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.

I just got back from my first Dragon*Con tonight, and I’m already planning to go back next year. Not only did I get some writerly exposure to people who might never have heard of me otherwise, but my fangirl self had a fantastic time. What follows is a rundown along with lots of fun pictures. Be sure to go through the whole post — it’s worth it.

So, Thursday I drove down to pal Tanya Michna’s (aka Tanya Michaels’ house) so we could get the jump on arriving the next day. In preparation, we watched Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, a Joss Whedon project that was an Internet hit this summer and which Tanya’s seen many times and I had yet to see due to my crazy schedule. Anyway, as with all things Joss, I loved it. Neil Patrick Harris (Dr. Horrible) and Nathan Fillion (Captain Hammer) were hysterical. My two favorite new sayings, quotes from Dr. Horrible, are “What a crazy random happenstance” and a Captain Hammer quote I can’t say on the blog.

On Friday, we arrived at our hotel, unloaded our stuff in our room and headed down to the Hyatt to register and get on with Day 1. Tanya had obligations on the writer track that day, but I went to see Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk (from Firefly and Serenity) speak. Had to wait in line for an hour and a half, but it was worth it. When my spot in line ended up so far back that I was on the outside of the hotel, I figured I wouldn’t get in, but I was miraculously on the sixth row. Nathan and Alan were really funny as they answered audience members’ questions. Later in the afternoon, I had a signing but since I currently don’t have any sci-fi/fantasy/paranormal books out, I only signed things for two people — one book cover and one DragonCon program. Oh, well.

That night, Tanya and I attended first the Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog live performance, which was several people in costume lip-syncing the show while the show played to the side on a big screen. Very funny, and the guy who played Dr. Horrible was really good. Afterward, we hopped over to another hotel to hear part of the performance of the Brobdingnagian Bards. After that was the Buffy Sing Along, which was the same format used in the Dr. Horrible Sing Along but with the musical episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, “Once More with Feeling.” I’d wanted to attend this for a long time, so I was glad to finally get to see it and sing along with a room full of people who loved Buffy too.

We started off Saturday with a program by Matthew Lewis, who plays Neville Longbottom in the Harry Potter movies. I’ve heard him interviewed before on the Pottercast podcast, but it was fun to see him in person. Here’s Matt, looking a lot different than he did when Neville first came on screen.

That afternoon, I was on a panel about YA fiction along with several other authors, including Rachel Caine, whose Morganville Vampires series I’m really enjoying. I told her this and that I love her Weather Wardens series too. She was very nice and signed the first Morganville book for me. Next up was a reading by me. Again, because I don’t yet have huge paranormal/sci-fi/fantasy cred, no one showed up. I sat at read Rachel’s book while I waited to see if anyone showed up. When I was still alone after 15 minutes, I took off for the line that was already forming for the Firefly panel with Nathan (Captain Mal), Alan (Wash) as well as Jewel Staite (Kaylee) and Morena Baccarin (Inara). They were very entertaining, and you could tell they all loved working together. Here’s the lovely cast members, from left: Alan, Jewel, Morena and Nathan.

After dinner, we went back to our hotel to rest for a bit and drop off the promo materials we’d been lugging around during the day. But we were back down at conference central at 10 p.m. for a panel on Supernatural. We were able to announce we’re in the Supernatural anthology, In the Hunt, that’s coming out in March (which incidentally is now up on Amazon.com here). After that, we headed over to the ballroom to see dark wave band Cruxshadows play. Again, the line stretched outside and wrapped the building. We didn’t know the band’s music going in, but we really enjoyed it and ended up both buying a CD. I met almost all of the members of the band. Here’s me with JoHanna Moresco, a violin player.

Here are dancers and singers Jessica Lackey and Sarah Kilgore.

Me with violinist David Wood and keyboardist Jen Jawidzik (aka Pyromantic).

And with lead singer Rogue.

