Organizing your writing life

GETTING READY FOR LONDON: I started packing and getting ready for my trip to the UK this past weekend. For the last couple of years, I have been waiting until the last possible minute to do stuff, which means the day of the flight I'm in a total frenzy. This year, I made a checklist and I've crossed off just about everything on it: printing up tickets, directions, poems; packing my 3 oz. size travel toiletries in a clear plastic bag (will this ever end?); bubble-wrapping copies of Slow To Burn, calling the credit card and alerting them I'll be in the UK so they won't cut me off like they did last year; laundry; and paying bills.

I am determined to take only a carry-on for this trip because I hate checking bags, especially international. I've become adept at cramming a week's worth of clothes in a roll-aboard and I'm a total believer in doing laundry on the go. I'm not taking the laptop either. There's a laundrette and Internet cafe just around the corner from the hotel, so I'll have clean clothes and be able to blog and check email regularly without lugging the computer.

The itinerary for this trip is pretty much wall to wall from the moment I arrive. I'll be reading at the Lewes Poetry Cafe in Sussex on Friday evening, seeing some of the Kate Bush Forum folk over the weekend, driving up to Cambridge with friends, queuing up to meet Doctor Who at HMV on Oxford Street, going to the London Poetry Cafe open mic, hopefully seeing a film or two and the reading at Borders Books. Chockablock as they say across the pond. I'm very excited.