Yumminess — Blog

RomCon 2012 is a reader-focused romance convention held every year in Denver, and this is my first time attending (yay!). It doesn’t officially start until tomorrow, but I flew into Denver this morning to acclimate and hang out with my (very pregnant) best friend. I also ran into my beloved fellow 2011 Golden Heart finalist Maire Claremont (she won the historical category!) and her partner in crime Delilah Marvelle, who is hosting the Chocolate Mangasm party on Saturday - it’s supposed to be 100 degrees this weekend, so things could get messy. But I digress. Without further ado…Five-ish Thoughts on RomCon Day 0

1) Conference centers should maybe think about what events are booked at the same time. RomCon doesn’t officially start until tomorrow, and maybe this other event ends today, but right now there’s a bizarre overlap between the pre-RomCon events and a conference for Korean Christians. Our giveaway bags have all sorts of inappropriate things; their giveaway room has religious tracts in Korean. And while I was watching the cover model photo shoot (more on that below), the rousing sounds of piano hymns on their side came through the movable wall while the photographer on our side ordered people to take clothes off, flex abs, look fierce, etc. Awkwardest photo shoot ever!

2) Male cover models do a lot of push-ups. I watched one guy casually hold a girl in his arms for five or ten minutes (yum), take a break, and then start doing push-ups. Apparently on long shoots they have to do push-ups to keep the blood flowing so their arms are as defined as possible. I didn’t question the physics of this, since I was too busy enjoying the show, but the amount of work these models put into staying defined and photo-ready is incredible.

3) Cover models aren’t just defined - they’re dehydrated. One model walked into the shoot saying that he couldn’t wait to be done so he could drink water again. They cut back on fluids to be as lean and tight as possible. I heard a rumor from one of them that some of them do it by drinking alcohol the night before, but I think as you get older, drinking the night before is a recipe for a puffy face and a vertigo-inducing hangover. Er, not that I have any experience with that. Again, this job is not for the faint of heart.

4) People give you funny looks if your carry-on sized bag weighs 50lbs. I checked a roll-aboard sized bag filled with excerpt booklets to give out at RomCon, and it weighed in at 49.6lbs. It wasn’t overweight, but they tagged it ‘heavy’ anyway to warn the poor baggage handlers that this bag felt like a pile of rocks rather than clothes for an easy weekend getaway. By the way, if you want an excerpt booklet, find me at RomCon or RWA Nationals or email me your mailing address (mailto:dearsara@sararamsey.com) - we’ve got Regency excerpts from Sabrina Jeffries’s Christmas novella, as well as Darcy Burke, Leigh LaValle, Heather Snow, Erin Knightley, and Valerie Bowman.

5) San Francisco has made me weak. I grew up in Iowa, but now I can only tolerate a narrow band of temperatures between 55 and 70 degrees. If the excitement of hanging out with a bunch of romance readers and writers all weekend doesn’t kill me, the heat or the desiccating lack of humidity might. I’ll be the mummified body over by the bar.

That’s it for the unofficial day before RomCon! If I don’t pass out from dehydration or exhaustion (which is actually dehydration/exhaustion, not code for an overdose like the Hollywood starlets use), I’ll post a recap of Day 1 tomorrow!