I have been woefully remiss in keeping up with my blog, but that’s about to change. Blogging is sort of like writing books — if you miss one day working on it, it becomes easier to miss two, then three, and so on. But I’m energized by a planning session I had late last week in which I made writing plans for the rest of 2009, and I’m rededicating myself to blogging here each day.

So, what have I been up to since I last blogged here in mid September? Well, I spoke at the Moonlight & Magnolias Conference

Went to my 20-year high school reunion

Spoke at the member retreat for River City Romance Writers in Memphis

Have been enjoying the new TV season (I’ll do a separate post about this sometime this week, but I have to give a squeeful shoutout to the beginning of Castle last night when Nathan Fillion’s character, Richard Castle, dressed up for Halloween as Captain Mal, aka Captain Tightpants, from his Firefly days!)

Been working on some new story ideas

Been doing a lot of yard work and general prep for winter (like the duct-cleaning guys are here now)

Keeping up with my Healthy Writer blog (come by and check us out!) and continuing with my regular blog days at the Romance Bandits, Supernatural Sisters, Wet Noodle Posse, Harlequin American Authors and Nobody Writes is Better blogs

Got new author photos taken

And generally just keeping up with all of the everyday demands.

So, what is everyone else working on/doing this fall?

I’m back from Dragon*Con, and I’ve actually downloaded all of my photos. I had a fabulous time embracing my inner sci-fi geek, and I have the photos to prove it. Last Thursday, I drove to my friend Tanya Michna’s house in Georgia. We drove into Atlanta to pick up our guest badges and packets since we were both speakers. Let’s just say it was a bit surreal and we both felt kind of like posers when we looked over and saw Gil Gerard (Buck Rogers in the 25th Century) and Richard Hatch (Battlestar Galactica) in line with us.

Friday morning, we made our way to our hotel for the weekend and had a remarkably easy time finding a good parking spot and getting checked in quickly. Then we zipped over to the Buffy/Angel panel. Here’s one-half of the panel — Kristy Swanson (Buffy in the original movie) and Felicia Day (Vi in the series).

And the other half of the panel was Charisma Carpenter (Cordelia) and Julie Benz (Darla).

After the panel, I was off to have the first of the photos I’d booked taken. First up was some of the Battlestar Galactica cast. I’d originally scheduled a photo with Edward James Olmos (Admiral Adama) and Mary McDonnell (President Laura Roslin), but Olmos had to cancel his appearance. I still had the photo with Mary, but I added Kandyse McClure (Dualla) and Michael Trucco (Sam Anders). I wish I’d splurged and gotten the photo with all the cast members there, but I was already making my credit card scream. You can kind of see that I’d dressed as a Merlotte’s Diner waitress from True Blood — the same idea at least 20 other people I saw had.

The next photo was with Charisma Carpenter and Julie Benz. Hey, nothing like having your photo taken between two of the most beautiful women at the conference to make you recommit to your exercise plan.

After that, I went back to our room. Since this year we were staying in one of the four host hotels, I was able to watch and earlier panel with Paul McGillion (Dr. Carson Beckett on Stargate Atlantis) on Dragon*Con TV.  Later that night, Tanya and I hit the Supernatural fan panel and handed out our business cards for the Supernatural Sisters blog we do with M.J. Fredrick, Natalie Damschroder and Terri Clark.

I had to get up early the next morning for my photo op with Leonard Nimoy. Couldn’t believe I was actually going to stand next to the original Spock. Unfortunately, some lowlife thief stole the photo company’s equipment (four laptops, camera equipment, printers, photo cards, etc.) Saturday night, and my Nimoy photo was one of the 10 percent they hadn’t had the opportunity to back up. The folks at Froggy’s Photos were nice and refunded my money. The lady I talked to couldn’t believe I was being nice and understanding about it because she said she’d already had several people yell at her about their lots photos (on Sunday). Dudes, it’s not like they asked to have their equipment stolen. They had to finish out their appointments on Sunday and Monday with borrowed equipment.

I followed the Nimoy shoot with ones with Peter Facinelli (Dr. Carlisle Cullen) and Justin Chon (Eric Yorkie) of Twilight (which was why I’d chosen to dress like Alice Cullen)…

and then Joe Flanigan (John Sheppard) and Paul McGillion (doing a Zoolander face) of Stargate Atlantis. (The following day, I was able to get Paul and Joe to sign my photo and have a little more time to talk to them. Both very nice, and Paul is a total ham. His various expressions in everyone’s photos were a riot.)

After the Atlantis photo, I hurried to where Tanya was already waiting in line for the Battlestar Galactica panel. One-half of the panel was Michael Hogan (Saul Tigh), Michael Trucco (Sam Anders), Kate Vernon (Ellen Tigh), and Mary McDonnell (President Laura Roslin).

