This is the first post I writing from my brand new MacBook Pro - my second book sale present to myself. Of course, I haven't yet had the advance yet, so it's a little "previous" as a consultant I knew used to say, but I've been coveting my daughter's MacBook for so long that I couldn't restrain myself any longer.

It's taken a bit of getting used to - I was driving myself crazy trying to right click when I wanted to copy and paste, but then I figured out how to set it so if you use two fingers on the touch pad you can right click and now I'm a happy camper.

I still need more time to play around with it, but fortunately my 10 year old is light years ahead of me on the MacBook front, so she's able to give me free tutorials. Well, free except that I'm going to have to pay in kind with Webkinz, just you wait.

Of course, it hasn't all gone completely smoothly. Today I arrived at Fairfield University to do two writing workshops with kids from six middle schools for the Connecticut Writing Project and when I went to plug in my brand new MacBook for the Powerpoint I almost had heart failure because the plug hole on the MacBook wasn't the same shape as the video input for the Powerpoint projector. I don't know about you but I get Powerpoint anxiety before every talk. Fortunately there was a very nice tech man from Fairfield U on site.

"Don't you have the adaptor in your briefcase?" he asked.

Adaptor? What Adaptor?!!

"They usually come in the box with the MacBook".

Oh! So that's what that funny plug thingie that I didn't know what to do with was...the one that's sitting in the closet in my house 30 miles away and I have a talk to give in...four minutes. AAAAAAAAAH!

Fortunately, Mr. Nice Tech Man had a thumb drive (and I normally carry a thumb drive myself, but had just changed handbags and taken it out, figures) and we were able to save my powerpoint to the drive and put it on one of the University's computers. Whew. The day was saved.

Note to Self: NEVER take a new computer to an author event until you're sure you know how to use the #$^*(#% thing!

The workshops went really well. I've done author visits to middle schools before, but they were more about how I became an author and a bit about the writing process and the importance of revision. This was the first time I'd done an hour and a half workshop that involved getting the kids to write their own story. Thanks to several helpful suggestions from the collective brain of the YA Novelists listserv and a few little ideas of my own, both the kids and the language arts teachers appeared to get a lot out of the workshop, and I was so proud of the things the kids came up with, which several of them shared at the open mic.

Best of all, a teacher from St. Augustine's School told me "Confessions" had sold out at their Scholastic Book Fair last week. Yay!