Last weekend I attended the Romance Writers of New Zealand’s ‘Love is in the Air’ conference. I had been looking forward to this conference all year, so imagine my enthusiasm when I woke up the day before my flight to Auckland to discover I’d come down with a massive head cold. Oh joy. But what’s a little snot among friends. I was determined to go anyway – I was not going to miss the Snowflake guy’s 1 day workshop (aka Randy Ingermanson) and the keynote speaker, the fabulous and oh-so-eloquent Eloisa James. So armed with every conceivable cold remedy and watered with gallons of orange and lemon juice, I boarded the plane to the conference.
This was only the second RWNZ conference I’d attended and I discovered that having a roomie is A LOT more fun than going solo. Thanks to my friend and CP, Julieann Thomas (http://www.julieannthomas.com), a very talented Military romance writer, I was not only looked after, but we had many opportunities to chat about our favourite thing – writing. We also came up with some weird and wonderful ideas, like an alien species that disguises itself as Tom Cruise clones, but that may have been a result of all the sugar enriched snacks we were eating. Oh, and possibly the two bags of Doritos explained the bizarre dreams each night.
On the Thursday night a little pajama party with my ‘Book-in-50-days’ ladies was great fun. What an awesome bunch of supportive writers, and so wonderful to spend a few hours talking writing and eating chocolate and donuts—and as a little bonus, no one saw Julieann and I scuttling through the hallways of the hotel in our pajamas.
Cold reads, 7am Saturday and Sunday morning. I am so not a morning person, but it was worthwhile making the effort (and there was lots and lots of coffee available...). While one agent didn’t like my first two pages, the other did and I learned an important lesson from listening to their two different points of view: writing really is subjective. And wow, we have some really talented up-and-coming authors in RWNZ!
And Oh-my-goodness, it’s so hard not to have huge fan girl moments when in the presence of some of New Zealand’s top writers, like Yvonne Lindsay (squeal), Robin Donald (gasp) and Nalini Singh (tongue tied awe and inane comments about her sparkly scarf). The highlight of the Saturday workshops for me was hearing Yvonne’s story of rejection after rejection for thirteen years before she achieved publication – she is AMAZING.
By Sunday most of the conference attendees had that ‘last-day-zombie’ look about them, including myself. So it came as no surprise when fifteen minutes before boarding my plane back to Wellington my name was called over the airport loudspeaker to return to the front desk. Yep. I’d left my credit card in the automated checking-in machine. Doh!
And I almost forgot – booked into the hotel with our 130 or so romance writers were the Australian rugby team, The Wallabies! Wasn’t it our lucky day? Or maybe theirs…
Tracey
What I’m reading this week: Somebody to Love – Kristan Higgins. This is my first Kristan Higgins book and she’s now on my ‘must-read-everything-she’s-written’ pile. Funny, warm, sexy, and did I say funny? Some laugh out loud moments and a few teary ones too. And the ending’s last line of dialogue? Perfect.
What I’m watching this week: Fear Factor and Wipeout. I needed something mindless after the brain-draining conference.
This week’s favorite quote: You may think your life is boring, but your emotions are not boring. Paraphrased from Eloisa James’ speech at RWNZ Conference.
Hot guy of the week: Eric Dane as McSteamy in Grey’s Anatomy. C'mon McDreamy fans, I had to play fair...
You are totally amazing yourself, Tracey! It was lovely to see you at conference and all the best with your work!
ReplyDeleteThanks Yvonne,
ReplyDeleteSeriously, hearing about what you went through to get published is a good kick up the bum for someone like me who expects to be perfect first time off (yeah, right!). I especially like your, "Every no is one step closer to a yes," so bring on those "no's"! :-)