RT Con Sum-up
There is just too much to talk about and get out during lunch, so I'm going to highlight, relive my fav moments and try to let you know how much fun we all had... and convince those who didn't come that FL in 2009 is a must!!
First of all, we must start off with my new theme song for your listening pleasure as you read along:
Now my weekend started with going to my grandparents, which was wonderful b/c I haven't seen most of the PA family since pre-surgery so catching up with the majority of them was wonderful.
I also learned something new, my niece is a Stealth Squirmer. As grandma has small beds, I volunteered to bunk with Ellalily. Not a big issue but I'm not used to little feet, knees, hands and her head trying to dig under me, bash into me and generally lay on top of me. Not to mention waking up and finding her foot by my head, her head near my knees, and the other foot hanging off the bed. *indulgent smile*
But back to RT con! My sister Shannon
sadieloree and I started off an hour early and after a few extra left turns, (yes, we made a square!) we found a parking garage underneath the hotel. A very sweet security guard at the hotel escourted us to the elevators for which we thanked him- in stereo. Heehee... no, we're not related. Thankfully, sissy's BFF Beth
sakibebe was waiting for us and we got into line about 45 minutes before we were to be let in. Renee
reneesweet had thankfully informed us that none other than Fabio was in the building! And much hilarity ensued as we kept an eye out for Shannon's next husband. (Or is he in line for #3?)
Regretfully, no sitings took place. *sniff*
Once we got inside, we decided we were all big girls and that we could split up since we all had a plethora of different authors to see. Sissy and I did head for Melissa Marr
melissa_writing first... but she wasn't there. So Richelle Mead
blue_succubus was exactly where Melissa should have been, so it worked out wonderfully! I was able to get her to sign Succubus Blues (which I am halfway through and loving!) and confirmed she would be hitting the town with the LJ group for lunch!
My next stop, OF COURSE, was Mark Henry
mdhenry. *dreamy stalker sigh* Being an ubar stalker nerd, I had made us t-shirts (yes, us and pictures to follow as soon as I have them on DVD). On the back was the cover of his book and on the front I had put on name tags. They said "Hello my name was" and then I was "Plague Carrier #1" and Mark was "Patient Zero". Now I had teased Mark I was going to do this ages ago and I have follow through. What I didn't realize is that I would become his personal billboard for the afternoon! (I pimp my ho's!) It cracked me up. I had dozens of people looking to see what my name tag read, then I had to explain, show them the back, and Mark was even sweet enough to give me postcards to hand out. :) Isn't he special? So I remembered to have him sign my official copy of Happy Hour... then forgot to have him sign my shirt!! So, next year, Mark... next year...
Mark had been my main focus of going and I haven't gotten to read all the FFF authors
fangs_fur_fey that I've wanted to, so this turned out to be the perfect opportunity to meander about, buying their books and getting their autographs. And they've all been moved to the top of my new pile of TBR ( see previous post) so reviews hopefully to follow soon. Most notably, my favorite autographs were from Richelle "Be careful with that plague!" and Jackie Kessler
jackiekessler "To my favorite plague carrier..." (This may have been Rachel Vincent
rkvincent or Caitlin Kittredge
blackaire, I have to double-check.)
Randomly, I ran into Virginia
macbeaner, Todd
tmthomas and Brian
brian_ohio. It was so awesome to meet them all, hugs were had around, but the atmosphere in the room was not conducive to sitting and talking. Thankfully, most of them were coming to lunch! So we all bumped into each other as we walked around and found those that we love, admire, plan to stalk and wanna be like. Mark made Todd's and I's lives more difficult by shooing us back and forth to different tables to meet people. It was great to meet them, but after like 13 books, I couldn't buy any more!! And it was so difficult not to buy when you stopped at someone's table. We were all joking about not making eye contact... especially with the erotic writers b/c I just don't read that.
After a couple hours, I couldn't take any more and found Tood who also had made it down every aisle and talked to those he wanted to. We decided to head towards the check out line, which turned out to be a good thing b/c it was already a mile long!! Once we had our books paid for ($85 of fan-love), we headed down to the couches in the lobby we planned to meet everyone at around 2:15pm. We had a great surprise when Brian showed up with his broud a short time later and was able to sit with us!
