RWA 2006, Part 2

THURSDAY:

I woke up early, all excited to start attending workshops, I had promised myself that this year I’d go to a lot of workshops and learn a ton of stuff, because last year I hardly went to any. But the Marriot Marquis thwarted me, for no sooner did I get myself settled in a given workshop than my eyes started burning, my head started pounding, and I began to feel like I was coming down with some sort of dreadful cold. The workshop level killed me. I felt so sick down there. Despite that, I managed to make it to a pretty cool workshop on media training (stuff I need to use later this week, as I’ll be appearing on television) and an excellent one with Jo Beverly on the importance of names. Jo Beverly is a truly marvelous speaker. Those of you who have read my website know that I think names are the most important choice you can make for a character, but her workshop taught me even more than I already believed on the subject. Fascinating. If you get a chance to hear the tape, take it!

The other highlight of the morning was the Emily Giffin workshop. It was ostensibly on character but mostly it was about Emily Giffin, which was fine for me because I blame her for taking me out of writing for several days while I devoured her Something Borrowed and Something Blue. Fabulous books. Run, don’t walk to the bookstore and pick them up! (and no, I haven’t read Baby Proof yet because I’m on deadline, dammit!) Anyway, I sat between Marley and Maureen and we giggled like schoolgirls at a rock concert. Ms. Giffin (don’t call her Griffin) talked about how she made her books work, which was insightful and illuminating.

Seems that in both Something Borrowed AND Baby Proof she realized very early on that to make her books stand out from the pack she had to bite the bullet and change the concept completely. Originally, it was Darcy who steals Rachel’s fiancé! (By the way, I’m not spoiling anything, since this is the premise of the book.) So that was interesting. At once point, she asked us if we’d read any books recently that really gave us that ‘wow’ factor and stuck with us long after we closed the book and Marley and I said, in unison, like big dorks: “Something Borrowed.” Oops.

Anyway, after the chat, Nadine Dajani and I stood in line to chat with Emily, and Nadine actually gave her a copy of the ARC to her debut book, which is coming out from TOR in 2007. (Nadine, hon, when are you going to get your website up so I can link?) I gave Emily a bookmark and she said she’d seen my book in stores and I think I made some dumb comment about how in some stores our books were right next to one another. That’s me. Open-Mouth-Insert-Foot Peterfreund. But she was great. Go read her books now.

I skipped the Meg Cabot lunch in order to have a tete-a-tete with my agent and her assistant, Elaine Spencer, whom I love and adore. I’m sorry to have missed the lunch, because Meg is adorable and hilarious, but I was glad for the opportunity to pow wow. We talked about my series and brainstormed possible titles for SSG2, which is still sans title, as I’ve gotten the big fat NO on the first title I sent. You know, I used to think I was really good at titles, but it appears that my ability has atrophied.

That afternoon, I promised I’d go up to my room and write, but instead I went up to my room and talked with my brilliant and talented critique partner Cheryl, whom I used to live with and whom I haven’t seen in months and months and months. Later, I spent a lovely half an hour with (Golden Heart winner!) Heather Davis Koenig and Dona Sarkar, who are both CLW buddies. Then, I went to Aunt Pitty Pat’s porch for dinner, in keeping with my conference M.O. of “eat, drink, and be merry.” It was a whole drama because Cheryl and I thought we were making plans with Betina Krahn (whose recent RWR article blew my socks off and if you get the RWR, run run run, read it, learn it, and love it, because it’s positively brilliant!) and some other Florida friends, but somehow go them all mixed up with the plan being made by a bunch of NEC folks which resulted in massive miscommunications and several voicemails… but it all worked out and big party of us went to dinner. There, we had the best waiter ever, who served us the most phenomenal drinks. I had some sort of orange mango concoction (The Melanie Mash? The Ashley Ale? The Pitty-Pat Punch? Something like that), and Betina had a mint julep I said tasted like the dentist office, while Marley had some sort of moonshine cocktail that I said “tasted like college.” She agreed it was just like something she used to have at U. Alabama called “hunch punch” so I guess I was right.

Anyway, we ate and ate and ate and ate and ate, including phenomenal fried chicken, crab cakes, amazing ribs (Marley has this picture of me licking my fingers and looking very satisfied, but I’m not putting it up because, well, internet and photoshop and that’s all I’m going to say) and these wonderful black eyed pea cakes that half the people at the table were dead set against ordering (not me) and it turned out to be one of the best things on the menu. Our long suffering waiter (here he is printing out twenty separate checks) even arranged for us all to get peach cobblers at the end of the meal. WE LOVE HIM!

After Aunt Pitty Pat’s I was pretty tired, so I did a quick spin through the Moonlight Madness Bazaar (which was almost closed down when we arrived) and picked up a cookbook care of the New Orleans chapter. Can’t wait to try their recipes. Proceeds go to Katrina funds, too.

