If you can stand to learn any more about my RT adventures, here’s a drive-by video of me shot by the lovely Barbara Vey, Publisher’s Weekly blogger extraordinaire. You’ll see me with author Catherine Chernow, who sat next to me at the signing…

Here are a few more pics from RT, in no particular order. Run your mouse over the pic for its description.

Well, I made it safely home from Pittsburgh, where I had the time of my life at the Romantic Times BOOKlovers Convention and won the Reviewer’s Choice Award for Best Kimani Press of the Year for Just About Sex. I was thrilled beyond belief and, as I said at the time, grateful to be included in a category with so many talented authors.

The low point of the convention was the last portion of an otherwise lovely drive to Pittsburgh. There was some sort of a weird disconnect between where my TripTik ended and the hotel’s website directions began, and so, when I was nearly close enough to the city to be able to see the three rivers I’d heard so much about, I got lost.

Hopelessly, utterly, ridiculously LOST.

The more I tried to get un-lost, the lost-er I got, until finally I had to call the hotel and be navigated home by a bellman like a Boeing 757 with broken landing gear on the horn with air traffic control.

I finally arrived at 11:30 p.m. feeling irritated and sheepish, but the first person I saw was, luckily, the beautiful and funny Kayla Perrin, who told me that she, too, had found the Pittsburgh highways especially tricky to navigate.

This was the only downer in a wonderful few days. Well, that and the ten minute blackout in the ballroom at the end of the signing, which added a little additional drama.

Here, in no particular order, are some of the many highlights:

· Giving my No More Lazy Scenes workshop with HelenKay Dimon and Sasha White;

· Sitting on the multicultural authors panel and laughing my head off with the crowd and other authors, including L.A. Banks, Caridad Pinero, Marjorie M. Liu, Camille Anthony and Kimberly Kaye Terry, the multicultural genre captain and a truly lovely and fun woman;

· Attending the Under the Sea Faery Ball with Eve Silver and enjoying the, ah, myriad and varied costumes;

· Sitting on the contemporary authors panel with Lori Foster, Lori Wilde, Christie Craig and Sharon Sala;

· Spending time with my editors and publisher;

· Finally meeting author friend Maureen Smith face-to-face;

· Embarrassingly gushy fangirl moments with some of my author heroines, including Brenda Jackson, Lisa Jackson, L.A. Banks, and J.R. Ward;

· Catching up with LifetimeTV’s Michelle Buonfiglio, one of the romance genre’s greatest advocates and a wonderful woman;

· Being rescued out of the loooooong breakfast buffet line by the very considerate Gwyneth Bolton and aspiring author Felicia from Chicago; and

· Connecting with readers at the book signing.

While I’m glad to be back home with the husband and younglings, I miss my friends already, not to mention the thrill of adrenalin and inspiration that always comes from connecting with others who love the romance genre as much as I do.

So … how many days until the next convention???

Here are a few pics. Run your mouse over them for descriptions. More pics tomorrow …

Sparky the Crawfish, you’ll be sad to know, is dead.

Sparky had a good life. At least I think he (or she) did. No, I don’t know how old he was. No, I don’t know where he was born. I don’t, in fact, know anything about his (or her) early days or anything prior to the time he showed up in my daughter’s science class last spring. Sparky was duly studied and then sent home to one lucky (and I use the term “lucky” loosely) child’s house to live.

So Sparky stayed with us in his tank, ate frozen bloodworms, and went into attack mode (see picture which is not, in fact, Sparky) whenever we tapped on the glass. He was a quiet pet. Not a lot of trouble. Never ran away. Was never eaten by the cats, for which we are grateful.

Last night, I presided over Sparky’s funeral and his, ah, burial (*COUGH*) and prayed that God would find a special cat-free place in heaven for a nice crawfish like Sparky.

Only two more days until Monday …

Help me, somebody. Please.

I love my children. I really do. Love, love, love, love, LOVE them. Let’s get that on the record right now, for all time. They are wonderful people, and I am very proud of them.

I’m just not sure I need fourteen-plus days of Christmas break togetherness time with them.

I had all these grandiose plans about how I’d use this time. Ready for a laugh? Here goes:

• Paint their rooms (*SNORT!*);
• Clean and organize the closets;
• Read about 20 books on my TBR;
• Complete the normal number of pages on my WIP.

Ask me how much of this I’ve accomplished. Go ahead. Ask. Ask me how many books I’ve finished. Ask me how many words I’ve written. Ask me how many closets have been organized. No, wait. Don’t ask. I’ll tell you:

NONE.

That’s right. NONE.

I have no idea where the time has gone, or what I’ve done with it. All I know is that I feel like I’ve regressed to those newborn days, when survival is the only thing on your mind and you look around at, say, two p.m. to discover you haven’t even showered yet.

The end seems to be in sight, thank goodness, and I can hold on a little while longer.

I just pray that Monday isn’t a snow day.