The other half was Luciana Carro (Kat), Alessandro Juliani (Felix Gaeda) and Aaron Douglas (Galen Tyrol).

This entire panel seemed to really get along well and all seemed like truly nice people and genuinely appreciative of the fans.

After some lunch, Tanya and I made for the line already forming for the Stargate panel. It was a 4 p.m. panel, and we got in line about 1:45 and still weren’t in the front. A couple of the panel members (Gary Jones and Colin Cunningham) were from Stargate SG-1. The other four panelists were from Stargate Atlantis. They were Paul McGillion, Rachel Luttrell (Teyla Emmagan), Joe Flanigan and Jason Momoa (Ronon Dex). This was another really fun and friendly group.

In fact, when Rachel wasn’t there for the beginning of the panel, Joe called her to see where she was and held his phone up to the microphone. LOL!

I was able to meet Rachel and have my photo taken with her a little later. She was really friendly. I’m inspired to get as fit as her.

We capped off the night with the Cruxshadows concert — for the second year in a row — which went from midnight until 2 a.m. Yep, the really late night of the con. And would you believe there was another event after that? People were queued up for the Rocky Horror Picture Show, which holds absolutely not interest for me.

On Sunday, I didn’t dress in costume because I was on a panel speaking about Writing for the YA Market with fellow authors such as Richelle Mead, Diana Peterfreund, Gillian Summers and Katherine Duey. But before that, I had my photo taken with Jason Momoa. He wasn’t as chatty as the other Atlantis cast members but was still nice. Ronon was always one of my favorite characters, and one of the reasons was because he wasn’t chatty.

The final professional photo I had taken was with John Schneider. I really liked him as Jonathon Kent on Smallville, but well before that I’d loved him as Bo Duke on the Dukes of Hazzard. I remember watching it faithfully every Friday night on one of the three channels we got out in the boonies. I told one of the ladies working the photo shoot that if I could have one back to tell my 12-year-old self that one day I’d meet John Schneider, I wouldn’t have believed it. Not surprisingly, he was super nice.

Dragon*Con has an area it calls the Walk of Fame. It’s here that you can meet the actors and talk to them a little more, get their autographs if you like. I had Joe, Paul and Jason autograph theirs, and I was able to talk to Kate Vernon and Michael Hogan for a few minutes. While Michael was talking to someone else, Kate and I even talked about my YA book, Heartbreak River. How cool is that!? I was able to have my photo snapped with them. You wouldn’t know they’re Cylons, would you?

One of the coolest parts of Dragon*Con is checking out all the costumes. Here are a few examples.

The best Wonder Woman I saw. She was tall and totally had the look.

Supergirl (Isn’t she adorable?)

Kara “Starbuck” Thrace (I remembered meeting this gal last year when she was dressed as Number Six from BSG.)

There are always tons of Star Wars characters. Here’s an Ewok, a Jedi and a Stormtrooper.

And for you fans of Buffy comics, here’s an awesome Fray.

Catwoman

We met Hello Kitty in the food court. I couldn’t help but think she was burning up in that costume.

Loved this trio! They were Captain Malcom Reynolds, River Tam and Jayne Cobb from Firefly and Serenity.

I love the Underworld movies, and here are some Lycans fit to scare small children. What you can barely see on the right is one of the vampires in the armor we see in the beginning of Underworld: Evolution. I wish I’d noticed that the gal taking the photo didn’t get the entire group. Bummer.

The best Dr. Horrible I saw over the weekend.

And here’s me as Alice Cullen with Tanya as Tonks from the Harry Potter books.

I’m already brainstorming my costume ideas for next year.

Watch out, Blogland! I’m back from the writing cave. Yes, fair readers, I finally finished my latest book and turned it in to my editor yesterday. I then breathed the most enormous sigh of relief mankind has ever experienced.

As it normally does when I’m on deadline, my desk has become a disaster area. I began the excavation today by paying bills and throwing all the junk mail in the recycle bin. Also ran a million errands and did some prep for my trip to Dragon*Con this upcoming weekend. If any of you are attending, I’ll be on a Young Adult panel on Sunday morning. The rest of the time I’ll be geeking out with 40,000 of my closest friends. I booked my “photos with the stars” appointments last night, and I have to admit I went a little crazy. I plan to have my photo taken with several actors from Battlestar Galactica, Stargate Atlantis, Twilight, Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Angel, along with John Schneider and Leonard Nimoy. I’m also very excited to see many of the actors on panels along with some wonderful authors like Diana Gabaldon, Charlaine Harris and Richelle Mead.

I hope to share lots of fun pictures here when I get back. I still have a few photos from the RWA National Conference I want to share, and I plan to do that over the next couple of days before I leave.