On Sunday morning, Tanya and I dragged ourselves out of bed at 7 despite having gone to sleep after 3 a.m. so we could get a good spot for the Dollhouse talk with Tahmoh Penikett (who also plays Helo on Battlestar Galactica). Dollhouse is a new Joss Whedon show starting in January. We got front-row seats! Here’s Tahmoh talking about his new character, FBI agent Paul Ballard. Lots of the info on the show online shows the name as Paul Smith, but Tahmoh revealed it’d been changed.

A lot of the rest of my Sunday consisted of getting three very exciting professional photos taken. Prepare to squee, people!

Here I am with Tahmoh Penikett. Love his Helo character on BSG; can’t wait to see Dollhouse.

And with Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk.

Okay, brace yourselves. Here I am with James Marsters (Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Milton Fine/Braniac on Smallville, and Captain John Hart on Torchwood).

They were all really nice, but because of the long lines you didn’t get more than a few words with each. Which I understand. They were probably really, really tired by the end of each day. Oh, funny moment from when I was standing in line to get my photo with Tahmoh. I had on a shirt that had “WTF — What the Frak?” on it (See above. For those of you who don’t know, that’s a saying from BSG). Michael Hogan, who plays Col. Tigh, saw it, chuckled and said, “What the frak? That’s great.” There were other BSG cast members in the room too — Edward James Olmos (Adama), Aaron Douglas (Tyrol), and James Callis (Baltar).

Jewel and Morena weren’t doing photos, so I wasn’t able to get one with them. The only other person who was that I thought about getting one with was Michael Rosenbaum, who played Lex Luthor on Smallville, but I figured I’d done enough. I did see him, however, in the Walk of Fame room. I didn’t meet anyone in there because you had to buy an autographed picture to meet them, but I just walked through to see who I could see. Among the other notables: George Takei, Walter Koenig, Lou Ferrigno, Jake Lloyd, Yancy Butler, Beau Bridges, Avery Brooks.

More than 30,000 people attend Dragon*Con, and a huge portion of those dress up in costumes. Here are some of the many I saw.

With Jedi Shaak Ti and Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Ironman

Giselle and Prince Edward from Enchanted

With Number Six from Battlestar Galactica.

With Professor Snape and Sirius Black from the Harry Potter series.

Sweeney Todd and Mrs. Lovett

A fantastic Tia Dalma and Gibbs from the Pirates of the Caribbean movies.

I better stop there before I make the blog post explode. If you ever have the chance to go to Dragon*Con, I highly recommend it.

No, I’m not talking about the weather. First coolness of today, pal and fabulous Aussie author Anna Campbell has mentioned me and my first release on her lastest Web site update. Check it out and all the other fun stuff Anna mentions.

And the second coolness of the day — I’m headed to Dragon*Con! Will come back with lots of photos and fun tales, I promise.

Awards night at the end of the RWA National Conference is a fabulous way to end a great week of conference. For those up for the Golden Heart and RITA awards, it’s equal parts exciting and nerve-wracking. This year, I wasn’t up for an award because I was in a gap year — couldn’t enter the Golden Heart because I was no longer eligible (this is the unpublished contest), and couldn’t enter the RITA (the published contest) because I didn’t have a book out yet. But being a past Golden Heart winner, I was invited to be a presenter. Pretty cool. I still got to sit up front in the primo viewing seats, and when it was my turn to go up on stage to present the RITA in the Young Adult category, I didn’t even trip on my dress and fall on my face.

Awards night is like our Oscar night, so we go all out getting dressed up. Here’s a look at some of the awards night finery.

Moi with Simone Elkeles, who was up for a RITA for her YA book Leaving Paradise (which I enjoyed reading while on the train to San Fran).

Four lovely Banditas: Kirsten Scott, Christine Wells, Susan Seyfarth (who won the Golden Heart in her category for her manuscript, Money Honey, which has since sold!), and Anna Campbell.

With fellow YA author Julie Linker.

And with good friend, Mills and Boon Medicals author Janice Lynn.

I’ve been so busy the past few days that I haven’t had time to size photos for more posts. But I took my mom home and finished judging contest entries for my RWA chapter, so here are some more fun shots from conference week.

