....and now I'm back!

I wish I could do a pithy review of RWA and give you scaths of wisdom that will help you and your writing career or at least tell you what was coming down the pike but I can only give impressions because most of my brain was shut down for the event. The good thing is that you can now go online and buy individual recorded workshops from the RWA site so you don't have to buy the whole thing. I know this because they announced it before all the recorded sessions. That bit of info sunk in.

1. The RWA bag this year rocked. It's so cool, a lady on the train asked where I bought it because she wanted one.

2. twitters really are a great way to get info. I sat in the rogue session about epublishing and the woman next to me was twittering. Her short synopses of the talkers' points were to the point and got rid of the superfluous (which I tend to latch onto Tangential Girl!). I didn't stop listening to the speakers but I did read over her shoulder.

3. that rogue session was good. I've gone to a fair number of epublishing events and there tends to be a defensive neglected step-child tone. Not at this one. It was professional and interesting. what did it say that was professional and interesting? Um. I bet someone like Dearauthor can answer that.

4. the PAN session about taking care of yourself and improving your work life was wonderful even though it was all stuff I'd heard before. Loudon? Louden? convinced me that she believed every word and I should too. So I did.

5. More people should have come to Kristi's thing. It was good. Except maybe I'm glad more people didn't because now I want to write a connected anthology and if it had been packed then thousands of people would be writing them.

6. I got invited to a couple of parties that I didn't go to and that felt very odd because most of me wanted to go. (I mean CANDY FREAKING TAN invited me. I love CANDY freaking TAN.) But the mom part of me knew that if I didn't do a better job of taking care of myself I was going to get sick and worn down. I usually leave that mom part of me behind when I go to these things. I wonder who the fuck invited her.

7. Speaking of Candy Tan, my 16-year-old found the Heaving Bosoms book and is reading it. He loves it. Now there's a demographic you probably didn't imagine would nab the book. He is seriously embarrassed by romance but this book is his idea of a good time. And he's a fairly typical nerdy boy--computer games, dnd, etc. I think maybe the publisher should be alerted.

8. I have no idea what the various houses are looking for. Sorry. My guess? Fresh new voices.

9. Oh, but sourcebooks looked pretty impressive to me. If they do even half of what they claim they do for their authors (promo data sheets etc), they're amazing.

10. the weather was gorgeous. DC in the summer? No problem.

Seriously....Let's dig up the information that will help you. Market trends, anyone? Maybe I'll go look at the rwa09 twitters. I bet the info will be there.

I have another long entry inside me all about how cool it was to see people I'd never met and people I haven't seen for years. But I got inspired by Louden enough to stay on schedule and my blogging time is up for the day. Seeing the debs is always a highlight. I think they're the reason I go.

Also if I write about the women who came to see me and who are my bestest friends in the world and was a serious highlight of that trip and....I'll get all verklempt. Thank you, Leslie and Gretchen. I love you. And Nan. I can't forget Nan and Ack waaaaaaah....


Comments

  1. Hi ;)
    Thanks for a fun blog post.
    I love that your son is reading Heaving Bosoms. :)
    Also thank you for Ratcatcher!
    Heh, I'm still smiling from reading your blog.
    :)
    Love from Canada
    twitter.com/RKCharron
    xoxo

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks! I get a big kick out of my kid reading heaving bosoms too. He's going to lend it to a pal when he's done, and I told him I'd give him a dollar if he'd take it into school and read it in public, just there, in front of the Cool Kids.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Nice recap of RWA - thank you.

    ReplyDelete

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