Doing Dallas - Those Special Moments

By the lack of posts today you can tell I went to work, back to the life of the little worker bee.

I had so many of those special moments I'd be blogging til midnight if I did each one separately so I'll try and get them all here. And probably continually editing as I remember more things!

Special Moment
Meeting Sybil (whose own post coming up shortly), Wendy and Jane. I couldn't have asked for better roommates and the fact that four of us shared a room for almost 6 days and didn't run into any kind of hogging the bathroom moment? Priceless.

Special Moment
I don't have a what I would consider a friendship with very many authors but there are two I've been emailing for a while now. When I decided to go to Dallas, I emailed both of them (with a bit of reservation - after all this was their time and their place and I didn't want to intrude) saying if they had time, I'd love to meet them. They both emailed me back almost immediately saying they would love to meet me. They are good friends with each other and we all got a chance to sit down and talk about all kinds of neat stuff. They are both envious of me 'cause I'm going to see Loreena and they're fans. So to Bonnie Vanak and Pamela Clare (I love also meeting your Mom - and right - Old Blind Dog) I loved meeting both of you!!!!

Special Moment
Going up to Tara Janzen at the publisher signing and after clearing my throat a couple of times, saying rather timidly "I don't know if you remember me...."
You see, I was reading her Crazy series when Ron was going through his chemo and radiation. While immersed in her Steele Street books, for a while I was able to forget what was going on around me. I sent her an email letting her know how they helped me cope. She emailed me back and then sent me an ARC of Crazy Love. It's front and centre on my bookcase upstairs with all my other Very Special Books.
When I said who I was, she said of course she remembered me, jumped out of her chair, hugged me and reached into a box at her side and gave me an ARC of On The Loose. She said she still had the email I sent

Special Moment
At the Random House party that Jane had an invite to, I worked up the courage to talk to The Judith McNaught. I told her she was an icon to us romance readers. We then talked for a while longer and she wanted me to go with her to get some finger foods. Someone else came up and started talking to her, and we never did go to get food together, but the fact that she wanted to with me was special.

Special Moment
At the same party, it was getting pretty crowded so I moved towards the back where it was a bit cooler and not so crowded. Suzanne Brockman was there with her husband and another gentleman. I didn't get a chance to talk to Suzanne, but I did have a very interesting conversation that lasted until we left with her husband.

Special Moment
Running into Alyssa at the bar and offering to buy her drinks for her. She refused although I wouldn't have minded at all. She was drinking water. I had also emailed Alyssa about getting together sometime, but alas, I was so busy for the whole thing it just didn't happen. But the time we did spend together was lots of fun.

Special Moment
Being invited to the Samhain breakfast and meeting Angie in person. She is so cute - just as cute as she is in all her pictures!

Special Moment
Getting to talk to Jaci Burton at the Samhain breakfast, the Random Publisher Party and then later having a real nice chat with her and Angie.

Special Moment(s)
The Harlequin Party. I almost wasn't going to go - I was pretty beat by that time. But I decided what the heck - this is a once in a lifetime time. There were so many incredible moments at that party. Making Wendy dance to Jessie's Girl by Rick Springfield. You may recall I just put that video on the blog not long ago. I was hoping they would play Summer of 69 by Bryan Adams. I was going to make her dance to that too. But I don't think wild horses could have made her dance to Everything I Do by said Bryan. It was the first time I'd danced in over 2 years and if I do say so myself - I sucked big time at it.
Having Pamela Clare introduce me to her mother - that was special.
At one point I was sitting in a chair, chilling out when Jane came running over and grabbed me by the hand. She pulled me onto the dance floor where they were a number of women all dancing in a circle. And NORA ROBERTS was one of them!! (I'm still hoping for the day she will make a comment on my little 'ole blog. I showed a number of people the picture of us at work today that Jane took!)
Riding back to the hotel in a white stretch limo. I've only ridden in a limo once before and it didn't hold a candle to that one!

Special Moment
Learning how to use Jane's I-phone by the time the Rita Finalists were announced. I think the scaredest I was the whole week was when Jane said "You can do it, I know you can!" She obviously hadn't seen me try and work a cell phone - a simple one at that. And the sweet justification when Sarah who was sitting next to me leaned over and said she'd just got an email that the official RWA site had crashed and we were the only two giving live updates.

Special Moment
Meeting Leah Hultenschmidt an editor at Dorchester. She thinks Romantic Advances is a great idea and offered to help in whatever way she can. One of the reasons it was a special moment is because I have a real hard time finding many of the Dorchester books here in Canada. I've got quite a list of books that I want to buy but will have to order online. Now for me, it's not that big a deal because I do a lot of research on what is coming out so I can see what's up. But for readers here who don't go online, who buy on impulse, if the books aren't there, the books can't be bought. And what a loss for the reader (cause Dorchester has some mighty fine books and they are willing to publish in a number of genres), the author, whose sales will reflect that. Canada is a pretty big country! One time I checked out the biggest cities all across the country from Toronto to Vancouver just out of curiosity and the book in question wasn't anywhere, and let's face it, it's a loss for the publisher too. I waxed passionately about this.
One good thing about the conference was I did find the latest books I've been wanting to get at the RWA's so I went home a happy camper over that. But being able to talk to someone at Dorchester about that issue and Romantic Advances was oh so fun!

The Most Special Moment(s) of all
Going out for lunch with Lisa Kleypas. I already blogged about that - it's a time I'll always remember. And after that, whenever she saw me, she would stop what she was doing (once she was talking to Julia Quinn) and come over and hug me. I was at the Nora Roberts party when claustrophobia hit again and I had to go outside for a bit. Lisa was out there and she introduced me to her husband and her agent.

There are dozens more moments like that; each one of them frozen in my memory that I can take out and remember.

'til later