A Spy Convention

Recovery mode is still on. Wow. This RWA mission was the most tiring evah. I'm not sure whether I'll ever want to do a three-plane thing across the country again. Reno was just 45 minutes from San Francisco, so flying from Daytona to Reno was almost a coast-to-coast excursion.

Anyway, Operation Reno was a success! The luggage, with all its secret documents, arrived without getting lost or damaged....Secret stuff was exchanged; passwords given; secrets shared among all attendees. The only bad thing that happened was the loss of my cell phone on the first day of my travels, so I don't have that picture of me in the nook of hell any more. Other than that, all ten days went by quickly and merrily.

Quick rundown-->

Literacy Signing
I was able to snag an autograph copy of the new book by uber-goddess, Cherry Adair, so now I'm a happy woman. Couldn't stand in line to get La Linda's book, though. Boohoo. I had my own authorly duties to do. It's always so fun to do big signings because of the festive atmosphere. Everyone was so friendly and wonderful. I still can't believe it when people stop by to tell me how much they enjoy my books; I don't think I ever will get used to it!

Meals
The first one was great--filet mignon! Usually the food tastes like rubber. And there's chocolate dessert everywhere in this town. So I stuffed my face with chocolate tortes and chocolate cheese cake and chocolate martinis and chocolate creamy thousand-coloried things.... You should have seen me at the Death By Chocolate party. Needless to add that I nearly made the theme of the party come true. I sat by some really neat attendees during the meals--agent Ashley Grayson, a very witty gentleman who was passing out a survey-quiz to authors; Kally Surbeck, author and friend who can write 3 genres at the same time; Cindy Dees, who regaled us with a story of her in-law's reaction to her first romance being published; Jade Lee, who also writes as Katherine Greyle.

Speakers
Debbie Macomber was a simply inspirational speaker. She had the women in the audience (and that's 99 percent of us!) in tears. She spoke about passion and perseverance in our quest to be published and her road had been exactly that--full of the passion for writing and perseverance to get that book published. I came away feeling very humbled and fortunate that I didn't have such a hard road.

Susan Elizabeth Philips was adorable. Her anecdotes about her husband had us all in stitches. I really enjoyed her candor about how being a writer meant taking everything in stride, including bad reviews. She pointed out that not many of us could boast of a review from People's magazine (or Time, or something like that) with the word "YUK" to describe her book. Ouch. And all because the book was a romance!

Parties
I went to several publishers' parties. I can't name names, you understand. But there was one with an Elvis impersonator. Oh. My. God. And he had a cheap microphone that didn't work properly. His voice was coming out of a speaker twenty feet away. I turned to my author-friend and said, "Wow, we have an Elvis ventriloquist." Then there was the one with the chocolate fountain. Oh my. You could dip strawberries into this fountain and it recycled the liquified chocolate. I think I gained 20 lbs eating "fruit."

Dancing
The Garage's the name of the club downstairs. They featured a duo from Seattle who had all the naughty romance authors who stayed up all night dancing up a sweat. Our secret signal was a bad limp the next day. On the last night, we were back for more fun. My plane was leaving at 6am. Ummm...it was 3.30am and I still wasn't packed yet. Bad, bad, Jenn.

The RWA Gala
This is the big "Oscar" night when the Golden Heart (unpub) and RITA (pub) are given to the best manuscripts and books. Some of my friends won and there was much celebrating. To get more info on the winners, you will have to go to www.rwanational.org since there's a LONG list. Congratulations to all the winners! This year's Lifetime Achievement Award went to La Linda Howard, the Goddess of all Goddesses ;-).

It was the longest ceremony RWA had ever had and my butt is still hurting from the experience. Part of it was due to the elaborate set up of introducing each presenter out of a limo on stage to coincide with each of the 25 years RWA had been in existence. It started with 1980...and the presenter came out of the car in an outdated dress from that year and after posing for a minute, she gave a quick summary of the important events of that year. Cute idea, but looooooong night. At one point, I was afraid my chocolate RITA was going to fall asleep with me....

OVERALL SECRET STUFF
Well, I heard good things about The Hunter ;-). Publishers are so secretive about numbers and facts, so I'm always in the dark about how I'm doing at the business end. But judging from what I've been told by several important people, I think The Hunter is doing well! So that is good.

I also met with a few groups of readers from other countries and they've invited me to their conventions in Germany, England, and Australia! Wow, talk about really BIG spy missions! I don't know whether I will be able to do that, though, but my mind is already filled with ideas on how to make time ;-).

Some editors are GREAT dancers. Shhh. I can't name names, but I really enjoyed partying with them.

*************
So anyway, the secret luggage is still unpacked. Too damn tired. And I'm back on the roof from hell. Still NOT FINISHED. But my proposal is on the table and there is movement in negotiations. There are things happening beneath the surface. There are whisperings. There are secrets ;-). Gosh, I love being a spy! Will debrief when everything is declassified, my dears!

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