RWAus12 – The Pantomime

I think I said ‘the musical’ last year so this year it’s a pantomime. Sorry, I’m not going to sing or dance. That would be far too much. But I shall post photos instead. Had the bestest time evah on the Gold Coast for the Romance Writers of Australia conference. My third year and this time I had a bright shiny (okay so it was blue and not shiny) first sale ribbon to stick on my conference badge!  As you can see I look rather tired – I blame Rachel Johns and Pink Ladies at the cocktail party the night before… Anyway, the conference was fabulous. Had a great time catching up with the lovely Rach and Bec, meeting again fabulous Madeline Ash, Helen Lacey, and Leah Ashton. Saying hi to fellow Entangled peep, Annie Seaton. Also meeting for the first time Fiona Marsden (sharing our love for Maisey Yates’ tortured heroes) and Melissa Smith.

The workshops too were interesting, with Eloisa James giving a very inspiring keynote speech about putting your emotion in your writing.

One thing especially stood out this year and that was the sense that there were a lot more options for unpublished authors than there ever has been. Editors were actively selling their publishing houses to authors in a way I haven’t seen before which was actually very exciting and I think contributed a lot to the positive feeling of the conference.

What else happened? Well lots. I lost my phone twice. Yes, twice. I know, to paraphrase Oscar Wilde, once is a tragedy, twice starts to look like carelessness (or stupidity depending on your pick).  I went to the theme parks and screamed on the rollercoaster (it was a very small rollercoaster and my six year old did not scream). Dr Jax dragged me along to a timeshare presentation purely so he could get cheap tickets to Seaworld which meant I was almost late to my agent pitch appointment. Luckily I made it on time and got a full request for Mr Sheikypants from said agent. Dr Jax was forgiven…

And now I have to gear up for the RWNZ conference this weekend, where I get to pitch to an M&B editor but since they already have Monseiur Sheikh, I have no idea what I’m going to say. I guess ‘hi’ would be a good start. 🙂

Sorry if I’ve left anyone out of my shoutouts. Suffice to say that I really enjoyed meeting and talking to everyone at the conference and can’t wait till Perth next year!!