Bunco Babes Bash!

So... Thursday at RT finally rolls around, and it's time for my Bunco Babes Bash. It's the main reason I'm here at the Romantic Times Convention and I've been nervously preparing for weeks now. Will anyone come? And if they do come, will they learn how to play Bunco in just a few minutes? And will they like it?

There was no need to worry. The whole thing was a smashing success (if I do say so myself!) These ladies (and 1 guy) were fantastic. I'll definitely be doing this again soon.

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

Romantic Times Book Club Convention here I come!

CHAPTER ONE: PREPARATIONS AND GETTING THERE

After spending the weekend putting together little goodie bags, packing (and semi-panicking because I felt totally unprepared for RT, despite the fact that I've known I would be going for at least 6 months), I woke up bright and early Monday morning and set off to my monthly visit with Krystal at Red Hots. Krystal is the lovely chick who does my hair. Normally, I would never wait to get my roots done the day I'm leaving to go on a trip, but Krystal got married last week and was off work for awhile (as in right in the middle of my root touch up cycle). But I toughed it out and got Krytal's first appointment Monday morning on her first day back from her honeymoon.

Roots touched up- check!

While the dye was in my hair she also managed to wax my eyebrows, my upper lip, AND give me a quickie manicure. (I clearly need to learn something from Krystal's time management skills)

Hair from upper lip- Gone!
Bushy eyebrows shaped up- check!
manicure- check!

After my morning at Red Hots, I then detoured to the mail store, where I sent out the last of my ARCS for Bunco Babes Tell All and rush home, ready to get on the road. But then I realize that if I left right away I'd be getting into Orlando at the height of rush hour traffic. I-4 at rush hour is not a place I want to be, so I decided a power nap was in store. This is a firm rule of mine. If the opportunity for a mid-day nap presents itself, I never turn it down. Good thing, too. I needed all my strength just to load up my car. Thank God I have a mini-van. Honestly, I don't know where I would have put all this stuff. Most of it is for my Bunco Babes Bash, but still, if I was flying, I'd be in big trouble (because believe me, I wouldn't have shipped off this stuff to the hotel in time. I know I just wouldn't have).


After an uneventful drive, I get into the Wyndham Convention Center around 8:30. It was perfect timing. No heavy traffic on I-4. The tourists, however, are a different story. There's plenty of them crawling along the sidewalks of International Drive, so I take extra precautions and slow down. Because running someone over would be the sure way to ruin my first RT trip. You know?

Orlando tourists safe from Maria's car- check!

The convention center is huge. It could be Orlando's next theme park. You need a golf cart just to get to your room. Luckily, I have my own car. So the woman at the desk gives me a map to find my way around. I get lost twice (yes, twice) just trying to find the friggin building that houses my room. In my normal everyday life, I average getting lost at least once a day. And this is in a city I've lived in for 12+ years. So this does not bode well for me already...

I get to my room, where Mel has already put first dibs on the bed by the window, which is fine with me, cuz that means I get the bed closest to the bathroom (he he). We hug and jump around for a bit and marvel that we haven't seen each other since August. Talking daily just doesn't cut it. We vow then that one of us must hit the New York Times and make a mint so that we can afford a beach house retreat.

Vow to hit New Times List- done!

After this, we head to the pool bar and get something to eat, then go back to our room. We're both pretty wiped out (despite my power nap) and it's lights out by midnight.

I suspect the rest of the week won't go that way.

Tomorrow: Meeting the media (I'm determined this will happen, and I'll explain how), and my first club RT.

I'm in LOVE

Yesterday, I thought a girl's best friend was her vibrator. Lest you think I came up with that line, let me tell you I didn't. It's the fist line of Mel Francis's fabulous book, SIZE ME UP (which will be published one day because it's simply too damn good not to be). But I digress.


I'm here to tell you that a girl's best friend is not the vibrator but the Cricut. Take a look at that baby below. It slices. It dices. It does just about everything except, well, you know...

Honestly, it's a blast. It cuts out anything you program it to. Or rather, have a pattern for. As you can see above, my dice look perfectly beautiful. The Cricut belongs to my friend Andrea who uses it for everything. Party favors and games, kid's projects, invitations, stationary, bulletin boards, scrap booking... You name it. The Cricut does it.

So when I told her I had to do a backdrop for my promotional space at RT (Romantic Times Book Convention), Andrea volunteered to help me out. Think of those big background posters you did for your 8th grade science project. Only this one involves dice and romance novels.

Here's the finished product below. I think it turned out fabulous! I think in total, I ended up cutting out at least a hundred dice. Because you never know when you'll need some cardboard dice. Right?