I got my 15 pages for today written a bit earlier today than I have the past few days, so I’ve spent a chunk of the evening printing out workshop handouts for the RWA conference, cleaning off my desk, cleaning out files, and making daily schedules listing everything that I have to get done between now and when I leave for California. Wow, those are some scary lists! Someone send over the clone-me machine, please.

I’m a pretty organized and hard-working person, but the days leading up to the national conference are like this every year. I have to remember to make sure I get enough rest in amongst all the busyness so I’m not totally wiped before I even get to the conference or, worse yet, I let my immune system defenses down and get sick. Last year, I managed to not get sick until a few days after the conference. In fact, I was sick as a dog 10 days after the conference when I got the call that I’d sold my first book. You know, I’d rather just not get sick at all, thanks.

Okay, totally cool news! I’ve had a trip to Dragon*Con in my plans for a few months, but it wasn’t until today that I found out that I’ve been approved as an author speaker along with good pal Tanya Michaels/Tanya Michna. We are such geek girls about certain TV shows, so in addition to our speaking and autographing duties we’ll be prowling the halls looking for cast members from Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Smallville. My goals for the weekend of Dragon*Con (Aug. 29-Sept. 1):

1. Meet lots of readers to get the word out about my books
2. Meet Tahmoh Penikett, Katie Sackhoff and Jamie Bamber (Helo, Starbuck and Apollo from BSG); Morena Baccarin, Jewel Staite and Adam Baldwin (from Serenity and Firefly); Michael Rosenbaum and Erica Durance (from Smallville); and James Marsters (from Buffy and Angel). Yes, I’m letting my sci-fi geekdom shine!

The only thing that could make this weekend better would be if the boys from Supernatural were going to be there. Then I would be absolutely beside myself. (But Mary and Natalie might hate me forever. Eek.)

Check out the Dragon*Con site for more info, including the huge list of celebrities attending. I’m not on the list yet because I just faxed in my letter of agreement tonight.

Sorry I fell off the blog radar for a few days. The Internet connection was poo in my room at the RT conference hotel, and I spent yesterday driving home from Pittsburgh. But without further adieu, here’s a look at my week in pictures and a bit of commentary.

My hotel room overlooked the site of historic Fort Pitt (you can see the outlines of the original fort on the grass), and where the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers come together to form the Ohio River. It was cool to see the spot where the Ohio River begins since I grew up near the opposite end of the river. To the far right of the photo below, you can see a bit of Heinz Field, more commonly known as Three Rivers Stadium to Pittsburgh Steelers fans.

Since some of my Bandita pals were there, and I was an American Title finalist like one of them (KJ Howe) and several other writers in attendance. We had a group Bandita/AT dinner at a restaurant across the street from the hotel. Others took those pictures, so I don’t have those yet.

I’ve decided that at any future RT conferences I attend, I’m going to go the costume route at the evening parties. Lots of people went all out, including my pal Lindsey Brookes, and it was great to watch. Because these parties included dancing, I didn’t want to keep up with my camera. But if anyone sends me photos, I’ll be sure to post them.

On Friday was the awards luncheon where numerous authors were honored, and Helen Scott Taylor was announced as the winner of the American Title contest. I came in first runner-up. Huge congrats to Helen! That’s her below sitting between her beautiful daughter, Katherine, right, and the first AT winner, Janice Lynn.

Here are some more ATers: Holli Bertram, Evonne Wareham, former finalist Judi Fennel, last year’s winner, Jenny Gardiner, and (standing) Liz French, managing editor of Romantic Times BOOKreviews Magazine and our fabulous RT contact throughout the contest.

On Saturday was the big group book signing. I knew lots of the authors signing. Here are just a handful of them.

Colleen Gleason

Anna DeStefano

Jessica Andersen

Natale Stenzel

Here I am being a total fangirl with J.R. Ward, who is not only talented but gracious, friendly and hysterical too.

Oh, and here my fabu agent, Michelle Grajkowski, and I decided to have a picture taken together to see how much our printed shirts would mess with people’s eyeballs.

Okay, here’s what you all have been waiting for — cover models! Not only were this year’s contestants in the Mr. Romance contest there, but since it was the 25th anniversary of RT, there were also famous cover models in the building. Yes, Fabio was in the house. In fact, I nearly plowed into him when I was exiting the ladies room. I also spied special guest Adrian Paul of Highlander fame looking verra nice in a purple suit. Sorry, didn’t have my camera with me. Next time, I think I’ll just have my camera attached to my hand at all times. If you’ve been reading romance novels for awhile, you’ll also recognize the name John DeSalvo. And guess what! Yes, I do have a photo of him.

The Mr. Romance competition brought out the flashing cameras. Here’s a peek at the reason why.

And here’s me with the very nice and charming James Gaskin, who was the second runner-up. One night, he talked to Michelle and me for several minutes after one of the parties. We chatted a bit about him studying physics in college and how my hubby was a physics major for a couple of years before changing to economics.

And the winner was…Chris Winters. Oh, and in case you’re wondering, he’s the one showing off his pecs in the photo above. Hey, if you’ve got it, flaunt it.

I didn’t meet Chris, but from all accounts he’s a nice guy too. I don’t know what I was expecting, but the guys I met and heard about were all very nice and down to earth, several of them college students. Other than James, I only talked to Chris Howell and a bit with Luke Walsh. I think I felt kind of funny just striking up conversations with them because it seemed like they were constantly being pulled one way or another. I figured they had to be totally exhausted by the end of the week.

So, have I convinced any of you to attend RT next year in Orlando?