first blog

Okay, I decided to try blogging today...

Last year's New Year's resolution, a personal goal, actually came true. A RWA recognized publisher offered to publish one of my books! I received the "call " 8-1-06, from the submissions editor at Triskelion, and my entire life pivoted 180 degrees. Now, I'm one of those people thats addicted to reading romances. My keeper shelf in my bedroom is a unit with at least 100 books. In my computer den, I have two more units with at least 300 more keepers. There's no way of knowing how many I've borrowed from the library or given away. I read about 4 books at once, and rarely miss a day of reading. There's books in my car, different areas of the house, even my garage. I like just about every kind of romance except the real gory stuff. That kind of stuff lives with me for days and I'd rather be thinking about a Lisa Klepas character, or expecting to run into one of Susan Elizabeth Phillip's characters on the street. They are two of my favorite writers, and there are so many more. (some other blog). A few summers ago, while sitting peacefully by my pool, I reread every book I had saved. Not only was it the first summer in twenty years that I'd had off, but by the end of the summer I'd decided to stop dreaming of being a writer and rejoin CNYRW.

It's still hard for me to believe I'm a writer, let alone soon to be "published." In my head I'm still just a fan of romance writers, the most hard-working, creative, self-less writers on the planet. You don't believe me? Well, here's the story about my first National Conference in Reno: First of all, I was so excited to attend that I got to Syracuse's Hancock airport a day early. No kidding. When the ticket lady asked me if I knew what day it was, I thought she was joking, (I'd been up all night afraid I'd miss the 6:30am flight) . I had two choices, come back the next day when my ticket was good, or catch a later flight. I'd entered the airport so early that my ticket was flagged and I got the full body pat-down check. To make matter worse, my connecting flight was delayed due to bad weather in O'Hare. I was so tired by then I was nauseous and wished I'd stayed home. As luck would have it, I spent the four hour lay-over with Charly Phillips, who I absolutely love. We kept each other sane. When we finally boarded, I spied Heather Graham , another writing goddess, in first class. We'd never met, but I'd brought one of her books with me to get autographed at the conference. Later we ended up playing craps together at the hotel's Casino. Turns out we both love the game. This was just the beginning of a slew of cosmic-level coincidences, too numerous to mention. The next day I picked up my badge, and spent the day star struck. Besides an avid reader, I'd previously been an online reviewer for aromancereview.com. At the afternoon booksigning event, I flitted around visiting all the author's that I'd critiqued. I even snagged the very wonderful, and goddess in her own right, fellow CNYRW Kris Fletcher, two-time Golden Heart finalist, to be my personal photographer so I have the pictures to prove how giddy I'd been that day. I was such a groupie, that I forgot I was a writer until some women who'd come all the way from San Fransico for the booksigning event noticed my first-timer badge. We were waiting in line for Deb Macomber's autograph, and naturally chatting when they asked me what I wrote. They were amazed that I was a new writer, and asked if I had a business card. When I handed them my business card, it finally hit me. I'm a writer! I missed the Atlanta conference, but I've booked my flight to Dallas, as a PUB. Yippee!