Wrap-up of RWA 2013 -- Riding the Waves

Me and the Destiny pirate, who was giving out roses
to all the Destiny authors, in celebration of Destiny's
first birthday. Great party! 

The title of this year's Romance Writers of Australia conference, Riding the Waves, was very appropriate for me. I was riding the waves of back spasms and pain killers, neither of which is the most suitable state to be trying to absorb knowledge, network with peers, and meet and greet readers. But I survived! And although I struggled, the conference was far too good to miss out on, and so I soldiered on.*

Unfortunately it meant that I had to abandon my plan to post updates from each day of the conference, as I did last year. So instead I'm going to give you a wrap-up of my highlights. Without further ado:

Friday workshop - Venus on the Half Shell (The Virgin's Journey)
Loved it! The workshop by Kim Hudson was a proper, true workshop -- she had plenty of activities and variety in her presentation to keep a massive roomful of people informed and entertained all day. I enjoyed revisiting the Virgin's Journey and even though I have a terrible habit of buying craft books and never reading them, I am going to make an effort to read Kim's.

A lot of Kim's points really resonated with me, because I tend to have the most sympathy with the female characters I write. And although the virgin's journey isn't necessarily feminine or masculine, in our world (and the romance genre world) the elements of the journey tend to be more related to women. It was also great to revisit some concepts and to spend a little time thinking about my WIP. I wrote down a couple of key points that have gone into my writing this week, so time well spent!

Main conference
So many sessions! I didn't get to everything (unfortunately due to aforementioned illness, some rest breaks were required) and there were often competing sessions where I wanted to go to more than one on at the same time! I do hope we're going to get to a point where all the sessions are recorded for later listening like they do at RWA US.

I was grateful to Alex Adsett for her informative and interesting session on publishing contracts. It could have been a really dry session, but Alex kept it informative and practical and although I know I'll never be an expert, at least I know now some of the key points to look out for when I'm next sent an inch-thick stack of paper covered in legalese. (Aside: I love how now I think of that as a "when" and not an "if". Hopefully I'm not jinxing myself!)

I also very much enjoyed the opening session on Day 2, Survivor: Submission Island, where a panel of agents and publishers were read the opening scenes from various books and asked to hold up signs as to when they would stop reading if it was a submission they'd received. Afterwards, they discussed why they'd made the decisions they had. (Congratulations to the brave people who put forward their work for dissection!)

My main lesson from this session? Publishing is a very, VERY subjective business. If you know your book is good, have some relatively objective outside feedback that it's good (not just your friends and relatives) but you still keep getting rejected? Keep trying. You just haven't found the agent/editor that's right for you.

I also enjoyed the self publishing panel with Cathleen Ross, Nina Bruhns (linking to her Goodreads account because her website appears to have been hacked, agh) and Kandy Shepherd. Interestingly, talking to a friend who attending the RWA US conference, they said that the conference was full of self-publishing sessions, and that they were among the most popular at the conference. This was the only self-publishing session and I wish there had been more, because the content covered was so broad. I could definitely see a need for beginner/intermediate/advanced style sessions that covered the kind of information relevant depending on your progress in the area.

I'm being nice. My friends, of course,
are nautical.

That said, I definitely learned a lot, including how daunting self-publishing can be. Definitely not the magic train to fame and riches that some consider it to be. But also possibly worth a try if you're willing to put in the hard yards. I'm appreciative of all three authors being so honest and candid in sharing their own stories and successes and failures.

Social events

I did have a lovely time at the "Nautical or Nice" cocktail party. I went with "Nice" figuring there'd be plenty of nautical to go around. I'm not sure if the pink hair is really me, but it was fun for a night!

There were certainly plenty of entertaining and wonderful costumes. I do like a bit of dress up. I wasn't going to bother this year, but then I just couldn't help myself. And I thought about what I already had, and that with the addition of some white gloves and a pink wig I could pull off "nice" I just couldn't resist...

