Snap Back To Reality

I woke up in my creaky five-star Hyatt sofabed...

Yikes, the nightmare again. The experience must have been more psychically injurious than I'd thought!

Life is almost back to normal. The suitcase with the loot showed up, thank heavens, and now I get to pile the books on the dining table in the same spot where I'd cleared barely a month ago ;-). Think I'll be hearing complaints again? ;-)

How do I know life is almost back to normal?

Instead of wonderful writing talk, I get:

"Hey, Boss, what do you call a blind deer?"
I shrugged.
"No idea."
I rolled my eyes.
"What do you call a blind deer with no dick?"
I lifted an eyebrow.
"No fucking idea."
I rolled my eyes.
"What do you call a dead blind deer with no dick?"
"A dead dickless deer?" I ventured a guess.
"Still no fucking idea."

Ahhh...don't think you can find that conversation at the RWA conference, even at the bar ;-).

**********************

Some more RWA thoughts:

Writers and friends are asking about what one actually get from the conference, besides meeting up with friends, editors and agents. They can understand the value in the friendships and the workshops, but what else is there that can be used for the writing career?

For myself, here are a few RWA insights that I'd have gotten from nowhere, straight from the mouths of people who knew the subject or was there when it happened:

1) I had a personal tete-a-tete with Jo Carol Jones from Romantic Times Book Club magazine about the business end of the magazine as well as the duties of being an event coordinator. There was a big hullabaloo this year when an author's poster and promotional items were removed from the Houston Hyatt and many blogs talked about discrimination (the author wrote male on male erotica) and RT's disdain for the genre. It was interesting to get the story from Jo Carol's point-of-view as well as her explanation of how hotels run conventions. For example, although hotels run after conventioneers and want their business, they also keep files of all the different groups that have annual conventions. Most files have one or two pages. RT's file, she said, has thirty pages.

I came away not just with more information about a convention that I attend annually, but also with a healthy respect for the volunteers (Jo Carol volunteered for many years before becoming event coordinator) in general, and what they do for love (and this applies to the RWA volunteers too). Also, it was fun sitting there for an hour comparing RWA and RT (same authors but different feeling) and how each conference can (or not!) help the author. I had a good laugh at the shenanigans for which RT is well known.

2) You get to hear what each publishing house is interested in buying at their spotlights. Reading their websites isn't the same. At each spotlight, there are editors who will clue the author about which sub-genre she likes to read. Your job is to write their names down and make notes.

3) I asked a few very well-known authors for advice. You CAN'T buy this for a million bucks. These girls know the business inside and out and sometimes prefer not to talk business through email. If they know you're just needing the information for your career and not for gossip, they will help you in any way they can. No other group of women in the writing industry are this generous.

4) I think I understand about "branding" now, although I could be wrong.

JR Ward and her sunglasses
Sherrilyn Kenyon and her goth/black swan hat
La Nora and her classy sophistication
Linda Howard and her "no website"ness
Susan Elizabeth Philips and her humor
Anne Stuart and her nun habit (Sister Krissie)
Marjorie Liu and her so beautiful TALLNESS (and sweet, so sweet)
Jacquie D'Alessandro and her impeccable fashion and original handbags

GENNITA LOW AND HER ATLANTA AIRPORT KARMA -- Wahhhhhhhh

;-)

More tomorrow. Got to go yell at some guys now. In roofer's lingo.

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