As the presidential candidates rush toward their primaries we must remember to question everything we hear. Sometimes things that sound great on the surface don’t stand up to a closer look. Consider their statements and question them, just as you would the words in a commercial. For example, I’m told on TV that Wal-Mart is lowering prices every day. If that’s true, how come nothing is free yet?

This week’s bad news is that I didn’t get to the Love Is Murder writer’s convention. United cancelled all its flights to Chicago Friday. I tried to get around this by booking a flight on US Air through Philadelphia. That was fine except for the through part. The result was a chance to spend the entire day in the Philadelphia airport watching my flight get delayed twice and finally cancelled. I did NOT want to spend the night in Philly, fine town that it is, so at 6:30 pm I turned tail and flew back home. I hated to miss the party intended to kick off my writing year, but you can’t argue with Mother Nature. I hope those that DID make it had a great time.

However, there is good news. We got our computer back with all the data preserved, which means my lovely wife Denise can update my web site. This is good because I got a very nice comment from a ready that I wanted to share. More on that later.

The other good news is that the big blogging day for Patry Francis - http://www.patryfrancis.com/ - was a huge success. Patry’s novel, "THE LIAR’S DIARY" was released on January 29th but cancer surgery made her too weak to go on a promotional tour. So instead, more than 400 bloggers, including bestsellers, Emmy winners, movie makers, and publishing houses all talked about the book that day. I was proud to blog for a good book, AND a good cause, all at once.

The unintended consequence of this was that my name got spread all over the internet. It never occurred to me that people would list all the writers participating in the blog day. But there I am, through alphabetical luck sitting between Ken Bruen and Lee Child on the Lusty Lady’s blog - LUSTY LADY - http://lustylady.blogspot.com - The Writers’ Block - http://writersgroupblog.wordpress.com - Susan Henderson’s Litpark - http://litpark.com - and Robin Slick’s In Her Own Write - http://inherownwrite.blogspot.com - to name a few. All these blogs are well worth checking out, after you get Patry’s book of course.

My direct flight to Chicago was cancelled due to weather, I’ve searched for alternative transportation, and now find myself sitting in the Philadelphia airport waiting for a flight to the Love is Murder conference.  While I wait, I may as well tell you about another great blog.

Work-in-Progress is a cool place, a blog in which author Leslie Pietrzyk explores the creative process and all things literary. She posts almost daily, and on any given day you might find poetry from an upcoming author, news of a conference you were unaware of or an essay on the beauty of index cards for writers. It’s always entertaining and most often useful information.

Leslie recently wrote about the fiction writing seminar coming up February 9th in Washington DC - http://workinprogressinprogress.blogspot.com/2008/01/fiction-writing-seminar-february-9.html . She’s on a panel about Writers’ Blogs, a New Literary Genre. I’ll be there too, on a panel about why genre fiction gets no respect. Again, I want to thank Leslie for mentioning me and for the service of letting the world know about this exciting seminar.