Networking and Getting Out and About

My friend Rayna Vause and I headed to Georgia at the beginning of the month on a new adventure – the Moonlight & Magnolias Conference!

It was a fabulous conference run by the Georgia Romance Writers and many thanks to all the wonderful organizers there for a great event.

You must wonder what that has to do with Tuesday and Tips of any kind and here it is – You’ve heard me say it before and I’ll say it again – Networking!

One of the most important things you can do both before and after getting published is to get out and about and expand your horizons. Meet new people. Make new friends. Gain more knowledge that will help you not only write better, but also learn about the publishing business.

Some people go to the same conference every year. Sometimes that’s good if it’s a solid conference that brings in new blood and new possibilities. But it’s also important to allow room (and funds) for different conferences and adventures.

I’m glad I took my little adventure to Moonlight & Magnolias! It was a great group of people and there were some wonderful workshops and events. Thank you Georgia Romance Writers!

Here are a few photos for you from the conference. If anyone out there has more (I know I posed for bunch of photos), please send them to cpsromance at att dot net.

If you can’t see the slideshow, you can visit this link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2037485&id=1130005412&l=3e31a03387

Rockin’ Day at RWA!

Starting to feel a little pooped with all the running around!

Breakfast with friends and the goody room. Ran into tons of people in the halls and chatted with them about all kinds of writing things and how they were doing. Hit the Harlequin book signing to get some books for research and my buddies at work.

Lunch was wonderful! My buddy Eloisa James did a marvelous talk at the luncheon. Go Eloisa!

Then after the signing, I started to prep for my first ever Grand Central Publishing signing. It was so exciting to get there and see the galleys of SINS OF THE FLESH (Nov 2009)!! Here’s a photo of me at the signing.

After the excitement of the signing, I dropped some excerpts off at the Goody room and went back to my room where I did some plotting with my friend and fellow author Rayna Vause.

Helped her with a story idea and she helped me refine the concepts for books 3 and 4 in the SINS series! Really excited about writing a proposal for them (once I finish book 2 in the series!)

Then it was time to relax. Had a great dinner with some friends before headed off to the Harlequin party. Harlequin really does it up! Great DJ (the same one as last year) and everyone had a blast. Started up the fun with an intro and then everyone hit the dance floor for “We are Family” and it really is. All those women and the Harlequin people really make you feel like a part of a huge sisterhood at these parties.

Here’s some shots from the party. Harlequin did a fun thing with covers from the past and also, drinks and food that were for particular decades so I thought I’d give you a retro look to match that theme.