Just call me Lamey McLamerson. I’ve not been blogging here lately because when I get to working on a book, other things seem to get shoved to the sides. I have been committed to blogging on my Healthy Writer blog every day, so pop by there if you get the chance.

But for now, here are some more pictures from the RWA National Conference. These are from Wednesday of conference week.

It was my first year to be able to sign at the huge RWA Literacy Signing. Imagine 500 authors in one room with lots of readers going from table to table to meet them and get books signed. So cool. And the proceeds go to literacy groups. We raised more than $60,000 this year. Extra cool was the fact that my next-door neighbor during the signing was my good pal Tanya Michna/Tanya Micheals. Here we look like normal, friendly authors. In a few weeks, we’ll be getting our geek on and dressing up at Dragon*Con.

Lots of friends stopped by my table. Among them were Michelle Butler, who I’ve now known for 13 years!

And Vanessa Barnevald, talented YA author and Golden Heart finalist this year. I fully expect to hear about a first sale from her soon.

After the Lit Signing was the annual Bandit Bash, sponsored by my fellow Romance Bandits and myself. Here’s a view from above of part of the crowd.

If you’re a regular visitor to the Romance Bandits blog, you’ll know how popular our Golden Rooster is. He’s a virtual rooster who goes to the first comment poster of the day, but don’t tell him he’s not real. He might get upset and karate chop me. The rooster, sporting a cape and mask, graced our party cake — along with some of his cocky attitude.

Banditas KJ Howe and Anna Sugden.

And more Banditas, Beth Andrews and Susan Sey.

Me with one of the Bash guests, Jessica Andersen, who took time away from pimping the end of the world, to come party with us. (See Jess’s books to see what I’m talking about.)

Well, you can probably tell my deadline is sucking up all my time because I didn’t get the second post about the conference up. But never fear! I’ve not forgotten.

On Sunday and Monday of conference week, I was pretty much in board member mode from the time I got up until the time I went to bed. I think we got out of the board meeting around 8 p.m. on Monday. Consequently, I slept in on Tuesday instead of going to play tourist. Two reasons: I was already run down and knew I’d get sick if I didn’t catch up on rest before the conference even started. And I’d broken my toe the night before my slamming it into the base of the bed. Ugh. Never had a broken anything before. I didn’t realize it was broken until the next morning when I discovered it was very sore, swollen and quite purple. Good thing I brought all open-toed shoes. So I didn’t think I wanted to go walking around museums all day.

Tuesday night, we had a party for the Romance Bandits and Bandita Jeanne’s house. Very fun — good food, good conversation, many laugh-out-loud moments. Plus, it was a hoot to hear Donna MacMeans’ GPS telling us how to get to Jeanne’s house in his proper British voice. Here for your viewing pleasure are several photos from the evening.

Donna MacMeans and Loucinda McGary

Nancy Northcott and Suzanne Welsh

Suz with Christie Kelley

The Golden Rooster eyeballing some of the yummies

Jeanne Adams, Anna Campbell and Caren Crane

Joan Kayse offering the GR one of her awesomely scrumptious chocolate chip cookies

Beth Andrews and Anna Sugden

My trip to Washington, D.C., for the RWA National Conference began July 10 when I spent the day driving to Charlottesville, Virginia, where I was to catch the train into D.C. the next morning. Long day of driving, but my trusty iPod loaded with music and PotterCast podcasts kept me company. I also got a call from my pal Mary (aka MJ Fredrick), and since, shall we say, she’s not a phone person, I knew the reason she was calling was because she’d contracted another book! Woohoo!

I really like driving through Virginia. It’s very pretty and so full of history — the perfect combination, in my opinion. I didn’t have time to stop to see anything, but someday I want to take a vacation to Virginia and just spend a week or two traveling around the state seeing all the sights I’ve not had the opportunity to visit yet. Plus, Charlottesville is in the mountains and significantly cooler. Good thing in the height of summer.

Saturday morning, I was up early to catch the train a bit after 7 a.m. (6 a.m. at home). I, my nearly over-the-limit luggage, and my pumpkin muffin from Panera headed toward D.C. I spent the time reading L.J. Smith’s The Awakening, the first in the Vampire Diaries series. I’m planning to review it in my August YA News & Reviews column on RomanceNovel.tv. I arrived at Union Station, hauled said luggage out to the taxi stand, and was off to the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel. After unpacking, I called my good friend Michelle Butler, who is from the area. Michelle is one of my two oldest writing buddies, the other being Beth Pattillo. That’s oldest in that I’ve known them the longest, not that they’re old. Michelle and I had plans to go to dinner to celebrate her finishing her first manuscript

This is Michelle and me, a bit later in the week during the conference:

Michelle arrived bearing a gift. She knows I love Deadliest Catch, so she brought me this awesome T-shirt. Here’s the front…

and here’s the back.

