No Longer a Virgin

Conference Virgin that is. Yes, I attended my first writer’s conference this past weekend. The RWA-NEC conference. I’m a member of NEC and I must say there are a lot of EC authors! Friday my friend Donna and I arrived early. We met up with another friend for lunch. After we got settled in our rooms we registered.
The first workshop of the day was Brenda Novak. She spoke about emotion. This was a great two hour talk. The time flew by. During the Q&A someone asked if she was a plotter or pantser and her response struck a cord. She said she was a pantser. She said when she tries to write after plotting it feels forced because she feels in a lot of ways she’s already written the story. It was a light bulb moment for me.
I’m a self-proclaimed pantser, so this made sense to me. I like to let the characters explore and decide where they’re going. Looking back my rejected work has been plotted.
The food was to die for. At dinner my one friend H had the agent and editor sitting at our table laughing at her tales of drunken sluts in her books. This broke the ice for her agent appointment the next morning. She doesn’t really have drunken sluts in her books.
Dessert was a Q&A with Annette Blair. She is one of the sweetest women you’ll ever meet. I’ve known her for a little over three years and she continues to amaze me with her generosity and knowledge sharing.
The keynote speaker for breakfast was MaryJanice Davidson. OMFG, she is so funny. We laughed all through breakfast. Of course she received a standing ovation after her speech.
I attended a bunch of great workshops throughout the day including one given by fellow EC author Nina Pierce. She helped my friend H out with her workshop. H tends to write very long and Nina gave hints on how to write shorter.
There were free books and promo items galore. The conference ended with a book signing. I spent way too much, but that’s okay. That’s what it’s all about, right? Hopefully next year I’ll be sitting at one of the tables signing too.
I signed up for RomantiCon yesterday. Maybe I’ll have a print book for that conference. We’ll see.

Happy Tuesday.

Wiped Out

I want to report on the conference today but I’m so freakin’ tired it’s not funny, even though I slept twelve hours when I came home Saturday night. I didn’t take my laptop because I didn’t think I’d have time to surf the net and I didn’t. I came home to first edits for Pretend With Me, so that’s how I spent my Sunday night – after a long day of going from store to store with the DH looking for a new couch. Half the time I could have crashed on the furniture. One salesman said you can lay on it you know. I’m like, yeah, I know, but you don’t want me sleeping here. LOL

The dreary weather doesn't help today.

So I have a lot of catching up to do and I’ll be sure to report all the fun I had over the next few days.

Happy Monday!

And We're Off...

I’m happy to announce I signed another contract this week. My second M/M – Sliding Home has found a home at Aspen Mountain Press. It will be released on June 4th.

In a few short hours my friend will pick me up and we’re headed off to the NEC Conference. Hope everyone has a fun filled weekend. I know I plan to!

Conference Virgin

As you can tell from the title I’m a conference virgin. I plan to pop that cherry so to speak this weekend. Tomorrow I’m heading out to the NEC RWA Imagination in Flight Conference. I’m excited. I signed up late because I wasn’t sure if my work schedule would allow me to attend. It turns out it did. I’m not pitching this time. I have a few full lengths that would be appropriate and I would like to pitch, but they aren’t fully edited.
Because you never know when you might find yourself in the elevator with an editor or agent, I am prepared “just in case”.
I’m looking forward to a weekend of hanging with friends and fellow authors. There are a lot of EC authors who belong to NEC. It will be nice to put faces to a few of the authors I don’t know but I talk with on different loops.
I’ve spent the last few days getting promo stuff together and getting the house prepared for mom to be gone for 2 days. Technically I’ll be home Saturday night, but still…
I’ll report next week on all the fun things I learned or experienced.
For now I’ve got a lot of things to do.
Happy Thursday!