Any rumours about me and my sore back dancing to Nutbush City Limits on Saturday night after having consumed significant amounts of champagne are totally and absolutely false and I completely reject such claims.**

ARRA signing

It was my absolute pleasure to participate in my second-ever Australian Romance Readers Association signing. The ARRA signing is open to people beyond conference attendees, and offers the opportunity meet and talk with lots of wonderful romance authors -- and get autographs!

Julia Quinn and Sarah Wendell were by far the most "in demand" from the crowd, but I'm quite pleased to say that I didn't go too shabbily with giving away a few Emmie autographs across the afternoon! Last year was my first year and my book had only recently been published, so this year was the first time I had people coming up to me who'd actually heard of me before and told me how much they enjoyed my books. (I'll never get sick of hearing that!)

For me, the highlight was when one reader produced a copy of "Just For Today" that she'd brought from home and had covered in Contact! So delightful to see someone treasure a book in that way, and the fact that it was my book . . . Well! Let's just say it thrilled this little black duck immensely.

In conclusion
Yet another fantastic conference from RWA. It's almost unfathomable to me that this event is produced entirely by volunteers. Every single member of the organising committee has my deep gratitude and thanks. Next year the conference is in Sydney and I'm pretty sure I'll be there. But I'm also hoping I might come along fresh from having attended the RWA US program in San Antonio, Texas. Well, that's the plan, anyway! Fingers crossed!

*If you're attending a similar event and are similarly unwell, I highly recommend publicly announcing your state on social media. Having people concerned for my welfare and continually asking how I was feeling and whether I was okay was absolutely wonderful and made me feel very cared for. Thank you. You'll be pleased to know I'm feeling much better. :-)

**"Completely reject" on the grounds that it may or may not have happened.

Romance Writers of Australia - conference day four wrap up

This is a photo from the QT hotel website where the conference
was held, of some of the bar food. Have to say, the venue
was amazing -- great food, great service, great atmosphere.
The breakfast buffet this morning was sumptuous.

I'm tired. Really tired. So was everyone on the plane I caught home tonight -- about 50% of which were RWA-goers, I'm pretty sure.

It was a great final day of the conference, everyone was still excited (if a little tired and emotional) from the night before, and there were still lots of awesome sessions and speakers to look forward to.

The morning started off with a great panel discussion: "Speed Dating with Aussie Publishers". The speakers  included Anna Valdinger from Harper Collins, Clare Foster from Curtis Brown, Joel Naoum from Momentum, Haylee Kerans from Harlequin Australia, and Larissa Edwards from Simon and Schuster.

I tweeted a lot from this session, so for best results, go visit me there and check it out. (You can also search the #RWAus12 hashtag  for more awesome tweets from lots of wonderful peeps.) It was a great session that basically reinforced the fact that publishers generally are hungry for new content and while you've got to find the right home for your story, you need to "date around" to find your own happily ever after.

Once again, I missed a few sessions today. Sorry. I had a meeting or two, and I also had to pop out and visit over at the LoveCats for the Sunday Smooch (which includes a little excerpt from In His Eyes and a chance to win a copy!).

I did get to see Dr John Barletta talk about romantic attraction for a while. I wished I could have  stayed longer, because I love psychology and he was delving into all kinds of love theories and human behaviour stuff. One thing he said that I thought was useful when considering character psychology was that personally he extended the "nature/nurture" elements to include "nature, nurture, fate and choice". I think they are four great headings that would make for great character development and brainstorming. Just think about how the forces have affected your character in terms of nature (their genetics), nurture (their upbringing), fate (the good or bad luck they've had in their life) and choice (those they've made, and those they've avoided making).

