Back from conference

I got back Sunday night from conference but I'm only just managing to get my shizz together. Naturally I forgot to take my camera with me so I have absolutely no photos to show you but thankfully my fellow writers aren't quite so dumb and if you want to go over to Erica Hayes' blog then you can check out some of her snaps. Erica was just one of the totally awesome people I got to meet and her debut book is out in October so expect to hear more about her soon.

Some of the highlights of the conference was getting to see my cp Christina Phillips (and Sara Hantz, though, since we live about fifteen minutes away from each other, I do tend to see and talk to her quite a bit. Okay, a lot according to her husband!!!!!). Anyway, as well as getting to hang with Christina and Sara, the workshops this year were amazing. Mary Jo Putney is a fabulous speaker and she has such a wonderful self-depreciating sense of humor, combined with loads of publishing wisdom that I literally hung off her every word.

I also loved the two workshops that Nalini Singh did though despite everyone's best efforts she still wouldn't comment on when we can expect a Hawke book, which between you and me was a tad annoying since I'm an Aries and we don't really do patience!!!!!

Another favorite workshop was by Fiona Brand who writes romances for Desire and romantic suspense for Mira. Anyway, she gave me the light bulb moment of the conference when she talked about how all characters needing a core fear. As it turned out, all my characters have had one (phew) but I'd just never taken the time to identify it or really rub the salt in quite as much as I could've done. My current heroine Sophie Campbell isn't too thrilled about the prospect, let me tell you!

As for the workshop that Sara and I did, well naturally we were fabulous with the way we dazzled and amazed everyone. Okay, not really, but we did use a lot of lollipops and chocolate Fredo Frogs as a bribery, which is really pretty much the same thing. Anyway, it was lots of fun convincing everyone how crazy it was to take the time to finish a book and then not bother to send it out. So hopefully some editors and agents are getting bombarded by Kiwi and Aussie manuscripts as I type this!!!!

There was of course so much more but now that the honeymoon period of my new contract is over, it's starting to occur to me that I actually have to write the books - eeeeeppp. Thankfully I found a lovely detailed chapter breakdown that I don't even recall writing, and I think this is going to help a lot. I also have quite a few guest zombie blog posts to write. I think it's because Halloween is coming up and the ghouls are getting ready to come out to play, but whatever the reason, I always like talking about zombies so it should be fun.

What's everyone else been up to? Any news, gossip, good blog sites I should know about it? Details please! Retweet this button on every post blogger