Back Home Again

So, I'm back from the Romantic Times Convention. A good time was defintely had by me. And I think by all I was around as well.

At the moment, my house is a complete mess. It's filled with the remnants of RT- all the leftover stuff from my Bunco Bash (which I'm happy to say was a complete success!) as well as an assortment of this and that and a huge bag of dirty laundry. Today is catch up day. I'm going to put everything away, go to the grocery store and do some revisions on my proposal for Bunco Babes Back in Action so that I can send them off to my lovely agent this week.

As for my RT adventures, I'm going to have them dole them out bit by bit, because really, the whole experience was so... big that I can't blog about it in just one day. So here goes...

RT Day One- Tuesday (before the conference even begins...)
Having met up with Mel the evening before, caught up on our talking, discovered that NO you really can't get internet in your hotel room despite Wyndham personnel assuring me that you can, I get a decent night's sleep. Mel takes off to spend the day with an old high school chum and I go off to explore my surroundings. I get to the convention center and it's in full chaos mode. Jo Carol, the RT conference coordinator is orchestrating a room full of women who are stuffing bags full of various goodies- T-shirts, pens, cups, bookmarks, etc... This is all making me very nervous. Did I bring enough promotional items? Probably not...

I introduce myself to Jo Carol. Despite the fact that she's extremely busy, she is very gracious and offers to take me to her office so she can get me a list of the number of people who have RSVP'd to my party as well as provide me a schematic of the room. While waiting for Jo Carol I meet Pat Simmons (another extremely gracious lady) who besides being an author, apparently acts as a media liaison for RT. Her exact role confuses me, but she's looking for authors to do a TV promo in the morning. I practically jump up and down. But she's looking for an angle. She wants to present an international theme to the media. One author standing next to me has come from Egypt. The other one from Canada. "Where are you from?" she asks me. "Um, north Florida," I say brightly. This does not impress Pat. "By way of Cuba," I offer. Nope. Doesn't impress her either. "Do you have a costume?" she asks. I can barely shake my head no. "Well, show up anyway," she says cheerfully.

I vow not to let Pat down. I WILL get on TV, damn it. No matter what.

So I get in my car and lo and behold, there's a costume shop across the street! Imagine that. These people have no idea there's a virtual gold mine of costume lovin' customers just a few hundred yards away. I run inside and ask the sales clerk if she has any fuzzy dice hats. Now, of course I have access to the most perfect fuzzy dice hat in the world. But where is it? Yep, you guessed. It's in Tallahassee, Florida. Why didn't I bring it? No matter. Can't cry about spilled milk now. The sales clerk frowns at me. She has no fuzzy dice hats.

I glance around the shop. There's this big pink fuzzy looking thing hanging from the ceiling. My eyes bug out. "I'll take the pimp hat!"

"Pimp hat?" she responds weakly.

"Yep, the pimp hat," I say.

She gets a ladder and pulls it down and then starts to laugh. "You're right," she says, pointing to the sales label on the hat. "It says 'pimp hat'.

I nod. I know a pimp hat when I see one. So I buy it. Along with these very cool looking zebra print sunglasses. I'm all set now for my morning TV slot. After all, what can upstage my pimp hat?

I'll tell you what can upstage my pimp hat. A singing mermaid and 3 pirates. Yep. The following morning I walk into the welcome breakfast where a crowded room is all staring at a woman in mermaid costume singing soprano. The pirates surrounding her are apparently her entourage. I giggle and simultaneously curse myself. My camera is back in my hotel room. No one is going to believe this.

After breakfast, I run to the lobby to meet Pat and the media. There must be at least 2 dozen other authors, most in costume. But no one has a pimp hat. Ha! So we all file into a room, where to my horror, I discover the singing mermaid and her pirate entourage. They too, are going to be on TV. So the media people want the mermaid splayed across this table, her pirate-lovers around her, and the rest of us are to file in to fill in the picture.

If you watch closely enough, you'll get a split second shot of my pimp hat somewhere in the back of the group shot. I'm somewhere underneath that hat. Click on Video: RT Booklovers Convention.

http://www.cfnews13.com/Entertainment/HeyJohn/2009/4/23/romantic_times_booklovers_convention.html