Monday, May 6, 2013

I Lurked On The #RT13 Twitter Feed

#Bittercon is real, it’s here, and it’s fueled by fond, good-natured jealously for all the romance (and other genre) writers and readers who attended the RT Conference last week in Kansas City, MO. RT stands for the RT Book Reviews magazine (formerly Romantic Times). I was a constant presence (real or imagined) at #Bittercon  as I was not able to attend “RT” this year. To avoid wallowing completely in freakish misery, I avidly followed the nonstop nearly 24-hour Twitter feed for hashtag #RT13. I lurked, I admit it, I have no shame. Here are but a few of the not-entirely-surprising revelations my lurking uncovered about #RT13.

Romance writers love their funky shoes (I APPROVE) and are not shy about posing in them, which is good because Angela James, Editorial Director for Carina Press, was there to take their pictures. That’s probably how I know that Karina Cooper has the most fantastic shoes on the planet (though I hear Smart Bitch Sarah Wendell runs a close second). Karina's peacock shoes especially turned me several shades of blue green with envy. (UPDATED at 8 PM with a link to the peacock shoes!! Thanks Karina!!)

The costume parties make me glad for the time I spent on a theatre’s run crew that made me a whiz with the quick change (usually when there’s a man involved). (I’m kidding.) (Maybe.) They also brought home the fact that I don’t have nearly the sufficient budget or creativity required for the costumes for all the parties at this conference. Imelda Marcos wouldn’t have the budget for the costumes for all the parties at this conference. Though she would have the shoes.

I’m gonna need some tats applied before I attend RT14 in New Orleans or lose any and all cred with these tricked out, bad-assed writers. They will be fake because I am a wimp. Also, I have a hard time deciding on  a lipstick color, I’m hardly going to be able to choose an image with which to be painted for eternity without years of planning first – and likely therapy.

Author E L James of Fifty Shades infamy attended incognito (I had “came” as the verb there first, but then this is an RT list, so…) She declared herself in a panel but without rancor or fisticuffs, revealed she was only there to support a friend, re-registered under her real fake (i.e. pen) name, lost her badge in the men’s room, and has had an identity crisis ever since.

Larry Kirshbaum, publishing legend and current head of Amazon Publishing, does a mean striptease. On a dais. In front of hundreds of women. As you do.

The craft workshops never end. Even late in the evening at the hotel bar, you can still find erotic romance authors who are all to willing to demonstrate...techniques.

Holy crap, TEENAGERS READ!!! Brace yourselves: they can be so keen to see a favorite writer that they will bypass the escalator and RUN UP THE STAIRS to be sure to get the signature of their Fearless Leader. Then, overcome with the sauce that is awesome, they will comp squat right there on a hotel lobby floor (no, it’s not a misdemeanor) and START READING. FROM A BOOK EVEN.

The RT Book Fair is MASSIVE. Authors are trapped at their tables for hours, signing books and meeting lovely fans. Fortunately, some people are happy to resupply the belabored authors gamely battling hand cramps with coffee, water, penis-shaped candy, and, if you’re author Cara McKenna, a bottle of Smirnoff Ice.

Andrew Shaffer is everywhere - sometimes trotting around with Jill Shalvis' skull (she was mobbed at the book fair and thus stripped of her skin) and occasionally wearing a horse's head though thankfully not in the Corleone style. Seriously, the guy is like the inadvertent mascot of the RT twitter feed, which would offer one explanation for the horse's head...

In her acceptance speech for winning the RT Book Reviews Reviewers Choice for Best Steampunk Novel of 2012 for Tarnished, Karina Cooper revealed that her husband had sold his Magic cards to help pay for her trip to RT13. Tiffany Reisz tweeted in response that her father paid for her first RWA National Conference, and Olivia Kelly added that her dad paid for her trip to RWA Nationals in 2012 and reads all her stuff. Conclusion: our heroes do not only exist between the pages of our romance novels. We dig the good (live) men. They are real and amazing.

Everyone fangrrls over Jude Devereux and Julie Garwood. Everyone.

Given that I was a far-off observer of said goings-on, below are but a few of the more memorable tweets from #RT13. WARNING: Don't be drinking anything when you read them or it'll come out of your nose for sure.

One last thing for those who still inexplicably doubt or poo poo the impact of Twitter. If there could be anything to solidify my certain attendance at RT14, it would be the RT13 Twitter feed. That's grassroots, first-person, hand to hand, free marketing and publicity generated there for anyone and everyone to see for both RT Book Reviews and every single person mentioned and/or tweeting. Turn your nose up at that unbelievers. I dare you.























Posted by Kiersten at 12:34 PM 0 comments
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Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Writer's Kiss of Death

Always keep reading. It's a stalwart mantra, one that's been drummed into me - and rightly so - by published writers, colleagues, agents, and editors on multiple platforms in the last four years. You'd think this would be a no brainer for the woman who, as a girl, would walk home from grade school nose deep in a book. And who, present day, has been known to snatch a paragraph or two at a red light. Yes, I pay attention to red lights. Occasionally, I even wave at them as I go by...

