RWA 2010 Day 1: Nora, Nora, Nora

The conference officially kicked off today with the Annual General Meeting of RWA, which I skipped in a desperate attempt to catch up on sleep. Unfortunately, several hundred/thousand other people had the same idea, and they apparently ended the meeting after only fifteen minutes because they didn't have quorum to conduct official business. I feel like a slacker/user for not doing my civic duty -- but then again, I'm pleased that I slept eight hours last night, so clearly my guilt doesn't run very deep.

I did rouse myself in time for lunch (shocking achievement, I know), which consisted of a strange green (pesto?) encrusted chicken and a fantastic keynote speech from Nora Roberts. Nora is the acknowledged Queen of Romance in RWA land, since she has written 150+ books and done so much to advance the cause of romance writing in America. She has a smoker's voice and a no-nonsense approach to life; she doesn't hesitate to tell people that they're being whiners, and the main message of her speech is that writing has always been hard, that publishing is no easier or harder than it ever was, and that you can either shut up and write, or waste your energy wishing that things were different. Her speech made me want to start smoking a pack a day while writing nonstop, and while I think I'll forsake the cigarettes (I would love to have that voice, but I don't even know if she smokes, and I'm too much of a clotheshorse to accept the smelly consequences), I left feeling very inspired.

I spent the rest of the afternoon attending workshops; first off was the PRO retreat, for authors who have finished a manuscript but are not yet published, where there were some discussions of craft and agent hunting. I skipped the end to attend Ethan Ellenberg's talk on what happens after publication, and he discussed a lot of the details about print runs, returns, marketing, etc. I'm in this strange middle area where a lot of the workshops don't feel like they apply to me -- I don't need the agent or query workshops since I already have an agent, but I'm not published and so am not ready for some of the post-publication workshops.

And so, my focus really needs to be on writing my book, not distracting myself with news of the industry, thoughts about marketing, or endless trawling on Wikipedia. I'm spending some quality time tonight and tomorrow morning working on my next manuscript, since Madeleine and Ferguson are languishing in the middle of their first sexy times and are likely as desperate to climax and move on to the next part as I am (that implies that I'm desperate to climax too, but you get the idea). I still had a good time tonight, as I attended the Golden Network reception, where we celebrated the new Golden Heart finalists and the Golden Heart finalists from past years who have sold their work. But I'm excited to spend some time writing; I haven't written since Sunday, which is too long.

Check back tomorrow for my recap of Day 2: if nothing else, I'm having lunch with Eloisa James, which should be noteworthy ;)