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!