Another good session today was from Kate Cuthbert on social media. I think next year it would be great for the conference to run at least a couple of sessions on social media -- one for beginners and one for those more advanced. Kate had some great things to say, including some strong views on the author's role on Goodreads (according to her, authors just shouldn't be participating on there!) which sparked lively debate. Unfortunately there were also people who still needed info on how to set-up Facebook pages, etc, which steered the conversation away from more of the fun stuff I was hoping she might get into. Still, those guys needed the advice, and hopefully they're all have a merry time on Facebook now!

The conference concluded with another publisher speed dating panel, which pretty much said the same stuff as the one in the morning. There were also big, and very well-deserved, thank-yous to the conference committee.

Next year's conference is in Fremantle, and the video that the WA team put together to advertise it was fantastic! I hope it will be up on their website soon. Some exciting guest speakers are already lined up.

I am ashamed to admit that I just simply forgot to take photos today. I was too busy finding all the people I wanted to say "hello" and "goodbye" to, and generally soaking up all the energy and atmosphere I could while I was there. So here are the two photos I did take when I remembered I had none for this blog post:

Waiting for our bags to come. And waiting...

It's chilly back home here in Melbourne, and a little drizzly -- none of that gorgeous blue sky and sunshine. But I've brought a bit of sunshine home with me, I'm sure, in the form of writing inspiration and new enthusiasm. I can't wait to get stuck into my book again!

Romance Writers of Australia - conference day three wrap up

The shoes! 

So, how long can Emmie live on too much wine and not enough sleep? Three days, apparently. The red wine this evening, although the exact same wine as I've been merrily gobbling up for the past few nights, just didn't taste quite right. But that's okay, because there was so much going on that made being a little more alert and alive worthwhile.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. First off, the question everyone on Facebook wanted to know -- would I be brave enough to wear the leopard-print platform heels I'd bought a few weeks back?? And the answer was YES! But only up to lunchtime, then I had to swap to ballet flats. They were actually surprisingly more comfortable (and stable) than I'd thought. Although I did feel VERY tall in them.

Fuzzy pic of
Eloisa James

The keynote speaker this morning was Eloisa James. She gave a terrific keynote full of touching moments and personal anecdotes about her personal journey to writing success. She had the entire room swallowing back tears as she told the story of her mother and her own journey into motherhood. Her key messages were about using the emotions and moments of your own life to build your stories -- "best sellers are born of strong emotion," she said.

Fun fact I learned from the Harlequin presentation this morning: 1 in every 6 mass market books sold in North America is a Harlequin. Whoa.

The lovely Paula Roe took
this photo of me at lunch
with my virgin pina colada!

After this, I have to admit, my conference coverage is woefully inadequate for a while. I had a couple of people to meet, and then Birgit Davis-Todd from the Toronto office of Harlequin took me and a few of the other authors from the Toronto-based lines out for lunch and to catch up. Yes, you heard it right -- I had to go have lunch with my publisher (still so exciting to say that). :)

So the next session I attended was titled New York, New Directions, and it was a panel made up of literary agent Helen Breitwieser, editor from St. Martin's Press Monique Patterson, authors Alexandra Sokoloff and Eloisa James and Harlequin editor Birgit Davis-Todd.

I wrote quite a few notes from this session because I thought there were some interesting things discussed. The two questions that were asked that provoked the most interesting answers were:

What will publishing look like in two years?

• people will continue to be reading more than ever
• we will need to find new ways to reach readers who are no longer browsing for books in bookstores -- options like "gamification" and using online algorithms to find them will become important, as readers want to become immersed in the world of their authors (I'm really interested in exploring this topic further!) 
• there will be more overlap between books, TV, movies and games
• e-readers continue to provide a more immediate and intimate connection between authors and readers -- and so does social media
• authors need to be aware of their on-line brand (their franchise, Eloisa James called it) and reputation and of the intimacy of relationships with readers now -- readers think they know you
• marketing, distribution, etc, might change, but at heart readers will still always want a good story
• writers shouldn't worry too much about trends -- your book might be the one that starts the next trend! 