Books. They do a body good.
I was the kid who read by flashlight long after my parent's patience had ended and Light's Out! echoed down the short hallway from their bedroom to mine. In the fifth grade, I stacked The Outsiders upright behind my textbook to read during Mrs. Luxembourg's class. Oy, what a harridan. In the eighth grade, I hid the burgeoning covers of my old skool romance novels face down on my stack of books to, unsuccessfully as it turned out, avoid getting mocked for my reading material. If I start reading a book at 9 o'clock with the avowed intention to ONLY read for an hour, I know I'm deluding myself, right up to the 2 AM mark when I turn the last page. I will fight sleep, snap at loved ones, ignore my cats when wrapped up in a good book. I always have something on me to read, usually more than one item too, and to leave my house sans a book or magazine is equivalent to going out without my girdle - if I was a 1950s housewife.

Here is my shameful confession: I haven't read a book since April. Hello, my name is Kiersten, I am a bookaholic who has not read a book in three months.

Oh. The horror.

Reading is essential. Yes, all right, it's fundamental too. Yeesh. But for a writer, not reading is the kiss of death. Reading enriches writing; by experiencing the excellent - and occasionally seriously crappy - writing that is out there right now, particularly in romantic fiction (the excellent part, not the crappy) (tho I guess that's there too), one hones and shapes one's craft. I whole-heartily subscribe to this philosophy.

And yet. See above.

The Leaning Tower of TBR
I read a review today on Heroes and Heartbreakers for Loretta Chase's upcoming new release Scandal Wears Satin and realized to my chagrin that despite my mad worship of her writing and books, I have yet to read Silk Is For Seduction, her first novel in this series. It teeters on the top of my leaning tower of TBR along with Carie Lofty's Flawless, Zoe Archer's Devil's Kiss and Roxanne St. Claire's debut contemporary Barefoot in the Sand. I salivate for these books. Not to mention that an unbroken binding is like the wag of an accusing finger from the publishing world. What is my dang problem?

Well, there's the fact that I'm gutting the center of the WIP and restructuring the arcs all of which must be done by RWA Nationals. As you can see by the ticking countdown clock to the right, that outstanding event is coming lickety split, hence my impending aneurysm. And then there's the Internet, specifically social media. I'm never not hooked up to something, even if it's only the caffeine-fueled IV in the crook of my arm that goes by the name of Twitter. Sleep. Sleep comes into play from time to time. I gots skillz, baby. Mad skillz. But even I need to sleep or so I'm told. I should just have my sleep removed and be done with it, but then my Id might manifest in the form of a green oversized demon who could then kill and destroy everything in its path, except - no, wait - dammit, Whedon already beat me to that. Of course, there's Lost Girl and my recapping duties therein, but really, when I think about it, it actually helps infuse what sleep I get with lovely, wolf shifter related dreams....what?! Finally, there's guilt. Oy, da guilt. Every time I plan to read a new book, I think of all the things I should be doing instead, like, say, one and two and three above.

What really sux is that I am deeply missing out. Missing out on excellent stories and storytelling. Missing out on juicy word choice and complex characters. Missing out on honing my craft by examining the paths of those who go before.

Is there something you like to do, something you not only enjoy but is also essential to your work in one way or another, that you're not doing? How do you deal? Leave a comment. Win a book. It's that easy.

Standard disclaimer applies. They make me say that. Images courtesy of Google Images.
Posted by Kiersten at 7:00 AM 3 comments
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Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Not Polish for Nothin'

Summer has slammed into New Jersey like damn and wow with all three Hs - hazy, hot, and humid - in full account. All I have to do is take one step out of my personal wind tunnel created by cross-posted fans and I'm awash in a perpetual coating of sweat. Lovely.
It's better in October!

Thus I enter the hair dryer-free portion of my calendar year when I pin up my bangs and roll down my windows and let nature and 75 mph on route 287 dry my hair for me instead. But the rest of me still has to get out of the apartment in a reasonably presentable state for the day job.

Yesterday morning, I grabbed my necklace and sandals and immediately plopped myself in the wind tunnel to cool down from that massive exertion. Needing both hands for sandal wrangling, I put the necklace on the bed behind me. I mean, how far could it go?

Pretty dang far, because the irksome thing vanished. Poof! Like some pissed off brownie swept in and snatched it. Honestly, I was so baffled, I spent about .5 of a second seriously considering that possibility. Hollis, perched on the end of the bed purring as she does during my morning ablutions (how did I wind up with a morning cat?!), couldn't be bothered to care, though she was not happy when I shifted her to see if perhaps her ample belly had smothered my necklace when I wasn't looking.

Commence ten frustrated, increasingly sweaty minutes of looking for the stupid thing. I had to decamp without it as I needed to hit the grocery store on my way in to the office for the week's provisions. I went to the store, got to the day job, and proceeded through my morning set up routine. En route to the office kitchen to toast my bagel, I felt something dangling down my leg.

Yup, it was my necklace, which had managed to hook itself on and around the button of my trouser pocket. The back pocket. On my butt cheek.

This means that I sat on it whilst driving, walked around the store with it dangling from my rear, and ditto during the long walk from my car to my desk.

I am not Polish for nothin'.

My boss bravely performed de-butting duties, laughing like a loon all the while. When relaying this story to my friend, she stopped me to point out that somewhere along the way, I'd also lost an earring! (Later found on the floor of my office.) If ever there was a day a should've stayed in bed...

Maybe this is the beginning of a new jewelry line - charms and jewels to adorned the buttocks. Dangling chains to shape and accentuate the gluteus maximus. 'Cause that's the part of my anatomy to which I really want to call attention!

I ended up in the office kitchen guffawing as my bagel toasted, wondering what the rest of my day would bring, how it would ever top this, and whether I'd survive if it did.

Honestly, you can't make this stuff up.

Posted by Kiersten at 7:00 AM 9 comments
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