RWA’s annual conference is in full swing in San Francisco. This year the conference is right in my backyard, and I’m not there.

The different loops I belong to are eerily quiet, and my writing buddies are all off line, accept for the occasional ‘wish you were here e-mail’. This has left me to wallow in  ‘conference envy’. 

I planned on going, but when my daughter announced she was pregnant with her second child, her due date, August 1^st, I knew it wasn’t in the cards for me. My daughter delivered a beautiful baby girl last week. She’s recovering nicely. Her little girl is perfect, which left me free to go. I seriously considered making a daily commute into the city instead of paying the astronomically high price for a hotel at the last minute.

After weighing my pros and cons, I decided against it.    

This would have been my third RWA conference. And with it so close to home, it would have been the easiest transportation wise, and probably one of the best, since all of my writer friends would be there, because of location, location, location. It also would have been one of the most expensive, even without airfare.

What I get out of conferences, usually makes it worth all the hassle and expense. But on the flip side of that, honestly there isn’t much I do like about them. I can handle crowds, but don’t like them. Outside my writer friends, mostly from local chapters, I don’t have a large writing network from on-line, (a big social factor when attending conferences.) And I have a tendency to absorb a lot of the emotional stress shooting through the air like dry lightening looking for target to light up. And that leaves me just slightly cranky.

I love the workshops, but hate the agent/editor interviews. The Rita’s are interesting, but usually can’t wait to get out of there either, again, because of the crowds. So right now my conference envy, (after writing about it in cyberspace), is ebbing away into the emotional compartment labeled, forget-about-it. 

Still what does keep the envy sort-of dangling at the edge of my cluttered life, is what I do love about conferences. And that is the people I meet. I love having uninterrupted time to really sit and talk about nothing but writing, and the industry, while doing a lot of people watching. Occasionally, I’ll glimpse someone very well published and in our world of romance, very famous. Or have the opportunity to meet someone I admire. I can catch up with people I’ve met in the past, and haven’t seen  since last year. I’ll have a few guilt free martinis, and just enjoy being out of my element and away from my life.

As I consider it now, all those things I love about going, wasn’t a strong enough draw for me to pay out the late fees. For me, it would have been one very expensive party. Because as I cruise my favorite blogs, that is all that anyone and everyone is talking about, meeting up with friends and closing down the local bars. Nothing about the conference and its contents. Usually that comes with the first conference. Everything is new, and I can only speak for myself, I was awe struck. Since then it was to get away and spend time with writer friends. Which is always a great time. But this time I decided to say no to the mule team encouraging me to go.  

So as my envy cradles itself comfortably in the back of my mind, I’ll wait until next year, for it will be in Washington DC, and just maybe I’ll make the trip. I’ve never been there before and that fact, makes it even more attractive.

Right for now, I’ll dig around in emotional field to find contentment with knowing my friends are having a great time for me.

Question of the Day:  What is your favorite thing about conferences? And if you didn’t go this year. Why?

A couple of years ago, a romance author I know was in the depths of a book signing when a man walked up to her and handed her a picture of his privates. I’m using the politically correct version of the ‘p’ word. Stunned, beyond words, she thought she had the good sense to call the police. The picture was taken and handed back to the perp, and the author was told by the female cop, “What do you expect, look at what you write.”

Two things went wrong here, the cops attitude, and fact she handed the evidence back to the weirdo. Fortunately for the author it was the last time she saw him. It didn’t turn into a stalking situation, which at first it really looked potentially like it was going in that direction. The idiot must have got the message early on in his escapade, that she wasn’t someone to mess with, and started to look for a new person to harass.  The most shocking thing about it was the young female cop’s bad attitude, and assumptions about romance writers. No one, not even a stripper deserves to receive an unsolicited picture like that, and then treated as if they literarily stood on the street corner with a neon sign that read, “Looking for pictures of male genitals.”

Most authors have a great deal of anxiety over the dreaded book signing. Which after hearing that story, I could understand. And I’ve heard more from other authors, cruel words from passer-bys, books picked up examined and then all put dropped in their laps with a sneer. The author maintains her cool, while sitting behind a table, smiling, being polite, when in reality they’d like to dive over the table and choke out the person distributing the insults.

I just don’t understand it. If one doesn’t like a genre, then don’t go near it. And don’t treat those who do as if they have the plague or need to be whipped in public.  

The public has a misconception of romance authors and their craft. Unless you are knee deep in the industry, an outsider doesn’t have a clue what goes on behind the closed doors of a romance writer. There are a lot of untrue assumptions floating around out there. I’ve heard more times then not, “anyone could write that stuff.” Well go to an RWA convention and meet up with the 3, 000 or so authors, most of who are unpublished and tell them that their ‘stuff’ is easy. No doubt a riot would ensue, and the individual would find themselves out on the street with their own ‘stuff’, bouncing off their head, as it’s flung after them.

Any kind of writing isn’t easy. Sitting here writing this at 5am in the morning isn’t easy, because I had writers block last night.

