If you happen to be wandering around Pittsburgh and see this short round woman with glowing red eyes speaking in a strange accent, don’t be afraid. It’s probably me. As per usual during these type of conferences, sleep and me have parted company, which is never a good thing when you’re supposed to act and talk like an intelligent being. I mean, it’s hard for me to achieve that at any time, but when I haven’t had sleep…although I do write dark urban fantasy novels that often feature moody vampires, so hopefully people will think I’m just getting into the part. And hey, there is one upside of not sleeping–at least I get the gym to myself at five in the morning 🙂
No sleep aside, I’m having a fabbo time here at RT. The 3 day tour was excellent (even though I was good diet wise on the nosh tour day, and merely nibbled at the mountain of food they kept shovelling our way.) I did spend, though (me and a credit card are dangerous companions when there are shops around. 🙂 ) Pittsburgh is so not what I expected it to be, though. We went to places like the Frick mansion, Falling Water, Pittsburgh Uni (which doesn’t sound exciting, but the buildings were amazing), checked out the haunted houses, and of course, shopped. I have lots of great photos that I’ll put up once I’m home.
Today was the first official conference day, and we all got our goodie bags and mountain of free books (I only got a small mountain–6 books in all, mainly because I had to try and get them home–but most people really did walk out with arm loads. It’s a book lovers paradise at RT). I sat in on a couple of paranormal panels, listening to the likes of Kim Harrison, L A Banks, Angela Knight, & J C Ward chatting about the genre (I missed Kelley Armstrong’s–I believe I was chatting at the time. Or trying to), and they were fun. Tonight was the Ellora’s Cave Fantasy ball, which featured lots of ladies dressed up in all sorts of costumes–and of course, lots of half naked Ellora’s models wandering around. I’m definitely getting old, because I had to leave early. Not only was it too noisy to talk, but the eye candy mostly seemed way, way too young.
Tomorrow I have lunch and dinner to attend (it’s really tough being a writer sometimes. lol), so I’m not sure what panels or workshops I’m going to get to. But tomorrow night there’s another fancy dress ball, and I’ll try to remember to take some photos there for you all to see. In the meantime, take care everyone, and I’ll chat to you in a couple of days!