Anyone else out there getting a little, ah, frazzled?

I’m thinking of updating my author tagline which is, in case you’ve forgotten, as follows:

Provocative lawyers. Overwhelming problems. Undeniable passions.

I’m feeling very lukewarm about this tagline, I must say. It seemed fine when I made it up years ago, but now I’m thinking … meh.

Part of the problem is that my new book, Sweeter Than Revenge, isn’t about lawyers. It’s about publicists.

A problem, as you can see.

For my new tagline, I’m thinking of something with … I dunno … the words emotional, sexy, and funny in it. Can you tell I’m not big on this sort of brainstorming thing? It’s really hard and painful to describe your own writing and, to tell you the truth, I’d rather stick pins under my fingernails.

Anyway, under the guise of looking to other authors for inspiration about taglines when I was, in fact, wasting a great deal of time, I stumbled across Tess Gerritsen’s blog, wherein she uses donkeys and scary trails to make a point about author’s careers. Since I’m feeling angst-y about the upcoming book, this is right up my alley.

You should check it out.

Things got ugly, so I had to put myself in time-out.

I was spending too much time surfing the internet and lurking on my various loops, reading about the myriad topics and controversies of the day. What was Karen Scott up to? Which book had Bam critiqued this week? What was Michelle B dishing about with the Bellas?

Minutes slipped by, then hours. Time gone from my life, forever.

Plus, there was the e-mail I actually NEEDED to answer, and the various marketing things I should have been doing. And there was something else that needed my computer time … what was it? It’s hard to remember, but I think it’s coming back to me … oh, yeah, I remember now: WRITING BOOKS.

That’s kind of important, isn’t it?

So I had to go cold turkey. Well, mostly cold turkey. Lukewarm turkey.

No surfing for me right now. No lurking, no hanging out.

I have some writing to get done, and pretty soon I’ll need to get into full marketing mode for my January book, Sweeter Than Revenge. It’s painful—really, really painful—but I can do it. I don’t need to visit every blog every day. I don’t need to check my Amazon rankings every ten seconds. Life will go on if I don’t read every single comment of every single thread.

At least, I think life will go on.

I hope…

Well, I’m back from Romance Writers of America’s national conference in Dallas, and I’m feeling almost human again. No, I haven’t unpacked yet; let’s not get crazy. But I have gotten a little sleep, and had a chance to decompress from several days of nonstop networking and socializing. Here are a few pix and a few highlights, in no particular order:

• Lisa Kleypas’s keynote luncheon address. What a lovely representative of the romance genre she is—beautiful, articulate, and classy. She made the point that romance is an important genre—no matter what the critics say—because it’s one in which the WOMAN is important. Is that a great message, or what?

• The literacy signing, which raised over fifty thousand dollars.

• Meeting romance reviewers like Jane, Sybil, and Michelle Buonfiglio, all of whom are lots of fun. Jane gets extra credit from me because she let me play with and post a comment from her iPhone, which is way cool and has pictures of her painfully adorable daughter on it.

• The Harlequin party, which really has to be experienced to be believed. Where else can you see dozens of your favorite romance authors (many of whom do NOT write for Harlequin, BTW—crashers welcome!) sipping cosmos, eating gooey chocolate desserts, and dancing to BOTH John Denver’s Thank God I’m a Country Boy and Bon Jovi’s Living on a Prayer?

• Seeing Nora Roberts dance barefoot and with joyful abandon at the Harlequin party.

• The Kensington party, where they had DELICIOUS nibblies—with me, it’s all about the food.

• Making new friends, like Laura Drewry, Nalini Singh and Dona Sarkar-Mishra.

• Catching up with old friends, like Eve Silver, Caroline Linden (who also let me see her iPhone), Patricia Sargeant, and Lori Devoti.

• The book signing at the African American History Museum, where I met legends like former bookseller Emma Rodgers, Francis Ray, and Beverly Jenkins, greeted readers who came from far and wide to enjoy cake and punch with us, and laughed with Kayla Perrin (and to think I once thought she was quiet and demure ) and Karen White-Owens, among others.

• Winning a gift basket in the raffle at the Death by Chocolate party, where I sat with Marcia James (who also won a basket) and Pamela Clare. Marcia and I credit Pamela with our wins because she touched us and/or said encouraging words in the seconds before our names were announced.

Whew! I’m re-exhausted just thinking about it! I can’t think when I’ve had so much fun.

Is it too soon to start counting the days until next year’s conference in San Francisco?

If you’ll be in the Dallas area on Saturday, please stop by a Mini Romance Slam Jam book signing. I’ll be joining Francis Ray, Kayla Perrin, Patricia Sargeant, Wayne Jordan, and other romance writers signing their books. Hope to see you there!

If you’ll be in the Dallas area on Wednesday, please stop by the literacy signing. Hundreds of your favorite authors will be there to sign their books, and all proceeds will go to charity. Hope to see you there!