Up early this morning, after a late night last night. First thing was breakfast with several friends, Sandra Chastain, Anne Howard White, Doreen Graham and some new friends as well.

Then off to the first workshop to hear Nina Bruhns, aka Nikita Black, talk about her journey as a best seller in traditional, e-pub, self-pub, digital and now indie publishing. Her workshop was called "Indie is the new Black: A Digital Publishing Pioneer Shares Over a Decade of Experience." Nina did not hold back, she told it all and answered all questions to the best of her knowledge. Great information, Nina is a spectacular author and great speaker. She is also a fellow member of Kiss of Death, got to get my little plug in here for KOD.

Next I had to change gears, settle my nerves and focus for my pitch to the Kensington editor. Pitch went well, got a nibble on the WIP.

Took me a few minutes to calm down after revving up for the pitch, but once my breathing returned to normal I went into the last half of Haywood Smith's "How to Write Comedy" workshop. Haywood is a scream and her books are not to be missed. If you love great southern writing and witty humor Haywood is your girl.

Lunch again with great friends and met new ones. Even found one blogger who actually follows Scarlet on Facebook! Imagine that, we were talking over lunch and suddenly she said, hey wait, I think I follow you. Sure enough, she remember reading about the release of "5 Easy Lessons to Improve Your Child's Reading." Amazing! This wonderful new friend has a wonderful blog that you simply must check out! Ravishing Romances is the blog and Musing Sallie is the blogger. Be sure to check her out. www.RavishingRomances.com.

Junkyard Forensics was the next workshop I attended. Sheryl McCollum gave hands on demonstrations of how to take latent finger prints and use super glue to make them show up as if by magic. I am speechless this workshop was so good. Heheheh we took a field trip with a black light. Ask me where we went.

Finally, I attended Julia Quinn's Dialogue Workshop and enjoyed every minute. She does not hate all adverbs. Thank you Julia. As MM will tell you, I am quite found of my adverbs. The structure for creating all the taglines, action tags, emotion tag and how to place action tags was great information for future reference.

The cash bar and cocktail party is going now, and Scarlet absolutely must make an appearance! TTFN

In approximately ten days, two thousand romance writers will travel to Orlando, Florida for the RWA National convention in hopes of learning more about the craft and industry, networking, and or gaining an editor or agent’s attention. Many seasoned authors have blogged or added posts on their websites advising first time attendees of what to expect at the huge event, what to wear and what they need to bring, such as business cards, but I’ve yet seen a post telling them about the most important element--confidence.

Confidence is defined as the quality or state of being certain. As you walk among the other attendees, be certain that you are a writer too, even if you’ve yet to publish. If you have put words to page, you are a writer. If you have a burning desire to learn the craft, you are a writer.

Hold your head high. Be a sponge and soak up all the knowledge you can. The conference has an amazing list of speakers from which you will learn tons. Focus on workshops that target your weaknesses and remember the only question that is stupid is the one not asked.

Don’t be afraid to talk to people, including editors and agents. They’re people too and they like to talk about other things besides books, which is their work. We all know there is more to life than work. Make a connection.

Smile. Be yourself. I’m sure you already have a boat load of friends. Attending a conference is an opportunity to make more. I’m truly grateful for the hundreds of friends RWA has provided me.

Have fun. Yes, attending a conference is considered work, it's tax deductable, but who says work can’t be fun.

Now repeat after me. I AM A WRITER who can learn more about my craft. I AM A WRITER who always has room for another friend. I AM A WRITER who will pitch with confidence!

HAVE FUN,
AJ

This summer I had the pleasure of spending a day with the FBI at Quantico. It was easily one of the most exciting things I have ever done. You see, I write romantic suspense and this was right up my alley! We were allowed to go to the firing range and the agents showed us how to shoot. That's right we were allowed to shoot real guns. What type guns you ask? What kind of guns do you think they hauled out for a bunch of romance writers? Nope, your wrong, they knew we were serious about our work and they were proud to show off theirs. We were instructed on the proper way to shoot a Glock, a shotgun, a Tommy Gun and a modern machine gun the numbers of which escapes me at the moment. Holding an actual Tommy Gun and being allowed to shoot it was a thrill! The agent brought these guns out of retirement just so we could shoot them. For a moment I could feel Elliot Ness standing beside me as I held the gun and fired it toward the target. How was I able to experience this amazing day? It was easy, I'm a member of KOD, that's Kiss of Death, RWA's Mystery and Suspense Online chapter and this was a part of their pre-conference tour at RWA National this year! Did you go? Are you a member of KOD? If you aren't gosh, just look what your missing! If you were there, please comment to tell us what you enjoyed most about the pre-conference tour! If you'd like more info on KOD click on the title above, it has a link!