Romance Writers of America — San Antonio

I arrived here last night, exhausted after my 26 hour journey -- staggered in to my hotel feeling like a limp rag, and hey, the hotel was overbooked, so I was given an upgrade — a lovely room with a balcony that looked out on this view.

It looks down on the San Antonio Riverwalk, which is a brilliant conception and makes for a lovely focus of the city. That's part of it below.

 Boats filled with tourists float by on a regular basis -- you can see some of them in the pic below. I didn't take a tour — I wanted to walk and straighten out the kinks from sitting a plane for so long and try to reduce the effects of jet-lag by resetting my body clock with exercise in the sun.

This is the same view from my balcony at night. Gorgeous, isn't it? I feel very lucky at the moment.

So I'm off to bed now, though I don't feel the slightest bit tired. It's 1 am here, but despite all the walking in the sun, my body still thinks it's on Australian time, which is mid-afternoon.

Oh well, let's hope I'm not a complete zombie in the morning.

My RITA pin

Look what's just arrived in the post. Isn't she pretty?

I'm so happy to have her.

I can't stop smiling.

More Paper Earrings

Several times I've made paper earrings from my book covers, for me, and also for a few of my friends. Book award time coming up, I had a request from another friend for earrings made from the cover of her award-nominated book. So I made them.

I put them on FB and it provoked interest from a couple of other friends. So here are some more - the covers and the earrings. Kelly Hunter's RBY final What The Bride Didn't Know — a wonderful book— and her two books for Tule Publishing, both of which I loved — and they had such pretty covers I had to make them into earrings, too.

And BTW the blue bikini one —The Honeymoon Trap—is on special for the next few days at 99c and it's fabulous - set at a gaming convention and so sexy and funny.

Can you match the earrings with the covers?

And Trish Morey's RBY finalist book - A Price Worth Paying. I couldn't decide which cover to use, so I made both.

I'd already made some tiny books of my own RITA nominated Autumn Bride cover for last year's conference, so that'll do for me. Unless I get inspired again tonight — I make things in front of the TV when I'm relaxing.

But I did make some tiny earrings out of some leftover Japanese paper and I think they look pretty gorgeous, don't you?

Getting the RITA news

Last Thursday I got the news that my book, The Autumn Bride was a finalist in the Romance Writers of America's RITA Award. Usually RITA finalists get a phone call telling them they made the final cut.

But I was away from home, in Queensland, on my annual writers retreat with eight other writers, and not near my phone. This is where we go. (Yes, it's a tough life, but someone's got to do it.)

We each have our own rooms so we can work undisturbed. Mornings are for quiet writing time, then we meet for lunch, and a writing-related discussion. After lunch, we continue writing — we're all multi-published writers and we all have deadlines. In the evening, we either buy our dinner and bring it back for a working dinner, or we go out to a restaurant.

On the Wednesday night we'd gone out for a night of pure socialization — one of the group had to leave early next morning, so after an evening workshop we went to the local surf club for a meal and some live jazz. Followed by a few more drinks back at the hotel. Late night.

So Thursday morning at 7.30 am (crack of dawn!) I was still in a really deep sleep. Persistent banging on my door. I stumbled to open it and stared blearily out. Three of my friends stood there in wet swimsuits and towels. I blinked, still half asleep. They started leaping up and down, grinning and babbling about something.

I fixated on the leaping. My friends are not normally leapers. Frogs, I remember thinking. It's something to do with frogs. It's a charade or something maybe. Did we talk about frogs last night?

So busy was I trying to work out the significance of the frog theme that it took me a few moments to hear that they were telling me I'd finalled in the RITA.

It hadn't been on my radar at all. I had no idea of the date.
They'd been so kind as to let me sleep while they'd gone for their 6.30 am swim.

Later I checked my email and there was a lovely email from RWA President Terry McLaughlin.

So I didn't get a call, but I had frogs and an email instead.

 And a wet patch on the front of my nightie, from all the hugging.

Pretty special, I think.

I had a lovely day — almost the whole day I was answering emails and messages on FB and twitter about the RITA. It was like a party. And of course, that night we went out again and celebrated.

So thank you to everyone for the warm wishes. And the frogs.

The full list of the RITA finalists is here.

Look what just arrived on my doorstep.

I'm smiling.

 

I remember when they gave out the first RITA finalist pins — it was at the 2000 (I think) conference in Washington, and it was my first RWA conference, and my first book was a RITA finalist.

The pins were new and it was a surprise for everyone when, as we registered they gave them out. They gave pins retrospectively as well, and some people were pinning on three, four, twelve or more and everyone was grinning and exclaiming over them with delight.  It was SUCH a buzz, and all through the conference it looked like little silver ladies were dancing across people's chests.

This is my fourth RITA finalist pin and the buzz doesn't get any less. It's a thrill every time, and the arrival of this beautiful little silver lady on my doorstep just made my day/week/month.