Trying to pull together a great story, with the romance as the bases, make it move ahead, hold your readers through what you hope isn’t a sagging middle, and end it with two people who are madly in love, who have a future, that leaves a reader regaling about how much they love this book, (images of Tom Cruise jumping on a couch come to mind) which in translation means, I love this author.   

Writing is extremely personal, no matter the genre. It’s a lot of time, devotion and sacrifice to get to the happily ever after. Just ask any author.

Question of the Day: Who is your favorite Romance author? And as a author have you ever experienced bad behavior during a book signing.

In my travels around the universe of blogs, there is one thing that is on all our minds, the economy.

For writers and readers, the big question is buying books. All the authors I know are ferocious readers and many of my none writing friends are big readers too. With gas pushing in the direction of $5.00 a gallon, with no sign of slowing down, those of us who love to buy new books have been left with the question, “What is going to be sacrificed to fulfill our addiction?”

The price of books will be going up. It is in the cards. Gas goes up and anything moved by a truck will go up with it. We’re already seeing it the price of groceries. It’s a matter of time before it hits the local book stores, if it hasn’t already.

I’m retired, with a comfortable income. Still, it is all I will get for the rest of my life, until I sell a book. So I have to think about what I don’t need in order to fulfill my addiction for books.

I’ve taken a good look at what I spend money on, and how I spend it. I’m not really an emotional buyer. I usually think carefully before I make a purchase. Do I need it or not? That’s the standard question, most of the time.

Unfortunately, when it comes to books, I’m a straight-up, no-doubt-about-it emotional buyer. I’ll buy another book, even if the stack of books at my bedside is causing my small end table to lean precariously to the side, threatening to collapse under the weight of my TBR pile. The problem with the pile, it will take years for me to get through it at the rate I keep adding to it. Soon, I’ll have to make a path just to get to my bedside, and/or into my office. My husband has proclaimed that if there was ever a fire in our home, my office and our bedroom would go up like kindling.

We’ll I’ve found a solution, used bookstores. I love them. I bring a punch of books I have managed to read, turn them in for credit, and get a punch more. These books are a bit used, with bent spines, but hey, my pile hasn’t been reduced a bit, much to hubby’s great disappointment.  

Going to a used bookstore is fun. I find all my favorite authors, not always their latest releases, but often ones I haven’t read, or hope aren’t buried under the TBR pile. I find it doesnt’ take long and the new releases show up in the form of used. 

Because the books are used, I let go of them much more easily. No emotional attachment in form of a piece of my income, that amounts to a ¼ of a tank of gas, or lease. So they go back to ye ole used bookstore, for more used books.

Question of the Day: What are you doing to keep up the book addiction in these times of economic stress?

 I spent the morning trimming my roses, cleaning up around their base, and just in general enjoying them. Even with the thorns sticking me, as I battle aphids, I love the infamous flower. They’ve been apart of my life, my entire life. There isn’t a female blood relative of mine, that doesn’t have roses in their yard. It seems to be engrained in our DNA. It’s the marker that reads, “Must have roses.”

After I trimmed my dozen or so plants, I cleaned up, and sat down to try to figure out what I was going to blog about. When I heard some voices outside my den window. They were young voices, male and female. The male voice was framed in adolescence with a depth that isn’t sure of itself. The female giggled, which gave away her age.

I realized, from bits of conversation, the male was trying to pick my roses, without getting stuck. A task I haven’t achieved yet.

This is nothing new to my roses. They sit on the side of my house near the public sidewalk. Even today, I found broken branches from those who just couldn’t resist them, and tore them off the stem. It always makes me hurt for my dear plant, because of the damage. But today, I decided I’d save my plants, and commit a random act of kindness. I grabbed my clippers, and confronted the young couple. Who looked scared witless when I rounded the corner, with clippers in hand. I’m sure the young man was imagining all sorts of torturous things I was about to put on his young person. In short they looked not only very guilty with one broken rose in hand, but just a bit terrified.

I asked the young man if he was picking my roses for his girlfriend, who stood clinging to his arm.

He nodded, speechless, readying himself for the assault.

“Okay, let me cut some for you. I’ll give you a nice big bouquet.”

Now they looked completely speechless. He nodded again.

So I went about the business of gathering a nice bouquet of my beautiful big roses of various colors. As I clipped I chatted, and told them about the damage it does to the plant to just rip the rose off. The young girl responded that when she had her own house, she wanted roses. I was thrilled maybe she was a convert to the love of the ancient flower. Wrapping the bouquet in newspaper, so as not to damage the fair maiden’s fingers, I handed it to her knight, to give to her.

He looked at me, still a bit dizzy, and said, “Thanks, this is so cool.”

He gave the flowers to his very thrilled and adoring girlfriend. As they left, I told them they could knock on my door when they wanted another bouquet.

I work hard on my roses, and I love to share them. They are one of the greatest symbols of romance and love in the world. And they can brighten any day.  And yes, the roses in the picture are from my yard.  

I feel my flowers are like my writing. I work hard at making it beautiful, and want nothing more than to share it with outsiders.

Have a wonderful 4th, be safe and stop to smell the roses.

Question of the Day:  What random act of kindness have you committed recently?