I did my packing over several days and remembered a lot of things that I might otherwise have forgotten, had I packed in a hurry.  As usual, however, I forgot my hairbrush.  But not to worry, you can’t tell the difference–which was why I demoted hairbrushes from friends to nodding acquaintances in the first place.  :-)

Another thing I forgot was a pretty basket to display all the promo goodies I’d taken to NJ.  I took a look around the hotel room and pressed into service the lovely black box used to hold paper coffee cups, coffee pouches, teabags, sugar packets and such.  It was perfect.  I might never bother taking a basket with me again.  :-)

But you are here to read about Meredith.  So allow me to report that yes, she is alive and well–and looking awfully cute in a cowhide-print dress and red boots.  Chic with a touch of bohemian quirk.  (My conference attire, on the other hand, swing from twee to tarty and back, with very little in between.)

She is very close to finishing her next book–due out in July 2011.  The book is going to have a marriage of convenience theme and a heroine who knows her way around salty language, both of which I love.  Alas, I did not get a chance to read the manuscript, but I did get to fondle  the lucky Alpha Smart that will birth the next Meredith Duran masterpiece.

Meredith gave her very first romance writing workshop at the conference, on using backstory to shape what a character fears, and then having those deep-seated fears drive the story forward.  It was brilliant and profoundly insightful.

I give an occasional workshop on evoking emotions which advises entering a character via their deepest, darkest pain.

Fear and pain, two sides of the same coin, wouldn’t you say?  Little wonder Meredith and I see eye-to-eye on so many things.

(But as exceptional as Meredith’s workshop was, I’m afraid I am going to have to hand the best-in-show award to the one given by the one and only Anne Stuart.  I am never going to write a hero dark enough to rival Anne’s renowned antiheroes, but I went to her How to Write the Dark Romance workshop just to be nearer her barbed halo.

Okay, I went because I was curious as to just how fun and fearless she could be.  I left a squealing fangirl of her sheer awesomeness.  On my gravestone I want the epitaph: “There is only ever one Anne Stuart, but Sherry Thomas made herself into a pretty good fascimile.”

I only regret I didn’t invite myself up to her room to see the pig.)

And wouldn’t you know, Meredith promised that after she’s done with the current manuscript, she’s going to blog on a regular basis.  I can’t wait.  Meredith has one of the most immense and satisfying minds around.

Which was why I was saddened that she left the conference right after the book signing on Saturday.  But if her going home sooner is going to produce the next Meredith Duran oeuvre sooner, then I must do my part for romance and let her go.  :-)

Let’s see, what else?  If you have the chance, definitely attend the NJRWA conference.  It is run with wonderful vigor and efficiency.  Robyn Carr gave a great speech on her 30-years-in-the-making overnight success.  (We got to sit at conference chair Miriam Allenson’s table; she was on the opposite end of the table from us, but it was a thrill getting a special seating asignment!)  Virginia Kantra showed me the Roman woman strut–definitely ask her to tell you the story should you be lucky enough to run into her.  And the one and only Anne Stuart sat down next to me toward the end of the book signing and said, “I hear you write pretty racy books.”

Folks, at that  moment I’d have admitted to writing anything, least of all racy books!

And at the booksellers’ luncheon I met Stacey Agdern, who works at the bookstore at Grand Central Station.  I really can’t think of a cooler place on earth!  Here’s me, Stacey (r), and Kate Garrabrant (l), who is more familiarly known as Katiebabs around the romance blogosphere.

And this, just because it’s the next picture in my camera, the tableau Senior Kidlet arranged before the house.  The Great Pumpkin Pickaxe Massacre.  Pretty good way to salvage a destroyed jack-o-lantern, I say.  :-)

But below, in no particular order, are the highlights of my trip.

1) The Woodley Park Zoo metro stop.  The escalator coming out of the metro stop is the longest and steepest escalator I’ve ever seen.  Going up for the first time, I had the distinct sensation that the man some ten, twelve steps higher up was hanging on for dear life directly above me.  It was dizzying, but in the best way.