FRIDAY:

Woke up pretty late the next morning, having slept very poorly (curse of the hotel again) and then, off to workshops. I went to one about writing action scenes with Gail Dayton, who is a master of her craft, but started feeling sick immediately. So I left early and went upstairs. The next block, I tried again at the Pacing workshop given by brilliant writers Roxanne St. Claire and (RWA prez) Gayle Wilson, but again, I felt too sick to stay. On my way out, I ran into Jana De Leon and her roommate Cindy, and went with them and a whole bunch of my TARA friends to lunch at the Hard Rock, where I learned:

1. It’s still the 80s at the Hard Rock Café.
2. It’s very loud, but still didn’t give me the headaches that the conference room did.
3. They have great salads at the Hard Rock.
4. When they play “YMCA,” all the waiters stop serving, climb up on chairs, and insist everyone dance with them, inserting lines like “Hard Rock Café” every time the Village People sing “YMCA.”
5. For the 90s-era Three Musketeers movie starring Chris O’Donnell, Sting performed a song with Bryan Adams and Rod Stewart, the video for which features a very uncomfortable Sting playing guitar and trying to put as much distance between him and the other two, who are sans instruments and spend the whole time doing those “I’m singing a long note so I must do backbends to show how tough it is” backbends on a black studio floor.

So that was that. After lunch, I went to a workshop with Susan Squires. Man, do I love Susan Squires. Her book, The Companion, is one of my top three favorite books of 2005. However, I have apparently not been entirely discreet in some of the comments I’ve made about the book (mostly because I made them on my blog, which is the opposite of discreet). So when I went up and introduced myself to her after the workshop, in the hallway, she goes, “Oh, you’re the 20 pages girl.” Ahem. I think it was Gina Black that told her. She said she was going to comment on my blog when she read it, but she didn’t, and honestly, so relieved, because I loved her book and would not have wanted her to think otherwise despite my complaint about the 20 pages. (Really, that bile was all about some other book and I was using The Companion as an example of a book that had a similar flaw but that I loved despite the tiny little flaw because of all the other wonderfulness. And really, aren’t the stars in star sapphires or rubies caused by miniscule flaws as well? I certainly will never forget that novel!

So there was my public smackdown with a NYT bestselling author. Actually, it was really nice, and we had a lovely chat. She clarified that was all her, not her editor, as previously surmised, and we even hammered out some damn good post-production motivation for those twenty pages, which I will cling to so that I can love the whole darn book. And that she’s glad I love her book anyway, and I said that I would make sure to remind all my blog readers to run run run out and READ The Companion right away, because it’s the most gorgeous and incredible love story. It’s about a young practical Englishwoman from the Regency period who is the daughter of an archaeologist and an Egyptian. She’s spent her entire life in Egypt and is forced to return to England (which is not her home) when her father passes away. On the boat back, she meets a mysterious man who is going through an even more mysterious change – the kind that makes him allergic to sunlight and lust for blood. This man has recently escaped a terrible ordeal in which he was enslaved and tortured. Squires does not skimp on the torture, but this book is for anyone who loves love stories, anyone who loves vampire stories, anyone who loves Egypt stories, and anyone who loves just really well written page turning heart-string pulling stories. Go go go and read read read (and then let me know if you agree with me about those 20 pages). She’s also got some more in the series out: The Hunger and The Burning. These are not easy-way-out romances. They are tough, they are hard, they are graphic, they are strong… and they’ll stay with you long after you’ve closed the book.

After that, I stuck my head into the Bantam Dell spotlight, but I didn’t stay because last year they didn’t mention my book so I didn’t expect them to this year – but oops, they did! Yay! Other workshops where they mentioned me was PC Cast’s on writing believable teen characters, and someone asked how old was too old for YA. My book was brought up as an example of one that went adult instead of YA. My heroine, by the way, is 21 and a junior in college.

From there I wandered over to the Blaze Fifth Anniversary Party, where I saw a whole bunch of Blaze writers, who are, pound for pound, my favorite group of romance writers. Naturally, I fangirled around for a little while, hanging with Julie Kenner, Julie Leto, Crystal Green, Janelle Denison, Leslie Kelly, Isabel Sharpe, Alison Kent, Jamie Sobrato, Thea Devine (!!!!!), the Tori Carringtons ;-), Jaquelin D’Alessandro, Kathy Garbera, Jennifer LaBreque, Jill Monroe, Rhonda Nelson, Joanne Rock, Kimberly Raye, Brenda Chin, etc., and then, because I clearly hadn’t embarrassed myself enough, I thought it would be funny to perpetuate a little fraud. You see, all the Blaze authors were given little Blaze nametags to wear at the party, and there was a tray near the door covered with nametags for authors who hadn’t made it to the conference. I thought it would be funny to take a picture of myself wearing Jo Leigh’s nametag and then send it to her. So I pin it on and let my friend Kelly take a picture. As soon as she does, this poor woman comes up to me, CLOSER in hand and says, “Jo Leigh?” Oops oops and double oops. So now I’m impersonating authors! Let me say it once and for all: I am not Jo Leigh.

Exhausted from all the humiliation, I go upstairs to change for the evening. And that’s the end of today’s post. Stay tuned tomorrow for more exciting adventures, including: Diana goes to Oklahoma, Diana meets the Queen of the Universe, and The Thing Diana Learned that Changed Not Only her Life, but the Whole Secret Society Girl Series, in the Best Workshop of the Conference.