For years, I’ve believed that I suffer from bad line karma. In some past life, I was extremely offensive when it came to queuing up and I’m paying for it now. No matter which line I choose at the checkout, I’m going to pick the line that has the most problems. New checker, 9,000-year-old woman paying by check, six-year-old paying with pennies. I’m sure you’ve been behind them all too. But not nearly as much as I have. Trust me.

Since I started doing author events, I’ve discovered that I was a writer in a past life as well. Because now I have bad author event karma.  I’ve only done three events so far but something has gone haywire at each. Not enough to truly ruin the event, but enough to let me know that I’m on the karma gods’ list.

Cases in point:

–at my Loft event with David Levithan (which actually went very well overall), my books never showed up for the bookseller to sell. (My magnificent husband saved the day by dashing home and getting the few we had on hand to sell.)

–at the Midwest Independent Booksellers Association Trade Show, I was told the wrong time to show up and was NOT told that I would be pre-signing 50 books. (I am, thankfully, very early to most things, so was able to sign the books AND have lunch, which I would have missed if I’d shown up at the time I was told. And not that pre-signing 50 books is a bad thing. It’s just the “pre” part, which wouldn’t have happened if I’d shown up at the time I was told.)

–at the Edgerton Book Festival this weekend, I was told to arrive at the opening address (delivered by the wonderful Alison Arngrim, who played Nellie Oleson on LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE) at 9:00am so I could be introduced with all the other authors present. The festival coordinator started the day by introducing all the authors…. except me. (To his credit, he realized his mistake after Arngrim’s talk and gave me a quick shout out.  I should also probably mention that this man, the coordinator, has been my best friend for 25 years.  That probably makes this story even sadder, right?)

That said, these brushes with karma aside, all three events had positive sides.  I got to read with the amazing David Levithan. I got to be table-hopping buddies with Andrea Cremer, who is funny and charming and a DOCTOR WHO fan (even though we discovered we don’t see eye to eye on everything WHO related…). And I got to meet some really wonderful people in Edgerton.  I also got to take this picture, which just might be my most favorite sign ever.

You KNOW you want to see the toxic one. Right?

It may sound like I’m complaining. I’m not. Like I said, all three events went well.  But I’m on my guard. And a bit skittish about future events. And in desperate need of some regressive past life hypnotherapy to figure out what I could possibly have done to earn both bad line AND bad book event karma.  Any thoughts?