...And You Thought The Line for Nora was Long

This photo was from the literacy signing. You can tell from the panicked look on my face how I feel about crowds. It got worse this afternoon. I nearly bolted. I was in the main lobby waiting for lunch and it was filled in by inch with romance writers. My stomach clenched and I clung to a column for dear life. Agent Steven Axelrod was standing across from me in deep conversation with someone Very Important I'm sure. He was wearing a seersucker suit. So my focus turned to seersucker, then I thought about who wore seersucker. Of course that was Matlock. But Steven Axelrod doesn't look anything like Matlock. My husband wants a seersucker suit but I won't let him get one because he would look like Matlock. Anyway, by the time that train of thought ended, it was time to go down for lunch. While waiting to go in, I did nearly knock down a sign. Only one person saw me. Things were better inside. They already had the salads on the tables and they were pretty good. Lunch was rubber chicken with sauce and the only coffee available at our table was decaf *shudder*. I chatted with two other ladies and then it was time for Victoria Alexander to speak. She was great, I really enjoyed her speech. She's very funny.

After lunch it was time for workshops. I put my stuff down and decided to head to the bathroom. OMG, the line for the bathroom was longer than anything from the literacy signing. I decided to hold it.

The first workshop I went to was a dialogue one presented by historical author Elizabeth Hoyt.
It was pretty good and she is funny and very knowledgeable. My only problem was the people who harped on the same question over and over and over again. It made her rush through the rest of the program.

Then it was on to the next workshop. And there was a line for the bathroom. I was going to go to a program presented by Cherry Adair about writing a blockbuster or something like that. But the room was filled to capacity and I didn't want to get stuck in the crush. I went to another workshop mainly because they still had seats. It was put on by a group of authors who do the Debutante Ball group blog. Wow, it was pretty good and made me start thinking about things. They discussed the trouble with promotion and how they use their "grog" to promote each other. Group blogs are great but they need organization to be successful and I really liked their approach to managing their web. They seemed very focus on what they were doing.

There weren't any workshops after that I was interested in so I headed back to my hotel to my unoccupied bathroom. Tomorrow is going to be a long day. I've got some leftover chocolate mouse torte which I need to finish from dinner (we went to a nice Italian place called Kuleto's) then its off to bed for an early morning.