saturday

Boy did I not want to get up Saturday morning. :) But I did, ’cause there was an 8:30am panel I wanted to go to–how editors really buy, I think was what it was; I mostly wanted to go to hear Betsy Mitchell talk. There wasn’t anything revalatory, but that was okay, and on my way out I caught up with a woman named Patty whom I’d talked with last year, so we ended up spending an hour talking instead of either of us going to any panels or anything, which proved to be a common theme for me throughout the weekend. I know I went to the speculative fiction panel and had lunch and then went and took a nap, ’cause I was v. sleepy, before going up to the editor-agent pitch sessions at 4pm.

I got there plenty early and ended up chatting quite enthusiastically with the two women sitting on either side of me while we waited, and one of them later told me that it’d really helped her relax and that she’d been much less stressy over her pitch session than she’d expected to be, so that was actually pretty cool. And, since I was there and I had the meeting–I’d essentially put in for a pitch session with Betsy because I really wanted the chance to meet her, not knowing I would accomplish that Friday night–I pitched HEART OF STONE, and she said to have my agent send it to her. *blinks cheerfully* This networking thing is cool!

And *laugh* I went to Margie Lawson’s “Defeat Self-Defeating Behaviors” workshop, not so much because I need positive reinforcement as I’m terribly fond of Margie and wanted to go be supportive. So one of the exercises she had us do was write down the letters of our first names and put adjectives next to them, and then she asked for some volunteers to read them. One person volunteered, then there was deadly silence, so I volunteered, and, er, well. Confident Awesome Terrific Interesting Enthusiastic, or something like that. Even Margie said I didn’t belong in there. :)

You know, that was kind of something that came up with somebody I was talking to on Friday night, too: this idea of people not being good enough. The woman I was talking to was talking about how everybody is always told at some point they’re not good enough, and they internalize that and it haunts them forever. I honestly cannot remember for the life of me ever being told I wasn’t good enough, or that I shouldn’t do something because I wasn’t good at it, or anything to that effect. I mean, I just don’t remember ever being told that. I can’t figure out if I grew up in an *insanely* unusual not just home (I already know that’s pretty much true) but in fact entire environment, or if everyone else is just a little melodramatic.

Wow, getting to be a bumpy ride here. If we all die horribly, remember that I love you. :) Speaking of melodramatic. *laugh*!

God, I just had a really fun weekend all around. I ran into Robin Owens in the elevator on Saturday morning, and since I’d FORGOTTEN to email her and tell her I’d be there, she was very VERY surprised to see me, and I ended up eating with her and her critique group at the banquet Saturday evening, which was really nice. One of the group, Steven… Donnes, I think… has entered the RMFW contest for years and years and finaled for years and years without ever winning, and this year he’d finaled three times, once in mystery and twice in romance, I think, and didn’t win in the mystery category, so he was pretty down, though not surprised.

But he won the romance category, and pretty much the entire table burst into tears. That was fantastic. And Alexis, whom I just utterly adore, won the science fiction/fantasy category, and was *completely* taken aback by winning, and I’d been awfully certain she would (for absolutely no real reason), so I was just smug and thrilled all around. The only downer was that my friend Margie Roland had finaled in both the romance and SF/F categories, and didn’t win. :/ So on the one hand, two big happinesses, but I wish Margie could’ve won too.

Let’s see. I went to the after-hours party again, and spent probably a good hour talking with Ed Bryant, whom I just got along with like a house on fire–we talked some politics, we talked some writing, we talked some stuff about whether or not the small cheesy-looking pink food things on the table were safe to eat (we decided not, although I dared to try one of the four remaining chocolate balls even though we discussed the possibility that they were still there because they were poisoned, and when it proved to be non-fatal, the other two women talking with us dove upon two of the remaining three, and then we had a very entertaining discussion about how someone might take the last one; we thought it would be done seriptitiously, but in fact the woman who took it swooped down on it and fed it to her husband without and seriptitiousness at all. We did, however, have a really good time saying how nice it was to have met him and it was sad he’d be dying so soon now, since we knew that had to be the poisoned one. *laugh*), and eventually someone else stole Ed away and I had more discussions with Patty and someone charming named John whose family is from New Orleans, so that got quite a bit of discussion, and I talked a lot, the whole weekend, about a bed and breakfast in Ireland, and I think half the conference said, “My God! You could run writer’s retreats!” and also, “When can we come over?”, which was pretty cool.

That was an extremely long sentence. 265 words, in fact. Let’s hear it for the power of parenthetical statements. :)

I managed to catch up with Jessie Wulf, who was the RMFW contest coordinator for many years, and who is just the most delightful, charming, supportive woman in the world. We commiserated over ANGLES being rejected by Tor, but she was very, very happy about the sales I *have* had, and she, as many people at that conference do, more or less bodily dragged me over to introduce me to a couple of people–in fact, *I* did that to Alexis, who wasn’t sure she was going to get to meet with Betsy Mitchell, so I dragged Alexis over to meet Betsy to make sure they’d get a chance to talk to one another, and I’m pretty sure they ended up eating together at the banquet, so that worked out. Though she *did* get her meeting with her on Sunday morning, so that worked out too. Still. I was going to give up my appointment with Betsy if Alexis couldn’t get one, because it was icing on the cake for me, and I *really* wanted Alexis to have a chance to talk to her. But! It all worked, so it was good. :)

Oh! And Alexis also told me–last year when I stayed up half the night talking to Novella, I was wearing one of my Harry Mason ear cuffs, and she’d admired it and had said something like that might work for her sister, who has very, very delicate ears and can’t wear earrings at all. So I just impulsively gave Novella the cuff for her sister to wear, and hoped it’d get to her–they’re tiny and really easy to lose. And Alexis told me that she wore it all the time! *beam* I’m really happy it got to her, and that she likes it!

Bathroom break.

*returns* Every time I go into an airplane bathroom I feel like Jo: Have you ever noticed that the mirror is by far the largest object in those tiny airplane restrooms?

Anyway. :)