My First Conference! Blog 3 of 5

CAUTION! Pictures of many romance-loving ladies ahead. All men should be prepared to be overwhelmed.




I’d registered, slipped the conference lanyard around my neck, and toured the Goodie Room, a place where promo items are given away. A gal can’t have too many bookmarks, right? My conference tote was designed by Harlequin, and featured an old Harlequin, back when men wrote the adventure stories of that time. The cover featured boasted a scintillating title. “You never know with women.”
How true. And this being my first conference, well, I didn’t know. Women of all shape and size were there, all styles, and all talent. And I learned you can fit 2500 romance writers in a basement loading area of the Marriott.



I did learn something else pretty quick. The more famous you are, the thinner you are. Nora Roberts is a size double zero, I figure. If she sells another book, she’ll disappear. Me? I’m a size fourteen, so I have a lot more books to sell, I see.
I wanted to go to the Newbie’s meeting, (or Newb’s meeting, as my teen son would have called it) but was told I wasn’t a newbie, that I knew the ropes, so I took their word for it. And, surprisingly, I did know more than I thought. Not being a shy person, I simply walked up, sat down beside and met many people just by shoving out my hand and introducing myself.
And I discovered that many people know me. Mostly editors, which begs the question on how they know me. Hmm. My brilliant, clear, concise prose?
Or my obsessive nervousness that pretty much seeps into my emails and phone calls? I guess I’ll never know.
My roomies were impressed, saying it was my writing. As I was up for a Daphne award, we went to the Death by Chocolate party. Okay, everyone. I like chocolate as much as the next person, but to be frank, am I supposed to eat that much? I am a little out of practice, here. But the stalwart soldier that I am, I gave it the old college try. I didn’t win a Daphne, but met an agent to whom I had spoke years ago. I joked about a bomb back then, and she remembered me. (Remember my roomie poking me when I shoved my foot into my mouth? She was at another table.)
Well, I didn’t win the award for which I had been nominated. But I eat a ton of fresh fruit, including black raspberries the size of large strawberries, and little cheesecakes drizzled in chocolate. I couldn’t leave without smothering my sorrows in sugar. Okay, there wasn’t any sorrow, but I gave it the old college try, remember?
The next day there was a breakfast, and I learned that you have to get to the food before all the other starving artists got there. Coffee is exceptionally valuable. I’d brought my own meal replacement bars, but with a complimentary continental breakfast, which included cheese and those giant raspberries again, those bars got shoved into my suitcase.
And I was discovering something else. My tummy isn’t used to rich food. It better adjust quickly, though. I’d paid for three more rich meals.
Well, it didn’t quite turn out the way I wanted it to…

Tune in tomorrow for the next installment!

My First Conference Blog 2 0f 5

WARNING! Moments of Country Mouse in the City ahead. No laughing at my expense allowed.





Day two dawned bright and sunny. My writers’ group was unable to get the White House Tour, so I decided to do something even more exciting. My all time favourite painting in the world is Renoir’s Luncheon of the Boating Party. And it was just down the road from where I was staying. With a free subway pass in hand, I hopped the Metro and trotted up to the small gallery called The Phillips House.
It was closed til 9, forty-five minutes from there. I decided to walk around the neighbourhood, admiring the variety of old money townhouses and embassies, not realizing until then that my knowledge of foreign flags was sadly lacking. But it was cool just the same.
Needing to practice my schmoozing, I started up a conversation with a young gal who was also waiting for the gallery to open. She was a British art student, splitting her time between DC and London and who was as friendly and charming as I knew the British could be. But too soon the gallery opened and I flew in, preparing myself to finally view the Luncheon of the Boating Party.
It was there, all right, its own lighting, bench and room. Gorgeous. I can tell you honestly that the postcard, prints and such don’t do the colours justice. And big, one of the biggest paintings I’d ever seen. A coup for the Phillips Collection, indeed. I’d finally completed a life long dream.
It was on to the next one. A wander around the Smithsonian. It even had its own Metro stop.
Speaking of the Metro, it’s hot down there. And the escalators were the longest I’d even seen. I took a picture of them, being the country mouse I am. But the trains are clean, and everyone appears to behave themselves. Or maybe they were on edge because of a recent train collision on their red line.
I exited the Metro at my stop, and found myself on the Mall. Okay, it’s not the mall I visit back up in Canada, and the lawn was being reworked, but how many malls have you been to that have an Egyptian obelisk named for George Washington, at one end, and the Capitol building at the other? Why, not even the Champlain Mall in Moncton can boast that much.
Pictures were in order. I didn’t see the reflecting pool, and still don’t know where it is, in relation to where I was, but pics were still needed. And after the appropriate snaps, I was off. Smithsonian forgotten, I wanted to see the White House. And according to my map, it wasn’t far away.
I pity the poor cops on Pennsylvania Avenue duty. Standing in the middle of the barricaded section of street. One bicycle cop was checking his email on his smart phone. I still got a couple of good photos, despite the tourists, cops and cement barricades. Enough to say I was there.
With tummy rumbling and guessing that the hotel food would be expensive, I noticed a Subway restaurant icon on my map. I was off down the street to the Ronald Reagan building for lunch. I figured I arrived at his airport, so I may as well eat at his building. Then I could tell everyone I had lunch on Penn Ave. It ended up being a wrap from Great Wraps, but who needs to know that?