On Thursday night was the Golden Network reception. The Golden Network is a special chapter of RWA for Golden Heart finalists. Each year at the conference, they hold a dessert reception complete with a funny skit and the “boot out” ceremony for those who’ve sold their first book since the last conference. They don’t really boot you out of the chapter; it’s just a symbolic booting in which you get a certificate and a little boot pin to go on your conference badge. This year I was one of the bootees along with several friends.

Above are the Noodlers who were in attendance. Notice Noodler Charity Tahmaseb, standing next to me, also was a bootee.

Among the fun, fun, fun Writers at Play gals, Beth Andrews was a bootee.

On Friday afternoon, the finalists reception for those who’d finaled in the Golden Heart and RITA contests was held. Terry McLaughlin, middle, and I are members of the RWA board, so we got to hand out finalist certificates to fellow Noodlers. Below, from left: me, Theresa Ragan, Terry, Stephanie Rowe, and Priscilla Kissinger.

Friday night means publisher parties. I made a quick zip through the Penguin party before going out to dinner. Then it was on to the Harlequin party, where there was much dancing to be done and fun to be had. Witness it for yourself.

Kathleen Long and Beth Andrews.

My agent, Michelle Grajkowski; me; and my editor, Johanna Raisanen.

Me with Sarah from Smart Bitches. She likes to joke that I used to be her boss when I was the editor of RWA’s eNotes newsletter.

Julie Linker, with whom I did a workshop on Friday morning, and me.

Stephanie Rowe and I dance the night away. Steph was a dancing machine!

I met up with my first Wet Noodle Posse member (aka Noodler) of conference week when the fabulous Theresa Ragan (a double Golden Heart finalist this year) came to the train station to pick me up.

After a hilarious beginning in which Theresa’s car inadvertently got locked in a private lot — oops! — and we met up with a loon of a toll booth operator on the Bay Bridge, she safely dropped me off at the hotel. But I was able to spend some more time with her and the other Noodlers later in the week when we met up for breakfast.

Here we have (from front to back): Priscilla Kissinger, Debra Holland, Lee McKenzie (fellow Harlequin American author), Esri Rose and, standing, Janet Mullany.

And here we have (also front to back): Theresa Ragan, Merrillee Whren, Lorelle Marinello and Delle Jacobs.

Another day, I met up with fellow Noodlers Anne Mallory and Janice Lynn in the lobby of the hotel.

And on Thursday night, Janice won the National Readers’ Choice Award for her book The Doctor’s Pregnancy Bombshell. Yay!

Okay, just for the record, I hate summer colds. Other than running a couple of errands, I’ve been pretty useless today. I’ve basically read e-mail, watched Olympic coverage and read some more of Breaking Dawn. Please, no spoilers! I’m not done yet.

Now on to more pleasant things — more pictures from my trip! And today, we’re featuring the Romance Bandits (aka my Banditas). We had a wonderful dinner at Annabel’s across the street from the hotel on Tuesday night before all the craziness of the conference really got under way.

Here we have (from front to back) Caren Crane, Donna MacMeans, Joan Kayse, Suzanne Welsh and Jo Lewis-Robertson.

On the opposite side of the table (also front to back) were Cassondra Murray, Jeanne Adams, Christine Wells, Kirsten Scott, Susan Seyfarth, and Nancy Northcott.

Two of my tablemates, Beth Andrews and Tawny Weber. I missed a few Banditas who were up taking photos of their own.

Wednesday night was the huge Literacy Book Signing held each year. Totally fun to see the Bandita balloons flying above our six signing Banditas.

Here’s Beth Andrews…

And Jeanne Adams…

And Anna Campbell…

And Donna MacMeans, being visited by fellow Bandita Anna Sugden…

And Christine Wells and Tawny Weber, who through the miracle of alphabetical seating were sitting next to each other.

After the signing, we hosted a crazy, fun party called the Bandita Bash. Even the Golden Rooster made an appearance, probably eying the ginormous cake we hand on hand. The top of the cake said, “Have you spent the night with the Golden Rooster?”

I have more Bandita pictures, but they will come under different posts because they are related to other conference week events. So stay tuned!

