Trolls, Tips and Tactics

#103578325 / gettyimages.com

As I've been reporting, I haven't gone to that many conventions or conferences, other than NASA-related and they don't have trolls (as far as my experience can attest!). In my two romance writer-related experiences so far, I haven't encountered any trolls either but having read many pieces of advice online and in my fellow Whores' posts, I feel prepared. I think that's half the battle, perhaps, realizing right away that someone is infringing on your space or your rights and being ready to respond immediately. I can't tell you how many times I've come up with the right zinger about four hours too late to zap someone who offended or upset me.

Moving along to Tips (I love a framework!) - Based on my own experiences, I REALLY need to stay in the same hotel as the conference if at all possible. It's so wonderful to go upstairs to your own room if you get tired, need to drop off swag or books or stuff, change for an evening event...the first RWA I attended was in Anaheim so I thought, no big deal, I'll drive back and forth and save on the cost of a hotel. I've been living in California since 1972, what part of sigalerts and traffic jams on the freeways did I not understand??? Each day I arrived at the conference already frazzled. I wasn't able to participate in any breakfasts, I was so tired and had the long drive ahead, I left the conference early each day, thus missing more fun in the evenings...just no. Don't do that!

Next tip - tweet! I love twitter and so I made sure to have tweetbot on my iPhone for RT2014 so I could tweet fun stuff as it happened, meet up with people more easily, keep up with the cool things other authors were sharing.

Costumes ARE ok. Not everyone will be in costume (can only speak to romance writer conferences, maybe someday I'll get to a different kind of con where it's all cosplay all the time) but if you enjoy dressing up, go for it. I'm busy looking for the pieces for a killer steampunk outfit for the Fantasy, Futuristic & Paranormal Chapter's "Gathering" at the upcoming RWA conference. (Have I mentioned that I love to shop?)

You will miss your cats. :-( Ok, I missed my older daughter and my grandson too (younger daughter and fellow author was with me at RT). Hmmm, does that make me sound like too much of a cat lady???

There will be lines, you won't be able to do everything you wanted and inevitably you'll miss meeting someone you hoped to meet but it will be FUN.

Tactics: I have one that worked so well for me I'm going to repeat it at RWA next month. My personal statement thing is long, blingy earrings. I'm renowned for them at the day job and everywhere else. I've posted about my earring collections various times. I wore a pair of big bold vintage, Lunch at the Ritz New Orleans-themed earrings, which were the best conversation starters ever in the elevator and waiting on lines. Wait until you see the ones I've got for Texas!

No Metrics and no Milestone Celebrations

Hey, guys, I promise I do achieve  milestones in my writing! I just don't measure them (which was last week's topic) nor do I especially celebrate them (this week's subject). Maybe I should peek ahead to next week's writing prompt and see if I'm going to go three-for-three!

Since writing is like breathing to me (as in something I must do if I'm alive), and I don't celebrate breath #1,500,000, neither do I do anything special to commemorate word #50,000 or #100,000 or whatever. Actually this is not strictly true, as far as the breathing. I came within 30 seconds one morning of being among the 4000 people who die every year from choking on food. I taught a friend to perform the Heimlich maneuver on me AS I was passing out (and remember I couldn't speak at that point because I was  getting no air).Luckily he kept at it after I was unconscious and literally saved my life. I will always remember that first breath of blessed air when the food popped out and I regained consciousness. But so, ok, that was clearly a very exceptional breath.

I did a lot of incoherent screaming after "the call" from Angela James in 2011, that Carina Press was going to acquire my first-ever book to be published, "Priestess of the Nile," because that was a lifelong dream coming true. But we really didn't particularly celebrate. Dinner at Red Lobster maybe?  My daughters are both writers as well, one of whom was a published author several years before I got there, so we all understand the process, the challenges, the hurdles...and, folks, writing is one very long process. With lots of ups and downs and since I do it for the love of writing, I don't really feel the need to reward myself along the way.

Now if and when one of my books ever gets made into a movie, okay THEN we will have massive celebrations, I promise.

I do sometimes indulge myself in one thing though, when I've had something cool happen. Like Allison earlier this week and her desire for the LEGO Death Star, it's not necessarily a one-for-one, oh I reached this goal, so I can reward myself with that thing. What, you may ask, is my item of indulgence? Lunch at the Ritz earrings. I ADORE long, jazzy earrings and I have jewelry boxes full of them. Normally I'm pretty much "see it buy it" about cool earrings but the most elaborate LATR earrings get pricey, especially if you're trying to win a pair of the vintage, discontinued ones on eBay.  So sometimes to incentivize myself I'll focus a pair of their top of the line  earrings and say to myself, when you accomplish X, you can buy those. I'd say that works about half the time LOL, as you can see by the illustrations from my jewelry box that are accompanying this blog post.