Newsletter & Appearances
August 2006
Brought my Alphie to conference. Alphie meaning AlphaSmart. Like a toy computer: plastic, virtually indestructible, tiny screen, wordprocessing only. My thought: get that newsletter written as, once again, I have been terribly remiss and have failed to write y’all for a while. Life. What’s that they say about it? The thing that happens when you’re making other plans…
Anyway, have been pushing through to finish my latest Work-in-Progress and haven’t been updating as I should. Long and short? Haven’t finished the @#$%^&*% book—but will soon! Took a break for conference.
Which brings me back to my Alphie and sitting here in my hotel room between events, writing to you!
Conference being the Romance Writers of America’s yearly national do. This year we’re in Atlanta, where it’s downright cool (low 90s) next to the sweltering soup I left behind in Oklahoma. (100+)
At conference there are a million brilliant workshops to attend providing lots of info on everything from writing dialogue to how to research on Google to legal issues for writers. Sadly, I make it to few if any of the workshops. I buy the conference CD and listen to them at my leisure. I’d go in person if it were possible, but for many published authors, there’s simply too much other stuff that must be done.
Things like breakfast, lunch and dinner. I kid you not. Those are major. We go out to eat a lot with our editors and agents. Our publishers put on beautiful parties and dinners at faboo restaurants and other exciting venues. It all sounds so frivolous, I suppose. And glamorous. And it is. But it’s also of major importance to touch base in person now and then with the folks who turn our words into something you can hold in your hands.
We live so much of our professional lives in our own special version of virtual reality. We sit in front of our computer screens making up stories about people who don’t exist. Our professional interactions day-to-day tend to be on the phone or via email. At least once a year we and our colleagues need real reality.
We need faces to go with the names and the voices we hear on the phone. We get that at conference.
And not only do we need to get up close and in person with our editors and agents, we also absolutely must get together with the people who get us in the ways that no one else does, who understand everything and who are willing to share: other authors. There’s always so much to catch up on with my author pals. There are major bondy moments. Indiscretions—well, not really. By the time you’ve been in this business as long as I have (yes, it’s true. I sold my first book when I was six—and by the way, I’ve got some oceanfront property in Oklahoma you might want to take look at) you know whom you can trust with the latest hot gossip, whose shoulder you can cry on when a meeting goes horribly awry and who will listen to you crow to when things go just right.
I went several years in the business without attending a conference or traveling to New York where so many of the publishing professionals live and work.
Then a dear friend convinced me that at least once a year I had to get out there and mix it up—see and be seen. Hear and be heard. What wonderful advice. I’m so glad I took it.
Yours,
Christine
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