What are you buying?

• yes, stuff like 50 Shades of Gray -- it is big right now, but it could die quickly too
• stories with strong elements of home and community and comfort -- given how much people travel these days and live away from extended family, they like to feel they are "going home" when they read fiction
• war themes are not very popular right now -- too close to difficult realities esp, in the US
• highlander romances

It was a very good panel session and all the speakers provided great information.

And so the Awards night begins! 

Pretty jewelled table decorations at the dinner
- plus plenty of Baci chocolates too! 

This evening, of course, was the fabulous RWA Awards dinner. This time last year, I was on the high of my first sale, I won the Emerald, and I was emcee for the dinner as well. It's been quite a year! I have to say, it was lovely to sit back and relax and enjoy the evening and applaud for all the worthy winners. Anne Gracie's traditional "stand up" closing was as energising and awe-inspiring as usual.

Me and my room-mate for the conference, the amazing
Ebony McKenna. Despite the dim lighting, I'm sure my
bloodshot eyes are detectable.. ;)

Definitely time for me to hit "publish" and then hit the hay! Another big day tomorrow!

Romance Writers of Australia conference - day two wrap up

Okay, so you know how yesterday I said you needed to forgive me any typos and grammatical errors? That goes triple for tonight's post, which I'm posting after a VERY lovely night at the Harlequin cocktail night, thank you very much. (In fact, I'm pretty sure I did see Elvis there, and that it didn't have anything to do with the red wine -- much.)

Alex was kind enough to pose for a photo for me with her
plotting white board of magic!

So, today was a primarily a workshop from Alexandra Sokoloff on Screenwriting Tricks for Authors. As someone who runs training regularly, I first off have to give Alexandra kudos for being such an engaging speaker for a full day workshop with a large group of people. Absolutely the least easy thing in the world.

I have read her book and it is really awesome -- even for a confirmed "pantser" like me! I loved the fact that her workshop absolutely reinforced that although I might not be as planned, up-front, as some other authors, my technique and storytelling is on the mark in terms of structure and pacing. Nice to know, for sure. And her presentation style was great -- even when I was getting tired (and if I was tired in the audience, I hate to think how she was feeling!) I wasn't bored for a moment. I loved when she deconstructed "Four Weddings and a Funeral".  I think because it's a movie I love and am familiar with, and because I hadn't consciously been aware of some of the structure and symbolism she pointed out.

A few learnings from Alex's workshop (I tweeted a few things too, so check there as well.)

• Try using index cards! (You need to read Alex's book to know her method.) The physical experience of arranging them can help you to get your brain clear about story structure. 
• Give the visual! Too many first chapters skip over the visual details of the scene. You need to help your read visualise where they are and what's happening. 
• It is your favourite writers who reveal the kind of writer you want to be. Use them as inspiration. 
• The theme of your book -- think of it as a collection of symbolic and emotional images, not just one idea.
• She gave us lots and lots of detail about how to structure the second "act" of your story and what needs to happen there. So much so that I don't think I'll ever accept the excuse of a book having a "saggy middle" again. Understanding that can help (again you need to read her book!).
• Romance stories need to include a scene that's commonly called "The Dance", where you show your hero and heroine doing something together that demonstrates how perfect they are for one another.
• The whole journey of a story is the character learning that what they want and what they actually need are two different things. 
• Characters always have a "ghost" or a "wound" from life that has to be worked through in order for them to find true love. 

That's only a tiny gist of what she went through. I highly recommend her book, and her blog to get more information. Even as a pantser, I found the plotting very helpful and it confirmed a lot of what I'd like to think of as my "natural" storyteller instincts.

At the beginning of the signing with
 stacks of books around me! 

Following Alex's workshop, it was my turn to be the star at my very first ever ARRA book signing. It was absolutely wonderful to meet with readers, to share my books with them, and to sign some copies for them to take away! It was also lovely to meet with some other authors I haven't had the chance to catch up with yet and say hello.