Okay, time for three weeks of book winners:

From the week of July 21-27, Keri Mikulski wins:

The Burning Point by Mary Jo Putney
Pagan Bride by Tamara Leigh
Too Many Bosses by Jan Freed

From the week of July 28-Aug. 3, Marianne wins:

The Saint by Kathleen O’Brien
Daniel’s Bride by Linda Lael Miller
Sarah’s Son by Tami Hoag

Remember to send me your mailing info via the Contact page on this site.

And up for grabs this week are:

Fever by Katherine Sutcliffe
His Case, Her Child by Linda Style
Lauren’s Eyes by Norah Wilson

And now on to more trip pictures.

Part of the guided tour included the Japanese Tea Garden.

While visiting another stop on the tour, I decided to act like a giant goofball.

Here I am with fabu agent Michelle Grajkowski at the foot of Lombard Street, the famous super-curvy street in San Fran.

Postcard Row was another stop.

And finally, we had a walk through Chinatown. Honestly, I wasn’t impressed with Chinatown, and I wanted to be. Something smelled really bad, and it was way junkier looking than I expected. Sad since I really like Chinese culture (and thus really liked the opening ceremonies of the Olympics tonight). These street lanterns and street names in Chinese were cool though.

Tomorrow, I’ll share some fun pictures from the Romance Bandits dinner.

I had a great trip to San Francisco, but it is good to be home. Yesterday was a bit of a wild day. The train was running four hours late, so those of us who were to make the connection to the train headed south were taken off the train headed to Chicago at Galesburg, Illinois, then bussed to Champaign, Illinois, so we could catch The City of New Orleans en route. It was late getting into Champaign, so we didn’t board until 11:15 p.m. — 15 minutes after the cafe car closed on the train. So none of us got a meal last night. My dinner was a bag of Cheez-Its. You can imagine how hungry I was driving home this morning after I was dropped off at my end station at 5:10 a.m. My car and the McDonald’s sign up the interstate never looked so good.

I promised photos when I got back, so I’ll be posting some over the next few days. Here goes…

This is me beside the California Zephyr, which I took from Chicago to San Francisco and back to Galesburg.

On the way west, we started seeing flood water from the recent Mississippi River flooding several miles before we reached the river. Farmhouses were still surrounded, roads covered, and things such as furniture and outdoor playsets (the wooden ones with slides, swings, etc.) were floating in the water.

The guided tour I mentioned in San Francisco included a very windy ferry ride from San Fran’s Ferry Building to Saulsalito. My agent’s air is a testament to the windy ride. You can see the Golden Gate Bridge over my right shoulder, and Saulsalito over her left shoulder.

We also passed by Alcatraz.

Jennifer Yates, a devoted reader of the Romance Bandits blog, was on the same tour and brought along a mini Golden Rooster (in joke for readers of the RB blog). So of course I had to pose with the Golden Rooster at the Golden Gate.

More photos tomorrow, along with the announcement of three weeks worth of book winners.

Last night was publisher party night, so I danced until 12:30 a.m. at the Harlequin party. Stephanie Rowe and I were two of the ones who stayed until the very end, and my feet could tell by the end of the night. Still, it was really fun.

Tonight was the big RITA and Golden Heart Awards night. Two friends came away with big prizes. Susan Seyfarth, a fellow Bandita, came away with a shiny new Golden Heart. And Terri Garey, author of Dead Girls are Easy and one of the fun chickies over at Writers at Play, won a RITA! Much screaming ensued. Helen Brenna, with whom I had dinner last night, also won a lovely RITA. I managed to not trip going onto or off of the stage tonight. I presented the RITA for Young Adult, which was one by Melissa Marr for Wicked Lovely.

I roamed through the crowd afterward looking for Steph (Steph, I didn’t get to see your dress!) and Nashville gals, but Annie Solomon was the only one I found. She had really cool shoes tonight and did a great job presenting the RITA for Romantic Suspense, won by Anne Stuart.

For the complete list of RITA and Golden Heart winners, go here.