time and made some new friends at the Borders Express in Dulles Town Center. In fact, they were so pleased with the results that they invited me to return and do it again in a couple weeks. If you live in that area keep an eye out for me.

Other good news is that my name popped up on one of my favorite blogs, the Acme Authors Link. A post from my pal Morgan Mandel - http://acmeauthorslink.blogspot.com/2008/01/girl-of-my-dreams-promotion-blogs-by.html - mentions the Promotion Panel that I will share with her and Barry Eisler Friday at the Love is Murder convention. Of course she also mentions her new romantic comedy, "Girl of My Dreams." Good luck with your latest novel, Morgan and thanks for the mention.

If you happen to live in my area I want you to know that tomorrow I’ll visit a new shopping area, at least new for me. It’s the Dulles Town Center and I’ll be a guest of the Borders Express there. My book signing will be from 2 pm to 6 pm and I have to wonder if anybody will still be returning their Christmas gifts. No matter. If you stop by the store while I’m there - at 21100 Dulles Town Circle, Dulles, VA - mention you read about it in my blog and I’ll have a special gift for you.

Often I use this space to introduce you to great reads or to point you to web sites where you can find them. Today I want to show you how to save money on your book habit. I’ve discovered Smart Bookfinder.com, - http://www.smartmediafinder.com/buybooks - a price comparison search engine for Internet users. Just type in the title or author you’re interested in and this thing searches every major online merchant and presents you with the lowest prices. That’s how I learned that you can buy a brand new copy of my novel "Blood and Bone" for $6.91 at Textbook.com.

This web site, part of Smart Media Finder.com, will check online prices for new and used books, movies, music, and even video games. It will even check for the lowest prices on book rentals, and they offer a book buyback comparison service, if you want to sell books after you’ve read them. Not that any of us would do that.

Now here’s some cool news. The folks at a web site called Simegen have gotten on the Toys for Tots bandwagon, supporting sales of the "Carols and Crimes, Gifts and Grifters" anthology put out by Wolfmont Publishing.  None of the writers got paid for their contributions to this holiday collections and, despite the date, all profits from the sales still go to the Toys for Tots foundation. You can go to their web site - http://www.simegen.com/simecenter/links/stories.html and read the short story I submitted to the anthology. Then you should reward their generosity by ordering a copy so you can read all the other great stories. Remember, all the profits go to a worthy cause. As the web site says, "Read a good story - Do a good deed."

My writer’s year kicked off yesterday with an early morning book signing at the Borders store in Baltimore Washington International Airport.  I must admit I was surprised that anyone was conscious at 6 am, but in fact for those three hours several people came up to talk, and to buy my novels.  The most common comment was, “I can’t believe you’re up and awake at this hour.”  To which I usually replied, “Why?  YOU’RE up and awake at this hour.”  It was a nice change to have a three hour book signing and get home at 10 o’clock, with the whole day ahead of me.

The home team has spent the last week or so building a plan for 2008 intended to break my writing into the mainstream outside my home area.  We ended up considering what seemed like hundreds of options, each with a long decision tree.  Mailings?  Sure, but to who?  Where?  When?  How many?  What will the postcard say?  And that’s just one tiny bit of the puzzle.  But we have arrived at a conclusion.

Arrived?  We always make it sound as if a conclusion is a place.  Well, maybe it is.  It’s the place where you got tired of thinking.