10 Days and Counting

And yes, I'm counting.

In ten days I'll fly (make that BE FLOWN ) to New York for a presentation to the sales people at Scholastic. My editor and my agent tell me this is a coveted invitation. I'm sure I would have totally coveted it had I known about it. But now that I've been invited, I'm preparing. The theme is "Debut Authors" and I am one of four honored guests. And yes, I'm thrilled and impressed. More on this as we count down ten days.

Here's my first step: New business cards. My old ones looked like ladies' calling cards, circa 1950s. No blog address. Old snail mail address. Would not do.

(This is not a commentary on whether business cards are obsolete, about to be replaced by cellphone info or those little bumping logo things featured in the newspaper last week. For now, let's just say I need a few cards with my current info, okay?)

For these new beauties, I can thank Eileen Harrell of Artline Graphics in Atlanta and my fabulous Living Social offer (meant for the DC market but mistakenly came to me).


Eileen had earlier responded to my worries that my cards were blah and outdated by fiddling around and coming up with something quite spiffy. The problem was, I didn't understand a word she emailed, re: design. Color bleeding? Paper stock? Huh?  So how on earth was I to order new cards on my own? All I told her was that I'd like a design thingey, very lowkey.

She responded that design thingey is not really an art term.

Oh, dear.

Then, as I was cooling my heels waiting for a flight,  a coupon for Vistaprint arrived in my email box. I googled Vistaprint. There were some sketchy remarks. But I shot the email to Eileen and she played around with their website and mastered it completely. Yay for commercial artists!

So we did all this via email and they arrived today and I'm sure I'll be passing them to anyone who asks at the Scholastic luncheon. They are gorgeous. They feel just right. Thanks, Eileen!

Here's her funny emailed comment, when the order seemed to be going swimmingly and computers were actually working as promised.

It is pretty damn cool, when you can DO a business card with a friend from Mississippi in Fla, and NJ while in an airport on a Sunday morning, with a coupon from Washington purchased from Atlanta to be sent to a different address!

On some days, I do love computers.