Oralando - RWA - Day 5

I had to check back to see where I left off. There is so much happening here and my short term memory loss grows worse and worse as the years role by.

The luncheon with Jayne Ann Krentz was interesting (and good). As she was speaking, I realized I'm not the quote normal quote reader. She said that she started writing these very strange books that no one had read before. Those turned out to be her futuristics. I read them way back when, books like Sweet Starfire, Shield's Lady, Gift of Gold and Gift of Fire. I loved those books. But fans of those ones didn't necessarily follow over to her contemporaries. Or those who read her contemporaries often didn't follow her to her historicals under Amanda Quick, but I loved those too. I followed her no matter what she wrote but in her talk she said that didn't happen often. She gave some good advice to writers and I enjoyed the luncheon.

After that I sat in on a Publisher Spotlight - one for Avon - which I found interesting, though at times somewhat very boxed into what they were looking for. And then I hit the first of many publisher signings. For those not in the know, these are where they give away books - FOR FREE - and the authors will sign them. I've learned over the years to get the books I want at the literacy signing and wait until the publisher signings to get books that haven't been so much on my radar. It's a great way to try new and new-to-me authors or authors that have fallen off my radar. All the signings are beginning to blend together, but one stands out. I've mentioned that I've been getting many of my coworkers to try romance and so far, they are loving the genre. JD Robb is the author that most are reading at the moment with Lisa Kleypas's contemporaries shortly behind. Since I'll be working in another department when I get back, I wanted to get something special for my coworkers so I've picked up a number of JD's books. At the one publisher she was signing at, I got her to sign a book to the entire department and I'm going to give the JD Robb books, 'specially the signed one, as a department 'book' department. They had a new reissue of Naked in Death so that will be a department book for anyone that hasn't tried her yet.

And today I also had Lisa Kleypas sign a book to the coworker who headed away from my desk hugging Smooth Talking Stranger. She asked if I could get her a signed copy of one of Lisa's books.

So what else????? So much has been going on that my thoughts are scattered.

Aztec Lady has been the advanced guard for publisher signings. She has been the one holding a spot in line and I can always tell where she is because I hear her joyful laughter as she is making friends wherever she goes.

I met some new nice people, May from Malaysia and Kris who runs a German Romance Magazine called Love Letter.

I've taken a lot of pictures this time since I finally clued in that if I'm the one taking the pictures, that means I'm not the one in the pictures. Sometimes I'm a bit slow on the uptake.

Last night Wendy called it an early evening but I wasn't ready to turn in so I headed down to the bar and just kind of went over to a couple of people and said I was going to be brave and ask if they minded if I joined them. The let me thank goodness. It turns out one of them writes Futuristics for an epub. She handed me her card and a bookmark. When I got up to my room, one of the books sounded familiar and sure enough, it was one of the first books I downloaded onto my Kobo.

I was thrilled a few weeks before the conference to get an invite to the Berkley cocktail party. The party was last night. When I first got there is a bit of tough time. I've been shy most of my life and while in the past few years I've gotten over a lot of it, still moments of paralyzing shyness hits and it did last night. But I did my best to banish it and ended up having a great time. I had a very nice talk with author Jodi Thomas where I told her about the Great Western Drive that Sybil, Wendy and I did. I was thinking of Nath and all the girls at Book Binge since I know they are great fans of her books too. And then Carrie Lofty and I had a great time talking about North and South and Richard Armitage - we always do when we get together. Oh, and Julie James and I talked earlier in the week about SYTYCD and Carrie and I did last night. She's also a fan of the Canadian SYTYCD and I got to tell her that Nico, the first season winner got married not too long ago.

I ended up getting a lot more books than I planned too. I figured I'd keep it under control this year, but alas, the addiction took over again. Paranormals seemed to be the ones I picked up the most of. Though there are also a number of other genres too. I'm so glad I read across the board. It really lets me feed that addiction to books. I didn't want to end up shipping books home this year, but alas, I'm going to have to again.

Well - I should get going. I left the RITA award show early so that I could pack - books and clothes. Wendy and Rosies flight leaves only about 15 minutes before mine tomorrow, which is at 8:15 am which will make for a very early wakeup!!

I've had such a wonderful time, but I am looking forward to getting home now. I'm sure I'll have a further thoughts blog or two, along with some of the books I picked up. But until then,

'til later