I feel like a bard, telling a story... The good news is I do know the end, so hopefully, I'll get to tell it... and won't forget too much in between LOL.
Day 5
Wednesday, I woke up quite early and got ready for the Opening Session. I was the only one attending it as all others were not interested and elected to sleep in LOL. Luckily, the people that sat with me were very nice :) The Opening Session is basically a Q&A session with guest authors and it discusses a bit of everything: their careers, how they got started, best moments, the craft, etc. The three speakers this year were
Steve Berry,
Diana Gabaldon and
Tess Gerritsen and the moderator was this year's RWA president,
Dorian Kelly.
I really enjoyed this type of Q&A because it's fun. You learn a lot of tidbits that you would otherwise never find out. For example:
The Outlander was Ms Gabaldon's practice novel; Jane Rizzoli, Ms Gerritsen's main character in her current series
Rizzoli & Isles, was supposed to die - but she wouldn't LOL, and it took Mr Berry 85 rejection letters and 12 years of writing to get published. Also, I'm stating the obvious here, but these authors have a way with words LOL. As a result, the whole session was very interesting, but also humorous :) All in all, I'm really happy that I attended the Opening Session and I might read Ms Gerritsen's Rizzoli & Isles series. In any case, I've just finished watching the TV show :)
Oh by the way, Ms Gabaldon's advice to write: 1) Read, 2) Write and 3) Don't Stop :)
After the Opening Session, I went back to the Goodie room to take another look :) After this if I'm not wrong, I ran into Wendy and Kristie in front of Starbucks and we stood there chatting till it was time to go to the Keynote Luncheon :) Well Wendy and I went to the Luncheon where we were joined by Rosie and Lisabea, while Kristie went to the Harlequin Lunch to which she's been invited... lucky gal LOL. The Keynote author was
Madeline Hunter. Unfortunately, there was a problem with the speaker on our side of the ballroom :( By the time someone had the bright idea to turn on the speaker, there were people at a table not far from ours that kept talking. We have to thank Rosie who had the nerves to walk up to them and tell them to be quiet!! Yay Rosie!! She's awesome and gutsy! LOL. However, by that time, it was a bit too late - I've missed most of Ms Hunter's speech and just couldn't focus on it anymore :( Booo. Still, I'm sure it was good and there were quite a few laughs in the room :)
By the way, if you were wondering, we had chicken for lunch LOL.
After lunch, we stopped once again at the Goodie Room LOL. Rosie picked up some trading cards for a friend... and I just picked up a few more book covers :P Then, it was time for us to attend some workshops. Now, workshops at RWA are more professional than the ones at RT and are focused on every aspect of becoming an author - career, publishing, craft, etc. I prefer workshops where authors just talk, a bit more like the Opening Session or Keynote Luncheon... than giving advice. So my plan was to choose workshops with authors that I liked/enjoyed... but even then. In the end, Rosie and I opted to go to Avon spotlight. Basically, a publisher spotlight is a session during which editors let the members know what they're looking for and also give a small preview of what books are coming. Two words that were heard over and over during the spotlight was Avon Impulse, Avon's ebook imprint. I think it's going to be interesting to see how it develops :) After the Avon spotlight, we stayed for the Carina Press spotlight. Carina Press spotlight was very focused on what type of manuscripts they were looking for and how the line is developing.
Angela James was the speaker and she did a really great, great job :) Very impressive.
The last event of the conference for Wednesday that I attended was the Harlequin Book Blogger Tea. There was a nice little buffet with tea and finger food and the Harlequin team had prepare headdress for everyone :) The goal of the event was establishing contact between the Harlequin digital team and bloggers :)
For dinner, it was Rosie, Lisabea, K.A. Mitchell and her wife and me. We were going to go to the same Thai restaurant that Lisabea had gone with her husband for lunch... but couldn't find it ^_^; Since we were on Restaurant Road, let just say that we had plenty of choices and we ended up at a Chilean restaurant. The food was good, the ambiance as well and most enjoyable was the company :) The funniest is that by 8pm, there were nobody left in the restaurant except for another table LOL. Guess it's expected given that's the time when most Broadway shows start. After eating, we walked in Times Square to digest and made our way to the M&M store. Then, we went back to the hotel - I secretly wanted to check on my sister LOL. My sister has spent the day studying because she had a quiz for her online class. After checking up on her, I went to join everyone at the bar and that night, I got to meet Sarah who is better known - or at least by me - as
Monkey Bear (although it took me a while to figure LOL).
For dinner, it was Rosie, Lisabea, K.A. Mitchell and her wife and me. We were going to go to the same Thai restaurant that Lisabea had gone with her husband for lunch... but couldn't find it ^_^; Since we were on Restaurant Road, let just say that we had plenty of choices and we ended up at a Chilean restaurant. The food was good, the ambiance as well and most enjoyable was the company :) The funniest is that by 8pm, there were nobody left in the restaurant except for another table LOL. Guess it's expected given that's the time when most Broadway shows start. After eating, we walked in Times Square to digest and made our way to the M&M store. Then, we went back to the hotel - I secretly wanted to check on my sister LOL. My sister has spent the day studying because she had a quiz for her online class. After checking up on her, I went to join everyone at the bar and that night, I got to meet Sarah who is better known - or at least by me - as Monkey Bear (although it took me a while to figure LOL).