I started out with a stack of books and by the end of the afternoon there were only three left! And, in fact, by the time a few fellow authors popped by, those three were gone too!

By the end of the signing --
almost none left! 

It was fantastic to be a part of this amazing event --especially since I had attended as an avid reader only the year before! So amazing to be on the other side of the table and getting to meet and chat with everyone.

I'm hoping there might be a few people that I've convinced to give SuperRomance a try. I come from a long line of retailers, so I'm hoping that my heretofore latent retail talents may have come to the fore!

The end of the evening was the Harlequin cocktail party. There were, as there are every year, an amazing array of costumes and gloriously-attired authors. I didn't make much of an effort this year, I'm ashamed to admit, but hiring a costume and getting it to the Gold Coast and back again was just too much hassle for me.

Hard to convey the noise and excitement thru a pic! 

However the cocktail party is all about letting your hair down and chatting and getting to know new people and catch up with old friends.

That's definitely what happened.

I didn't take many photos, sorry! Too busy having fun and socialising. :)

 Not sure how much I'll cover from tomorrow, but I'll do my best for you folks!!

Romance Writers of Australia - conference day one wrap up

This is me at tonight's
Harlequin author dinner
with a couple of the cute
sexy gifts from the tables!

Hi everyone! Here I am on the Gold Coast -- and it's warm, and sunny and there's blue sky! Feels like forever since I've seen any of those things! Mind you there hasn't been much time to enjoy it since I got here -- the schedule has been jam-packed full of stuff to listen to, take in and talk about, not to mention all the wonderful people to meet.

I wanted to provide a quick run-down of Day One -- my first Author's Day (known in the inner circle as "A Day"). So here I go. Forgive me if you find any typos or weird sentence constructions -- it's been a big day, it's late, and I've just got back from the Harlequin authors "Naughty or Nice" dinner. But more on that later!

A few of the gorgeous LoveCats ladies (L-R): Helen Lacey,
Annie West, Michelle Douglas and Sue Mackay.

First off, I got to say hello to a few of the gorgeous LoveCats who I'm lucky enough to blog with regularly. It was great to finally put faces to names to some of those I hadn't met before. We've put together an awesome LoveCats gift hamper for the charity auction, which includes a couple of my books!

This is only my second full conference (I went to a workshop in 2010 at Coogee) and I have to say I've already felt much more comfortable this year. There are just more people wandering around that I know and I feel a little more confident about walking up to people and introducing myself.

In terms of the sessions today, to be honest, I wasn't sure what to expect. But there was a good, interesting mix of content. The self-publishing panel was a fascinating insight into how some authors are making self-publishing work for them. What I appreciated most was the level of detail that they discussed about the various platforms, their pros and cons, and how to get the most out of each. The presenters were incredibly generous about sharing their personal information about sales figures and dollars -- which made the session very valuable. Key learnings for me (may not have been the same for everyone):

• use a professional formatting service because you don't need that drama
• ensure your cover reflects your genre and works well as a thumbnail (and a good cover is one thing to invest in!)
• "discoverability" is key
• you need to learn Amazon and how to make its system work for you. 

I can usually resist table mints. But
Fantales? Who can resist Fantales??

We then had a session from Google+ which, I figured would just be a giant advertisement for Google+. And . . . it was a giant advertisement for Google+. And YouTube. (Which Google owns). But that doesn't mean it wasn't useful. They are doing some really amazing things for the romance community and the word "community" was used a lot. I really liked that they had looked at what users found least likable about other social media platforms and deliberately set out to fix those things.

As a result, I now have a Google+ account. Except right now I can't work out how to provide you with a link to my profile and/or page. Luckily, the Google people are around for the conference, so I'll ask them tomorrow and get back to you on that.

