I’m now home safe and sound from one of the best conferences ever. I couldn’t possibly explain to you how much I learned or how tired I am this morning. Both are equally overwhelming. I have great stories to tell and will most likely be blogging about them all week, but for today I wanted to give an overview. Let me take you back to the beginning…

I’m a die hard Dumb and Dumber fan and had to take a picture as we were flying over the Rockies. The scene in the Rockies where Harry had an extra pair of gloves the whole time Lloyd’s hands were freezing kept coming to mind. I know, I know, I’m a dork. I’m well aware. Here they are:

This was the entrance to the Swan and Dolphin hotel where the conference was held:

Beautiful, isn’t it?

I lost my voice early in the conference (Day 2, I think) and it’s mostly due to the fact I spent most of my time on the lobby trying to network over the raging sound of this:

A short walk from the hotel was the Disney Boardwalk. Shops and arcade games lined the boarded street as well as restaurants and dance halls.

I even ate dinner one night with two friends (Hi Pamela Fryer and Vanessa Kier!) at Disney Brewery. Disney. Brewery. Two words I would never have expected to see together. The food was great and our server was from Antioch! Great to meet someone from my neck of the woods. Here’s the waterfront view we had from our table:

Nora Roberts was the keynote speaker for the first luncheon. Lisa and I got slammin’ seats thanks to awesome line-stalking skills. This is us a little blurred:

And this is proof Nora Roberts has sold her soul to become a romance writing Goddess. She’s seriously glowing. When I ran into her a few days later I showed her the picture. She thought it was hilarious and said she’s no God. I bet there’s a few in the industry who beg to differ:

I was invited to a Doughnut Party hosted by Carolyn Jewel who was up for two RITA’s at the award ceremony. For those of you who don’t know what a RITA is, it’s like the OSCARS but cooler. A RITA is won by votes from other published writers. In other words, your book has to be the best of the best in its category and is voted on by probably the most critical people in the business. It was great to meet a handful of nominees, chomp on some sticky, sugary goodness and drink margaritas from sparkly plastic cups. It was awesome. Here’s two of my party crashers, Adrienne Miller and Monica Newcomb (both writers and great people):

And there’s no way they’re that innocent, fyi. I’d show you the picture snapped right after this one but Blogger officials may shut me down. I’m totally joking, but not about the fact that we had a blast.

This week I’ll post more pictures of other author friends and late-night happenings (boy, are some of the stories C-R-A-Z-Y) and more from the RITA’s. Have a great Monday! Mine will be filled with sleep, sleep and more sleep…but after this conference I’ll dream big. *grin

So. My plan was to post a ton of pictures today. I took tons. So not like me. My blog post was going to be funny–a riot!

Instead I’m sitting barefoot on the hotel bed exhausted out of my mind…and blogger won’t load the pictures because the hotel Wi-Fi is too slow. Yeah. No good. So until I can mooch off Wi-Fi from another area you’ll have to do with this re-cap.

I’ve been up since 2:30 am pacific time. It’s 11:00 pm eastern time now. I’ve had little to eat today; unless you’d call an airline Wasabe Chicken Sandwich and a mocha lunch. Turbulence due to thunderstorms over the runway was so bad that we had to circle the airport for 20 minutes. I almost had a panic attack each time we hit an air pocket.

And I couldn’t stop laughing. Call it an awkward stress release–beats me.

Did I forget to mention I had a kick-ass dinner with Debra Dixon, the owner of Belle books? I did? Let me tell you…she was awesome. Dinner was much-needed. Drinks were fruity and much too strong for my taste.

So that’s it. My re-cap sans cool pictures that would’ve made you laugh. Oh! And I saw Nora Roberts. Twice!

Workshops start tomorrow. I’ll fill you in more and hopefully have some photos to share. Night all.

Tonight’s the night! I’m leaving for Orlando! Woohoo! I can’t tell you how excited I am to walk amongst the greats and learn what they have to teach. I can’t wait to meet other writers, my agent and hopefully a few editors who’d give a little unpublished gal like myself the time of day.

My plan is to post a little tidbit every night whether it be something I learned, something phenomenal (or funny) that happened or a few pictures of my wanderings. I’m usually the person who forgets to take pictures during something amazing…signing with Nora Roberts? I’ll forget my camera for sure. Talking with my agent? I’m likely to bring my camera but be so nervous I forget to take it out of my bag. BUT with the promise to post tons of pictures HERE, maybe that’ll force me to whip out my camera more often.

For the sake of all that is blogging, let’s hope.

So I’m on my way…wish me luck and good vibes for great impressions and loads of fun with amazing writers! (And if that wasn’t the most awkwardly written sentence I don’t know what is! But I’m too giddy to care! Orlando here I come!)

I can’t tell you how excited I am to be attending this year’s conference in Orlando, Florida! My critique partner and I leave on Wednesday at the butt-crack of dawn. (Speaking of, has anyone ever seen the actual butt-crack of dawn? No?)

I wonder if it looks something like this:

Heh. Anyway, we leave at 6:30am which means leaving the house at some God-awful-hour before 4am. Urrrggghhh. (By the by, that’s the exact sound I’ll be making as I wipe the drool off my pillow come Wednesday.)

As tedious as all the tasks are to get to Orlando, once we land we’re heading right to a Literacy Autographing where the best of the bests will be ready to battle illiteracy with their trusty pens. From there on out, I’m going to be a sponge, soaking up as much information on craft and publishing as I can.

Imagine me a little like this:

Only I hope I won’t be that boring. Maybe after I recoup from jetlag I’ll have a little more personality. I’ll probably look like this:

Oh, this is too much fun. Okay, okay, this’ll be me as I run into Nora Roberts, J.R. Ward, Christine Feehan, Allison Brennan, and on and on:

Seriously, though, what better way to learn what it takes to become published than from the experts who are? I’m going there to learn…and of course network. I hope to meet a few editors face to face. And I’ll be meeting my agent for the first time! Woohoo!

To sum it all up, if you’re going to Orlando and want to find me, this is what you should look for:

I really will be floating on air.

Found this passage graffitied on a park bench:

It reads:

Jeremiah 29:11-13
11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.

Of all the things I’ve seen written on park benches, this one had me stunned down to my shoes. Totally unexpected.

And after the very polite* conversation I had with Frontier Airlines about transferring my flight to Nashville due to the flooding, I needed this. Jeremiah was right…I don’t know the plans ahead of me. All I can do is leave things up to Him, deal with what I have on my plate and have faith that things will work themselves out the way they were meant to.

Hope your day brings you something just as unexpected.

*By polite conversation of course I mean they slapped a smile on their face while charging me $100 cancellation fee. And I responded as politely as I could…by telling them how sub par their company was in customer service compared to their partner airlines and how I’d never fly with them again.