It's something I've wanted to do for ages, and now it's coming out I have the worst impostor syndrome lol

I have to say, it was kind of terrifying sending Think, Write, Edit, Romance to people I respect as romance writers/teachers of writing, in case they were like "mate, seriously?" and then I would have had to crawl away and hide behind the sofa, BUT NO. Here's Alexandra Vasti!

Woke up at 1.30 again but actually got back to sleep around 3.30 so that could be worse! /looks at holiday catch up admin list/ And it just got worse 😫

I have a teenage daughter.

I have been awake since 1.30am and I have also just donned varifocals for the first time, and between the two I can't say my brain is enjoying today.

A big "we totally fucked up" would be a start

I have been wide awake since 1.30 and I am shortly to pick up my new varifocals, so being dizzily unable to see is going to be a theme today.

There's various comments downthread

The tables are like £500 each so any author pulling out will be eating a lot of sunk costs even if they can cancel flights and hotels. Not something to do lightly. Apparently several ppl are setting up replacement events to help out, though, which is amazing.

They do, or did, several a year all over Europe and the UK and Aus. Really popular. Such a pointless crash out.

It was all on Threads and FB, I only saw stuff bc I was still in the group due to never getting round to leaving.

No, it was the same weekend as RARE Melbourne, but RARE always sells out within hours anyway, so...so what?

Afaik, the organizers made a rather mean spirited post over a queer romance event in Melbourne happening the same weekend as theirs, and started chucking round threats of suing when people said it looked homophobic, and long story short the majority of London authors have now dropped out???

There is no niche in romance so small that one person can lay claim to it, except possibly Chuck Tingle, who wouldn't be so mean or stupid anyway.

The really dumb thing here is that romance readers are so voracious that any sort of event or book overlap is a golden opportunity for cross promo and mutual support! People love more books! It's not like two historians fighting over one shelf slot!

I am entirely bewildered how such a successful event could fuck up so quickly, comprehensively, and unnecessarily, but here we are.

I was going to do RARE London this year. Got invited, seemed like an obvious opportunity, had a great time at the last one. Filled in the form and then three MSS delivered over 12 months all hit edits simultaneously, and I never got round to paying. I was quite cross with myself about that.

Oh christ it's jetlag o clock.

Pushing through till 8.30 which will be a solid 24 hours awake ahaha