After an afternoon of just catching up, we were off to Filomena’s, a lovely Italian restaurant in Georgetown. We had time to kill before our reservation, so we perused the offerings at Banana Republic. Michelle got a cute top, and I determined to lose weight so I could buy more cute tops. We had a very nice dinner, then walked through Georgetown to the nearest Metro station to catch separate trains back to our final destinations of the evening.

Wow, the RWA National Conference and recuperating from it have blown a hole in my blogging, haven’t they? Eek. Since getting home on Monday, I’ve been eyeball deep in revisions that are due Aug. 3. But I plan to start putting up some of my pictures from conference week sometime later today or tonight. Must hit my revision goal for today first.

In the meantime, I would love for you all to check out and comment on my latest YA News & Reviews column over at Romance Novel TV. It’s also my blog day at the Wet Noodle Posse, and in keeping with our summery theme of the month I blogged about my memories of going to the drive-in theater in my little hometown.

After leaving Rochelle, Illinois on my trip north, I headed to Madison, Wisconsin, where my agent is located. On the way out to dinner, she drove me through the University of Wisconsin campus. I know it’s cold in the winter, but the campus has some lovely lake views. We ate dinner at a place called Nau-ti-Gal on one of the lakes. We sat outside and listened to the live band that was set up and playing under the trees in the yard. The place was packed, and I had some absolutely delicious stuffed grouper. We talked business for awhile, then just some fun non-business stuff. After leaving there, we went to a Madison landmark, Ella’s Deli and Ice Cream Parlor. This place is amazing — not just the ice cream but also the decor. It’s full of old toys everywhere, even moving back and forth across the ceiling, and a carousel.

The next day, I headed to Green Bay for the WisRWA conference. I’d never been to Green Bay, and pretty much all I equated with it was the Packers and being really friggin’ cold. I made my way to the hotel attached to the Oneida Casino, where I checked in and found this in the lobby:

Let me just say it’s still very weird to see my name listed as a featured speaker, especially with New York Times best-selling author Sherrilyn Kenyon. Now, I know Sherry, and she’s as down to earth as they come, but it’s still a little squee moment to be listed with her. Here we are together.

I spoke at the conference on Making Your Setting Come Alive, and I was also able to reconnect with writers I’d met at this conference 2-3 years ago when it was last held in Madison.

Here I am with Meagan Hatfield and Ann Voss-Peterson.

And with Lori Devoti.

With fellow guest author Karin Tabke. We were next-door neighbors at the book signing.

With Rachel Berens-VanHeest.

I was also able to have a nice meeting with Harlequin Executive Editor Birgit-Davis Todd. She’s not my editor but does work closely with my editor.

With fellow writers Ann Curtis and Cat Shield (who won the WisRWA Fab Five award for best YA manuscript).

With Publishers Weekly blogger Barbara Vey.

I’ve got one more Wisconsin trip post in me, about my post-conference trip through the lovely Door County and the journey back south. Be sure to check in over the weekend for the final installment. And for those of you in the U.S., Happy 4th of July!

I’ve been busy with various deadlines and out of town to speak at a conference in Green Bay, Wisconsin, thus the blogging has taken a back burner. Poor neglected blog. But I have all kinds of good posts lined up for this week — including photos from my Wisconsin trip and a peek at what’s in my back yard these days. And there just might be a post about how I’m addicted to a certain game on Facebook.

Today is my regular day to blog with over at the Romance Bandits blog, and I’m interviewing writing pal Colette Gale about her steamy take on the classics.

Also, I’m happy to announce that I’m part of a new group blog, with another set of Golden Heart finalists, those from 2007. The Nobody Writes It Better blog goes live today with our opening post by Gail Fuller. I’ll be blogging there on Friday.

After two weeks of travel for business and vacation and then the past week of having the respiratory crud, my to-do list has been approaching scary lengths. The good news is that I finished up my book that’s due April 1 yesterday and am in the process of polishing it up to turn in to my editor. The plan is for it to be on its lovely way tomorrow so that I can get to the rest of the things on the scary list:

1. Revise synopsis for continuity book after reading all the unread e-mails on that loop. Then turn it back in.
2. Start reading through the revision comments on the second YA (revision round 3, for those of you counting), then start working on that.
3. Register for the Moonlight & Magnolias conference before Wednesday, since I’m a speaker this fall.
4. Go see the folks and pick up Mom’s refurbished rocking chair that belonged to her grandmother.
5. Promo planning for April book release.
6. Work on updating program I’m giving to OVRWA in a couple of weeks.
7. Answer backlogged e-mail.
8. Clean off TiVo.
9. Clean house — at least begin to.
10. Clean off my impossibly messy desk. Who knows what’s in those piles of paper!
11. Get back to blogging every day on my blog and write my Supernatural Sisters blog for the week.