I gotta write about this seminar I attended with Sharon Sala. She is so sweet in person. I ran into her in the elevators three or four times, so I decided to go listen to her speak. Her book, Jackson Rule, is one of my favorites of all time, btw. You should read it. For real.

Anyway, she was amazing. She made half the room laugh, and the other half cry, but not at the same time, obviously. She told this story about how she used to judge contests, and this writer had written her hero / heroine into a really tight situation. They were trapped in a gully, behind a wagon. Indians had trapped them down in a gully, the hero was shot, and the heroine tore a strip off her petticoat to bandage his wound. The woman had sand in her hair, dirt in her drawers, and hadn't bathed in a month. That was the moment where the hero's libido overcame him. How would you judge that entry? We all cracked up.

Now on to the exciting bit:

The Berkley party...

I wore my little black dress and waited nervously outside the ballroom for my agent, watching all the beautiful people strolling by. Nora Roberts looked fabulous in her peacock colored dress. She arrived with her friend Ruth, and then JAK wandered by. There was a lady in an animal print dress, and another wore this really gorgeous turquoise gown.

My intimidation factor went way up, as I waited. Dude, what the fuck was I doing there, right? But I stood my ground and Laura showed up soon thereafter with Wendy McCurdy. We went inside and were immediately offered roast chicken on sticks. I took some wine and tried not to look like I was scared to death. That was my first cocktail party. No, seriously.

I met Katherine Dante and Maya Banks. Talked with them a little bit. Laura and I circulated, met a few more people, whose names escape me. I'm really sorry about that. Some were agents, some were editors, and some were authors.

The funniest moment came when I was peering at a terribly tall blonde woman over the table and finally said, "Aren't you my editor?"

I recognized Terri Schaefer from her picture on her website. Turns out she had come to the party with a friend, so it was just too funny for words. What a funny place for us to get together.

Laura stayed longer than she intended, and I lasted another half hour after that. I cut out and headed back to the room for a slumber party night. Much fun was had by all.

Today, I had headshots done. I haven't decided if I will buy any of them as my official publicity photo, but I am cognizant that I need to have such a thing in my press kit (and how fucked up is that?) I hate having my picture taken, but some of them didn't look too bad. I'll take a wait and see attitude on that, regarding the proofs.

Attended the Q&A with Nora, who rocked the house. Patricia Gaffney was there, and she gave a great introduction. Some lady in the audience had the nerve to argue with Nora about whether Heather Locklear was any good in that Lifetime movie. Daaaaaaaang, that takes some balls. Ovaries. I mean ovaries.

There's one dude at this conference who wrote his thesis on romance novels. He's a popular guy.

We attended the luncheon, where Lisa Jackson was the Keynote speaker. I'm calling this the Lisa conference forever after. She was really good, though. Funny. And she did an anti-striptease on stage, by putting on more clothes than she started with.

After that, we met the Bitchery for drinks, which was awesome. One of them looked at my nametag and said, "You're Annie Dean!" which was funny because my real name was on my badge. Candy and Sarah are twice as much fun in person, and I loved meeting the other commenters. Sarah then announced that she had a WWND? shirt made. I was stunned. Who knew this would turn into such a pervasive movement? I feel like I've started something like scientology. Does this mean we need to give birth in silence? Well, WWND? Yeah, I think not.

Candy even picked up the tab. Nice!

We wandered down to the last book signing, where we collected more loot. I saw PC Cast again, and got a signed book for Dee. (See, I DO love you, baby.) Finally caught up with Linnea Sinclair, who pimped Grimspace to everyone who stopped by her table. I hung out with her until time to head back to my room, where I am now blogging. Gonna call this post done, however, because I need to look at what I'm wearing to the RITA awards later.

Squee! I feel so official now. I am totally going to RT, and I'll even have a book to sign.

But fun as this has been, I'm ready to go home.

Labels: RWA