In the afternoon we had a brilliant session from Kate Cuthbert on how to organise (and handle) reviews. I found this very useful as a relative newbie, although I think I've been reasonably good at sticking to Kate's advice. (Still it was nice to know I was doing the right thing!) Her key message was "Don't take it online!". If a reviewer, or a reader, says something you disagree with, call your friends, your mum, someone, and complain, but don't ever, ever, go into battle online. Good advice.

After Kate's session we separated into groups and I spent the rest of the afternoon with the lovey group of ladies that made up the Aussie contingent of Harlequin authors. I managed to get them to all pose for me in a photo:

Too many super-stars for me to name them all here. 

And then, with barely a moment's pause it was on to the Penguin event for the launch of their new Destiny romance line.

There were readings from their first release books and, most importantly, champagne cocktails -- by this time it had already been a long day, and a drink was sorely required. As well as hearing all about the new Destiny line, it was a lovely time to catch up with everyone who'd flown in during the day and say hello before I whisked myself off for the next, and final, event of the day.

The Harlequin authors' dinner was a highlight for me last year, because I was presented with the "new chick" gift. It was lovely to watch someone else receive that this year. There were a number of presentations, including the famous "Woman Fuzzies Awards". There were also four 25-book pins to present. That's 100 books in total from four authors!!

One of the winners of the stunning 25-book ruby pins was the amazing Sarah Mayberry, a fellow SuperRomance author and all-round cool gal. There was much cheering and applause and then there was a standing ovation for a special presentation to legendary NZ author Helen Bianchin.

Sarah and I with her gorgeous pin! 

And, that, my dear readers, is that. Day One done! I'm really, really tired. But in a good way. I'm hoping I might be able to bring you a similar wrap up for Day Two, but it really depends on how much fun I have at the cocktail party and whether or not I'm in any shape to blog. :)

For now, good night!

RWA Conference and ARRA book signing

Last year I attended my first-ever Romance Writers of Australia conference. It was a pretty big deal: I received my "first sale" ribbon, got to MC the awards dinner, and accepted my award for winning The Emerald with lots of lovely friends there to cheer for me.

This is me from last year's conference looking far too pleased with myself.

This year I'm heading to the Gold Coast for the "Diamonds Are Forever" conference. Excitingly, this year I'm going as a published author and I've even been invited to take part in the Australian Romance Readers' Association book-signing event.

The event takes place in conjunction with the conference, from 4.30-6pm on Friday 17 August at the QT Hotel. There will be more than 60 authors there signing books!

I think I'll just be sitting there hoping someone comes to say hello. :) To encourage visitors, I'm giving away a bottle of the wine that inspired the story of In His Eyes. Anyone who pops past to get a book signed will go in the draw!

And don't forget, anyone who leaves a comment right here on the blog this month goes into the draw to win a pair of these stunning Riedel 'Vinum Extreme' glasses. They're specially designed to enable you to fully appreciate whichever wine you decide to drink as you read In His Eyes.

Now, I must go and pack. Hope to see you on the Gold Coast for a drink or two.

Cheers!

Me, graffiti-ing books -- on purpose!

I'm very excited to announce that I'm going to be one of the 62 authors signing books for happy readers at the ARRA Book Signing event on the Gold Coast in August. The event is being held in conjunction with the RWA annual conference.

Last year was the first time I attended an RWA conference (where I proudly picked up my "First Sale" ribbon) and it was absolutely wonderful. I remember going to the ARRA signing event there and meeting some lovely authors and chatting to them about all sorts of writing-related stuff.

It's freaky-weird and wonderful that this year I'll be one of the authors on the other side of the desk, offering my autograph and whatever funky giveaway I can find. (Your ideas gratefully accepted!)

I'll have Cassie's Grand Plan on offer - In His Eyes doesn't come out in Australia until September. But if you're lucky, I might give you a sneak peak of the US edition. Maybe we should have a codeword? Hmm. That does give me ideas. Watch this space. :)