Thank God, I’m home with the cats after my multiple personality weekend in Columbus, attending both the COFW (RWA) conference and Context 25 (SF/Fantasy). Luckily the conference hotels were a mile apart on either side of 270, but it took some doing to remember if I was talking to the Romance Writers or the Speculative Fiction Writers!
Yeah, I know the RWs were generally female and smiled sweetly at me when I told them I write SF/Fantasy and the Speculative folks looked like cast members of Big Bang Theory and pretty much had similar social skills. With two name badges around my neck…Luckily, I thought to sign up under the same name but unfortunately, forgot which one. I was busily looking for Karen Cox and as the poor RW registrar was scribbling a new name badge for me, I spied SindyE at the far end of the table. As I made my apologies, she gave me this sweet romance writer smile and said, “Well, dear, you should really remember who you are.” in that ‘how nice they’ve let you out without your attendant’ tone…and with both programs highlighted, I managed to drive back and forth between the two conference hotels and missed nothing of importance.
I did learn the RWs eat better (the SF folks don’t seem to eat at all).
I had breakfast with an editor and I might—might, I said–send her a query letter. She works for TOR which handles SF/Fantasy but was speaking on a panel at RW.
I did get rid of one business card! And I discovered I need an author website and SWAG (I think this is a term for junk). Everybody has a box of swag—(both Romance and SF authors)—like book marks and playing cards and pens and little party favor kinds of things all with your novel’s title and pictures of your characters and crap. I got the weirdest little mini pair of handcuffs (I thought it was a keychain) from one of those sweet Romance ladies. I guess she writes about S&M or maybe her character’s a police officer. I ate the candy–best kind of SWAG in my book, saved the pens, and tossed the tote-bag sized pile of cards and bookmarks into the hotel room trashcan.
Note to self: CHOCOLATE swag!
sindyewyndham 