Final Thoughts - RWA

I'm home. I'm back in my routine and have had the last five days to sort through another whirlwind trip to RWA.

Each time I've gone to the conference the night before I leave, as I finish packing for the trip, I'm always swamped with anxiety. Why am I going? Does anyone REALLY care that I'm there? Will anyone remember me? True story, just ask GG.

As has been discussed on many other blogs and forums in the past, there are both pros and cons to attending this national conference for romance writers. However, at the end of the day, for a person who does not intend to write a book, like myself, one has to decide why they would use their vacation time, money and make all that effort into going to this (or any other) conference.

More and more each year it becomes about seeing friends. Each time I've gone I've met more readers and made more friends in the romance reading world, with a few authors too. This year was no exception.

Five years ago this week (August 4, 2005) I began this little blog. If you would have told me then that I would attend an RWA conference, let alone three of them now, or that I would be making the friends I have and meeting up with a blogging group several times a year, I would NEVER have believed it. Yet here I am... Surreal doesn't even begin to cover it.

So, final impressions and thoughts of Orlando?

Sultry, swamping heat

Sherry Thomas asking me to talk to a lady at her table at the Literacy Signing about how fantastic HIS AT NIGHT is. Who knew people came to shop at the literacy signing?

Some of the most amazing FMPs I've ever seen on women of all sizes and ages.

Kristie(j)'s laugh. Especially when she's making reading lists for SL Wendy.

Chicken, chicken and more...chicken.

LB Gregg in her writing sweater, propped up in bed, munching fruit, hunched over her laptop and muttering, "But what's it about????"

Women--authors, readers, bloggers all gathered at the Cabana Bar talking about books and men.

Women shaking hands and introducing themselves.

Everything you have ever heard about how nice author Jill Shalvis is? So true! Such a nice, nice lady. She's the one person I kept running into everywhere at the conference and then on the plane coming home.

Photo booth on the Boardwalk.

SL Wendy's blue dress for the RITA dinner.

Sharing anecdotes and book commentary with Aztec Lady at RITAs and weeping together at some of the acceptance speeches.

Dancing with LB at the Harlequin party. We'll always have Orlando, and DC, and San Francisco...

Drinks in the Swan Lobby and almost every other watering hole on the property.