It was great getting to just talk to the guys. They are aspiring writers just like me and it was awesome to hear about what kind of projects they are working on and where they want to go. Very inspiring and relieving to know I'm not the only one who is a baby writer. :) The guys are such sweethearts.
A little after 2pm, Virginia, Shannon, Beth, Richelle and Caitlin were all hovering about the lobby with us waiting for Mark. :) Renee also showed up at that time and introductions were passed around for the -nth time. *chuckle* We were just gathering together stray writers for a group shot (Rachel Vincent and Jeaniene Frost
frost_light) when his majesty toddled down in his new t-shirt. Damn, my bitch looked good!! *grin*
After a few more moments of gushing, hugs and good-byes, the lunch group was left to walk to August Henry's. (Mark said he didn't pick it but none of us believed that. I think he slipped Richelle a note b/c he blamed it on her.) They had steak salads, which to the group from PA and NY, this was nothing new. French fries GO on salads!! Mark agreed in the end.
This is already a book otherwise I would reveal all the crazy talk that ensued (yes, I like that word) while stuffing out mouths and many of us sipping the $5 Long Island Ice Teas (mmmmmmmm...). So, I'll just say that we all had an unhealthy ubsession with "MopHead" (a RT male model contestant) who turned out to be a porn star at one point. Here's a pic stolen from Richelle with she and Caitlin. (Hopefully he doesn't read Live Journal...)
We finished our lunch with random pics of each other (mostly Mark just pointing his camera and snapping without looking- brat). And after a fun walk the 10 blocks back to the hotel, we had our final hugs and good-byes and split ways.
I had such an awesome way. Thank you to everyone who came out to meet me and those who got to go to lunch with us. I had sooo much fun and am already planning on Florida for 2009!! Hopefully I'll see you all there again if we don't get to meet up before then!
I'm sure more thoughts will pop-up randomly throughout the next couple weeks and I'll gladly share them with you all. I'm going to be on a fan-girl high for a while. I am such. a. dork.
First of all, we must start off with my new theme song for your listening pleasure as you read along:
Click to viewNow my weekend started with going to my grandparents, which was wonderful b/c I haven't seen most of the PA family since pre-surgery so catching up with the majority of them was wonderful.
I also learned something new, my niece is a Stealth Squirmer. As grandma has small beds, I volunteered to bunk with Ellalily. Not a big issue but I'm not used to little feet, knees, hands and her head trying to dig under me, bash into me and generally lay on top of me. Not to mention waking up and finding her foot by my head, her head near my knees, and the other foot hanging off the bed. *indulgent smile*
But back to RT con! My sister Shannon
sadieloree and I started off an hour early and after a few extra left turns, (yes, we made a square!) we found a parking garage underneath the hotel. A very sweet security guard at the hotel escourted us to the elevators for which we thanked him- in stereo. Heehee... no, we're not related. Thankfully, sissy's BFF Beth
sakibebe was waiting for us and we got into line about 45 minutes before we were to be let in. Renee
reneesweet had thankfully informed us that none other than Fabio was in the building! And much hilarity ensued as we kept an eye out for Shannon's next husband. (Or is he in line for #3?)
Regretfully, no sitings took place. *sniff*
Once we got inside, we decided we were all big girls and that we could split up since we all had a plethora of different authors to see. Sissy and I did head for Melissa Marr
melissa_writing first... but she wasn't there. So Richelle Mead
blue_succubus was exactly where Melissa should have been, so it worked out wonderfully! I was able to get her to sign Succubus Blues (which I am halfway through and loving!) and confirmed she would be hitting the town with the LJ group for lunch!