Tune in Tomorrow for my official start to the conference.

My first conference! Blog 1 of 5

WARNING! May contain moments of lapsed memory, proof of conference head, and symptoms of chocolate withdrawal. Reader discretion advised.

I’m going to attempt to blog about my trip to Washington, DC this past week. I went there to attend the Romance Writers of America’s national conference, and I must say the experience was well worth it. First up, I got a terrific deal on the flight, and then I finaled in Daphne, a contest showcasing excellence in mystery and suspense. How cool is that? It was accompanied by a Death by Chocolate party. Well, if you can’t die peacefully in your sleep at age 100, death by chocolate would be a great alternative.

I arrived unable to meet up with a friend to catch a shuttle to the hotel, but decided to brave the subway. How hard can it be?

I’m proud to say it wasn’t hard at all. The biggest problem was trying to figure out the vending machine that spits out subway tickets if you manage to decode the instructions. Just as I was feeling a bit like Tom Hanks on an adventure to save humanity, a very nice couple walked up and offered me a pair of tickets, good anytime until Thursday. I snatched them out of their hands in a flash, and was off. I actually met up with some fellow writers and we traveled to the hotel together. I’d begun my conference!

You see, I went there for the schmoozing. I roomed with a pair of veteran conference goers and wow, they really know what to do. One gal, and she knows who she is, took me under her wing. Because she knows me, she told me she’d nudge me when I was in danger of putting my foot into my mouth.

I’m bruised all along the left side of my body now. But I did manage to shove that size 9 into my mouth one time, telling a strange man waiting for the elevator beside me that he looked terrible. Oh, well, nobody’s perfect, right?

Of course, too late did I realize that I could be telling the man with whom I had an editor appointment that he looked awful, but I have to live dangerously once in a while.

We stayed at the Marriott near the zoo. One roomie did her research and discovered the older part of the hotel was the best deal. It sure was. On the sixth floor, you could pick up the local McDonald’s wifi, which was more than others could do.

I personally don’t think that a hotel of the Marriott’s caliber needs to charge for wifi in their standard rooms. The room was lovely, with a dressing room and spacious bathroom, and yet, oddly, two three-quarter beds instead of double. And you can’t tell me that’s the US double beds are smaller than in Canada. You Americans aren’t any smaller than us Canucks, and being from the Great White North, we need to cuddle in the night to keep warm, so if anything, we’d take the three-quarter beds, not you down in sweltering DC.

Tune in tomorrow when I begin my first full day in the US capital.

dog days of summer

Many of you get dog days of summer. But where I live, a hot day is something over 20 degrees celsius. That's room temperature. We did get it this weekend past, but alas, Monday came and our perfectly hot and humid weekend was over.

But that didn't stop us from doing everything summer, like attend our son's soccer game. Here's me bundled up against the rain and cold watching my poor son deal with a soggy field. You wouldn't know it by my smile that they lost.

fill 'er up!

Sometimes a writer has to ‘fill up’.  It can be forced on them through a writer’s block, or it can be taken gently through a time between deadlines.

 

I’ve been on vacation this past week.  I forced myself to finish my manuscript so that I could mail it from the States where it would be cheaper, right at the beginning of the holiday.  Then I was free, and surprisingly, I didn’t feel like writing until today, a week later.  

 

This need to ‘fill up’ is hard to describe for those whose work or recreation doesn’t include any creativity.  I’m not being pretentious here.  As a soldier in the military for many years, my job wasn’t creative.  A fellow soldier said once that we could train apes to do our job.   It didn’t require creativity, that’s all, and unless we had a hobby that did, ‘filling up’ time was a hard concept to grasp.

 

It’s kind of like a holiday for the brain.  We all need a holiday but this is something more.  It’s a pushing away of any creative thoughts.  It’s denying the urge to write.  It’s absorbing the world around you without analyzing what’s going on.  Some writers don’t experience this need, and that’s great.  They have the creative stamina to keep working.  But I do, occasionally. 

 

And I’m glad it’s happening somewhere sunny and warm.