Kristie’s Most Excellent Adventure

By the time you get up, sleepily grab for your coffee and stop here on one your visits through the community, I’ll be on my way to Washington DC. And this will probably be a hodge podge of a post.

This is my third RWA conference and oddly enough the excitement is even more intense in some ways. Since this is my third time out, I will be meeting up with friends I’ve already met before. The first time I went, when it was held in Dallas, was a step into the unknown. But this time I’ve already met some of the people in person. This will be the third year sharing a room with one of my roomies and the second sharing a room at least part of the time with another. It seems like either I know more people this time or there are just more bloggers going, but I’m looking forward so much to connecting with fellow bloggers I’ve been cyber friends with but haven’t met in real life. Each one has a different reason for going. One of my roomies is a librarian and she uses the conference in part as a tool for her duties as a SuperLibrarian. Another blogger I will be rooming with is wanting to be an author and hopefully she can make some connections to help her on her way. I’ve been emailing others, exchanging cell phone numbers and hoping to arrange a chance to meet as many as I can. I was Very Fortunate to meet quite a number last year in San Francisco but sadly many of them won’t be in Washington. But their loss will be made up with other bloggers who are making the trip. One of them is a fellow Canadian from out west. I’m looking forward to meeting her. I think I’m having lunch with an author who only lives about an hour away from me. She and a fellow blogger had lunch plans and asked me along. One thing – only ask me to come if you really want me because I jump on those opportunities. I’m thrilled at the thoughts of meeting her.

As for my agenda – I don’t really have one. The reason I went the first time was when I lost my husband, I determined not to miss out on opportunities to do what I really wanted to do. I wanted to do more traveling with him, but he said to wait until he retired. But he never made it to retirement. So now I’m doing it – on my own even. I’ve been to a RT convention, but it’s just not for me. I like to party and whoop it up as much as the next person, but I prefer the more serious side of romance – the more business-like aspect. Someday I’d like to start writing – oddly enough not necessarily and even probably not romance – but I know I can apply the same principals. Of course I’d have to attend workshops to learn them. As yet I haven’t; there is too much other stuff to do. But I did purchase the MP3 CD-Rom Recordings for last year and the year before.

But what is really wonderful for me is the friendships – new and renewed. There’s nothing quite like being surrounded by those who love romance as much as I do. There’s nothing like being able to strike up a conversation with total strangers, knowing that before the conversation even starts, you have something very special in common. As someone who is quite shy a lot of the time, this is wonderful.

So this is how I like to spend my vacation – submersed in something I love and is a large part of my life.

I’m not the only one who will be blogging this upcoming week on the RWA conference – just the first. So stay tuned for further observations and thoughts from other attendees.

This entry was posted by Kristie(J) on Monday, July 13th, 2009 at 4:00 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.