Post Conference Buzz

MENTAL STATUS: "Refreshed." My getaway at the conference made me feel like a new woman.

So I guess everybody and their mother probably knows by now that I just got back from The NJ RWA "Put Your Heart in a Book" conference...

I really don't know where to begin. Hmmm, how about at the point where I was late getting to the conference because I missed my exit. Trust me, not something you want to do up there in central Jersey. It's like navigating a LA highway. I was doing almost 85 m/h (because I had to; it was a do or die situation) and I still had a guy riding my butt. As a result of my lateness, I missed a seminar workshop I really wanted to attend. And I just checked. I can't even buy it, because it wasn't taped. Figures. This is my life.

Anyhew, I feel the whole weekend went in a wild blurr. I can, thus, sum up my experience in a movie title: Gone in 60 seconds.

The speakers, Karen Robards and Sherrilyn Kenyon, were awesome, to say the least. Sadly enough, I've never read a Sherrilyn Kenyon book, but after her speech, I don't think I can stay away any longer. The words of her speech actually had me laughing and crying at the same time. They were that good and that inspirational.

I loved seeing my old friends from last year's conference and meeting new ones. Although, I would have liked a few more freebie books. Oh, and the size of the coffee cups at breakfast were a little small for my taste, as I had to keep signaling the server to refill my cup. My hand got tired.

I took a workshop on plotting from a screen writer's perspective, and a workshop (I forget the name) that had a pretty cool idea of creating mottoes for your characters that should set the stage for how they act. I thought that was interesting.

This year I brought a camera. But I only remembered I had it when there was about 3 hours left in the conference. **sigh** Again. This is my life.

So here's one of the two pics I had taken. (The one of Sherrilyn Kenyon speaking was too dark to come out)


Here's me (I'm the blond with all the teeth) with Wild Rose Press author Elizabeth Owen (on the left/black blouse), writer Lisa Howland, and Regency author Gail Eastwood (on right of balloon)





Oh, well. One picture is better than none.

And that's about it in a nutshell. I'm already looking forward to next year's conference!