St. Louis, Naked Men and Flogging

I recently came back from the RT Convention in St. Louis, where my book, IN ICE, had been nominated for the Best Erotic Romance of 2004. Sadly, I didn't win (Angela Knight did for one of her many great books), but boy was it a wild ride!

I got in on Sunday, taking a plane up from the Big Easy, where I'd been enjoying some fabu people-watching at Jazz Fest. There might be no better place on Earth for collecting ideas for other planet populations then Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. Needless to say, all this research had tired me out.

Monday I tooled around with some other authors, taking in the sights. We went up to the top of the Gateway to the West in an egg-shaped capsule that reminded me of this time I got stuck with about 20 people in an elevator on choir tour in high school. Luckily, no one had claustrophobia and ended up in a raving heap on the floor like they did back in the day, which meant the ride up and back was uneventful, if a tad strange. The little room at the top of the arch sways. A lot. Up to three feet in either direction, according to the helpful park ranger who was up there with us. That had me lining up a bit early to go down and wishing I hadn't eaten all that saltwater taffy in the museum while we were waiting.

By Tuesday, I'd recovered somewhat from New Orleans to start really enjoying the folks trickling in to the RT Convention. It was great to see my fellow authors from Liquid Silver, meet some Red Sage folks, and hang with my long distance critique buds, Jennifer Skully, TL
Schaefer, and Dee S. Knight. By Wednesday, things were in full swing -- all my goodies on the goodie table were swiped fast, my talk on promotion went well, and I only stuck my foot in my mouth once when I told another finalist we all knew who won for each of the categories. Turns out she was the only one of us who hadn't read the RT issue for June that came in her welcome bag. Oops.

What I really enjoy at RT is that folks let themselves go hog wild. A little heavy petting at the bar (Karen Monroe took a picture, to memorialize it forever for us - I'll see if I can get a copy if you're interested), a little flogging, some half-naked men here and there, someone's body guard rolling around on the floor with a couple authors. The sights and sounds of RT are many and varied. I even heard one reader tell an author, "What I love about your books is how realistic they are. When the heroine goes to the bathroom on page 68 - that was just amazing." Another author I’d never heard of before told the hotel staff who was trying to assist her, "Do you know who I am?! I'm XX, a world famous author!" Good times and great laughs are there to be had by all!

Now I don't want any of you to get the wrong impression and go to RT next year, then email me when you have a bad time. RT is what you make of it. You will laugh only if you can see the humor. Otherwise, you will find yourself telling someone like me, "I'll never come back to this. It's sickening." Hmmm... well, I had fun and I'll have fun next year most likely too. I'll definitely be having fun in two years, because I've never been to Hawaii and what better excuse is there to go than this?

So what if the food is bad (although this year I thought it was pretty good), or the hotel rooms were broken into, or the guy who left books on your pillow accidentally didn't see you sleeping there and dropped them on your head, there is fun to be had, I'm telling you. Lay aside that little angel on your shoulder that tells you the difference between what's right and what's wrong and step onto the wild side. When you get there, look me up -- I'll be the one in the vampire outfit, scarfing chocolate and swilling Miller Lite in the bar, wondering why all those cover models don't use more conditioner on their split ends.