Reno - Day 2

Well, I made it! Yeehaw! After missing the hotel shuttle last night, I called my critique partner and basically begged until she found someone sober enough to come pick me up at the airport. But I’m here at the Reno Hilton, rarin’ to go.

Short Rant On Sharing A Bed:

I’ve decided I can’t share a bed with someone who is not my husband. My roommate slept last night in kind of in a V, so her fanny rubbed on my body off and on all night. Not good. Not good at all. There is something about another person in the bed, the feeling of never being able to fully relax, just in case you do something bad while you’re asleep. Or more importantly, SHE might do something bad while I'm sleep. (Just kidding Liz - heh) I’m not sure what either of us might do that I should be on guard for, but I’m sleeping with one eye open none the less.

I think it's the trauma from my first roommate I had in NYC for this same conference back in 2003. She basically cuddled into me every night, tucking her hand around my stomach. No. No, no, NO!!! That just won't do. The trauma has made me a super-light sleeper.

Finally, around 5:30 or so in the morning, I pulled out Rebecca York’s latest, Crimson Moon, and finished that up since I wasn't sleeping anyway. Good book. I'll have to blog about it some time.

Back to the story:

Today I hung around with Arianna Hart. We figured we’d get some quality time in with each other before the madness began. Over sushi, we yapped about her latest book, Honor Bound, and generally gossiped about everything and everyone until some folks sat down close to us that we knew. Gossip is only fun if you don't get caught, so we moved on. Oh - thanks for lunch Ari!!

The new Passionate Ink spicy romance writers group met in the afternoon for drinks and a social. Thanks to Sylvia Day, Shelley Bradley, and the rest of the crew for working so hard to put this group together! Writers of Spicy Romance Unite!! (I just wrote "Untie" by accident - hee hee).

I ate dinner with Angela Knight, her husband, and Red Sage editor Judith Pich. Thanks to Judith for buying us a fabulous dinner at the Hilton steak house. The food was to die for. We spent over three hours talking about the class we were giving on Friday on writing novellas.

This class is totally going to rock! It’s all about the mistakes Judith consistently sees when she reads over submissions and how as writers Angela and I try to keep those mistakes from happening. The conversation at dinner was fascinating. I know that makes me sound like a total geek, but it was. I’m going to blog just about this later in the week, but I think what totally had my attention was the passion to which the three of us feel about writing and reading short erotic romance.

There is a trick to writing short, one that a lot of authors never master. I think it has to do with understanding how to condense your romantic and external plot arcs, keeping your conflict manageable, and limiting your cast of characters.

Further cool stuff I found out:

* Red Sage is going to start giving out $1,000 advances - hoo-boy!
* Angela's next Red Sage novella (in Vol. 14, which also contains my novella, NIGHT HEAT) will have not one, but TWO heroes.
* Red Sage is going to put out six anthologies next year.
* Angela and her husband have a really cool relationship - he's a total sweetie and takes a huge interest in her work!
* Red Sage has joined the Ingrams book distribution network. That will mean - ta da! - Barnes and Noble baby!!

Finally finishing up, I went to meet my friends, but found that they were all in bed. Losers. It was only 11:30pm. The night was young. With a heavy heart, I trudged to my room. Tomorrow I have one heck of a day planned, so I might as well get a good night’s sleep -- or as good as I can get with my roommate's fanny rubbing on me.