My Romantic Times — Day 3

Woke up Thursday feeling much, much better.  Good enough, in fact, to head back to Cafe Biegnet for, you guessed it, biengets, and strawberries, and some really strong coffee.  Life was very, very good.

Thursday’s item on the agenda was the “Exorcising Your Writing Demons,” with Patricia Rice, Patricia Burroughs, and Mary Jo Putney.  3 of us met up at Daisey Dukes, a 24/7 diner next to the hotel.  I finally had red beans and rice.  And fried green tomatoes.  Delicious, and plentiful.

The panel went really well.  We spent time talking about things that hold us back from writing — feelings of insecurity, unsupportive surroundings, fear of what relatives and neighbors might think.  Then, everybody got to write down their “demon” on a slip of paper and we paraded out into the hallway, tore up the demons and dropped them into a cauldron to be burned later.  Everybody got a replacement “angel” card that said: Try.  Fail.  Try again.  Fail Better.  It was enormous fun.

But were we done?  Ha.  No. Pat and I decided we wanted to get out of the hotel, and strolled down to Jackson Square to see the French Market.  T-shirt was duly bought for my kid back home.  Then we sat in an outdoor cafe and listened to the jazz.

And were we done yet?  Ha, again.  No.  A bunch of us, including Cindy, and Catherine Asaro, had decided to go out to dinner.  We wound up at the Ole Saint, which is mainly a bar and craft beer joint, but O.M. G.!!!! is the food there good!  We started with a plate of hand cut fries topped with pulled pork and cheese.  Okay, it’s a heart attack on a plate, but you die happy.  I had a spectacular gumbo followed by a truly fine pecan bread pudding, but the star dessert of the night was Cindy’s creme brulee.  I have never tasted one so light and smooth.  Really amazing.

Now we were done, or at least I was.  Watched some baseball in the room and called it a very good day.