Yesterday got off to a great start. I went to a “get the most out of RT” hour, and they had all the pubbed authors stand up, give their name and the name of their book, and it was really nifty!

The best part of that hour though was finally meeting in person Kristen Lamb, the guru of Social Media for authors. She is just as nice and funny and intense in person as she is on twitter – and that’s saying something. We hung out, made plans for some future blog stuff, and ended up sitting together at the Welcome to RT mixer along with Roz Lee, Jennifer Haymore, and Sarah (who got 2 requests – one from an agent, one from an editor!!!).

In the afternoon I went to the Crescent Moon Press spotlight, the Ravenous Romance spotlight (both of which were very enlightening), then went to listen to Elaine Spencer and Deidre Knight from the Knight agency, along with Shannon Butcher and Kristen Painter, two Knight Agency clients. They were talking about plotting your career – and the best advice they had was to stay flexible, keep writing, and if you can, get an agent to help you through the turmoil that is going on in the publishing world. What is true today may not be true ninety days from now. There really aren’t any more 5 year plans for an author’s career – everything moves faster now.

After the talk I was able to talk to Deidre (and kid her about not showing up at the gym yesterday morning, like she’d said she would. But she didn’t arrive until late morning, so that was a great excuse!). It was nice getting to talk to her like a real person! I handed her a bookmark and she was appropriately pleased for me – everyone when they find out I’m a debut author has been very warm. She didn’t show up at the gym this morning, either, but that’s okay -it was packed again. (She’s lost a ton of weight btw and looks great!)

Going from one workshop to another, I ran into Angela James. She is the tiniest, nicest, prettiest woman I’ve seen in a long time. She’d make a great heroine in a novel, I’m just saying. Anyway, I shook her hand, introduced myself, told her she’d sent me a very nice rejection letter but I might have something else for her to look at – and she was appropriately receptive, and very very nice. I’d love to work for her and so will keep that in mind.

A panel on social media was great – Kristen Lamb was there, Nicole Peeler, Andrew Shaeffer, and Terry Kate of Romance in the Backseat. FABULOUS! I’ve got a date with Terry Kate in May, I think, so it’s all peachy.

Got to rush now so I’ll just say during yesterday evening’s Sexy Sirens Through History gathering, I got to talk to the press person from the Los Angeles times. He not only took my bookmark, he asked me questions about my book, my publisher, RT, my writer’s journey, and asked for my phone number. His name was Alan, and you can be sure I’ll be talking to him whenever I see him the rest of the week. And he said the feature should run in the Saturday edition of the L.A. Times.

So that’s my Wednesday Wrap-up. All in all, I consider it a great personal success!