My next stop, OF COURSE, was Mark Henry
mdhenry. *dreamy stalker sigh* Being an ubar stalker nerd, I had made us t-shirts (yes, us and pictures to follow as soon as I have them on DVD). On the back was the cover of his book and on the front I had put on name tags. They said "Hello my name was" and then I was "Plague Carrier #1" and Mark was "Patient Zero". Now I had teased Mark I was going to do this ages ago and I have follow through. What I didn't realize is that I would become his personal billboard for the afternoon! (I pimp my ho's!) It cracked me up. I had dozens of people looking to see what my name tag read, then I had to explain, show them the back, and Mark was even sweet enough to give me postcards to hand out. :) Isn't he special? So I remembered to have him sign my official copy of Happy Hour... then forgot to have him sign my shirt!! So, next year, Mark... next year...
Mark had been my main focus of going and I haven't gotten to read all the FFF authors
fangs_fur_fey that I've wanted to, so this turned out to be the perfect opportunity to meander about, buying their books and getting their autographs. And they've all been moved to the top of my new pile of TBR ( see previous post) so reviews hopefully to follow soon. Most notably, my favorite autographs were from Richelle "Be careful with that plague!" and Jackie Kessler
jackiekessler "To my favorite plague carrier..." (This may have been Rachel Vincent
rkvincent or Caitlin Kittredge
blackaire, I have to double-check.)
Randomly, I ran into Virginia
macbeaner, Todd
tmthomas and Brian
brian_ohio. It was so awesome to meet them all, hugs were had around, but the atmosphere in the room was not conducive to sitting and talking. Thankfully, most of them were coming to lunch! So we all bumped into each other as we walked around and found those that we love, admire, plan to stalk and wanna be like. Mark made Todd's and I's lives more difficult by shooing us back and forth to different tables to meet people. It was great to meet them, but after like 13 books, I couldn't buy any more!! And it was so difficult not to buy when you stopped at someone's table. We were all joking about not making eye contact... especially with the erotic writers b/c I just don't read that.
After a couple hours, I couldn't take any more and found Tood who also had made it down every aisle and talked to those he wanted to. We decided to head towards the check out line, which turned out to be a good thing b/c it was already a mile long!! Once we had our books paid for ($85 of fan-love), we headed down to the couches in the lobby we planned to meet everyone at around 2:15pm. We had a great surprise when Brian showed up with his broud a short time later and was able to sit with us!
It was great getting to just talk to the guys. They are aspiring writers just like me and it was awesome to hear about what kind of projects they are working on and where they want to go. Very inspiring and relieving to know I'm not the only one who is a baby writer. :) The guys are such sweethearts.
A little after 2pm, Virginia, Shannon, Beth, Richelle and Caitlin were all hovering about the lobby with us waiting for Mark. :) Renee also showed up at that time and introductions were passed around for the -nth time. *chuckle* We were just gathering together stray writers for a group shot (Rachel Vincent and Jeaniene Frost
frost_light) when his majesty toddled down in his new t-shirt. Damn, my bitch looked good!! *grin*
After a few more moments of gushing, hugs and good-byes, the lunch group was left to walk to August Henry's. (Mark said he didn't pick it but none of us believed that. I think he slipped Richelle a note b/c he blamed it on her.) They had steak salads, which to the group from PA and NY, this was nothing new. French fries GO on salads!! Mark agreed in the end.
This is already a book otherwise I would reveal all the crazy talk that ensued (yes, I like that word) while stuffing out mouths and many of us sipping the $5 Long Island Ice Teas (mmmmmmmm...). So, I'll just say that we all had an unhealthy ubsession with "MopHead" (a RT male model contestant) who turned out to be a porn star at one point. Here's a pic stolen from Richelle with she and Caitlin. (Hopefully he doesn't read Live Journal...)
We finished our lunch with random pics of each other (mostly Mark just pointing his camera and snapping without looking- brat). And after a fun walk the 10 blocks back to the hotel, we had our final hugs and good-byes and split ways.
I had such an awesome way. Thank you to everyone who came out to meet me and those who got to go to lunch with us. I had sooo much fun and am already planning on Florida for 2009!! Hopefully I'll see you all there again if we don't get to meet up before then!
I'm sure more thoughts will pop-up randomly throughout the next couple weeks and I'll gladly share them with you all. I'm going to be on a fan-girl high for a while. I am such. a. dork.