2) The digital publishing experts.  I think I’d met both Angela James of Samhain Publishing and Kassia Krozser of Book Square and Quartet Press before–Kassia owns a very cool Barbara Cartland romance board game, if I remember correctly from RWA 2008 in San Francisco–but I didn’t really have a chance to speak with either.  This time I did.  And it was informative and eye-opening and most reassuring, to know that the wild, wild frontier of digital publishing is manned by cool, calm, in-charge women who know exactly what they are doing.

3) My editor.  We’ve worked successfully together on three books–and when I say successful, I mean she says jump and I ask how high –but I’d never met her in person before.  The red metro line in D.C. was undergoing work in the wake of the recent terrible accident.  I didn’t experience any delays, but on the evening we were to meet, Caitlin did, coming from the other side of D.C.  So as I waited in the restaurant, examining all the women coming inside, some of them looking rather alarming, I was getting a bit anxious.  But Caitlin in person was ADORABLE, so crazy-cute and charming.  We had a delightful meal and I promised her I would think seriously about a trilogy.

4) My workshop.  I’d begun to worry about my workshop long before.  And while I was working on it, I dug up an old guest blogging entry I wrote for The Plot Monkeys, on physical desirability, called “Beyond Boobs and Buttocks!”  In the post I’d written:

For the longest time, the topic I had in mind was Chemistry.  It is one of the most important ingredients in a successful romance, and one that is seldom addressed.  And then I realized, of course, why it doesn’t come up very often in craft topics, because trying to teach romantic chemistry is like trying to teach someone how to live a rich, fulfilling life: the topic is so vast and cmplex that I either have to devote my entire life to it or I’m reduced to meaningless slogans like “Beyond Boobs and Buttocks!”

Guess who forgot her own advice and proposed a workshop on Chemistry at Nationals?  Yes, me.  So there I was, struggling with this vast and complex topic on which I really knew a lot less than I supposed.  But fortunately, I turned to my critique partner Janine and my co-blogger Meredith, who are both better analytical thinkers than I am and who generously shared their knowledge and insight.  Still I worried and worried and gave up crashing the Harlequin bash Friday night for fine-tuning the workshop in the bowels of the hotel.

And if I may say so, I think the workshop was a hit.  Up until we were interrupted by fire alarms, that is.  I kid you not, about half way into the workshop, the lights on the firealarms started flashing and then someone came on the intercom and asked everyone to please evacuate the building.  (According to Meredith, it was a bomb threat!)  We were outside for about ten minutes before we were allowed back inside.  I rushed through the rest of the presentation–I’d roped Meredith in to read my example excerpts for me and I was bummed that she didn’t get to read her own from Bound by Your Touch–in little bit of time we had left.

The silver lining–and you know there is one: The quality of my slideshow really went down after bullet point number 2 on how to improve your romantic chemistry, because the hotel had no wifi and I could not access the internet, I ran out of images to use to illustrate my points.  Guess at which point we were interrupted?  Bullet point number 2!

Needless to say, I didn’t bother to reconnect my laptop to the audiovisual setup after we came back from the bomb threat.

Oh, and let me not forget to say that I wore the red halter top that I would have wore to the Harlequin bash to my workshop.  I was determined to inflict my dancing clothes on my listeners since it was for their sake that I’d missed the party. 

5) The Fashionista Me.

I am no fashionista.  In fact, most of the time I wear the same three outfits over and over again.  But RWA is the one week in the year when I haul out of every little party dress in my closet and give them a workout.  It’s also just about the only time in the year when I dig through my drawers to find my make-up and put it on.

Normally I go to RWA with just the wardrobe I have, not the wardrobe I wish I had.  But this year I discovered the fabulous retailer known as White House Black Market.  If you don’t know the place, it’s a medium-priced store selling well-made pieces the vast majority of which are either black, white, or both.  I fell in love with it immediately, and that is saying something as I rarely buy black clothes–don’t know why but black as a clothing color just does not excite me.

So, ahem, I went a little crazy in WHBM–lots of things were on sale that day.  I ended up  purchasing four cocktail dresses, including a gorgeous little black number for the RITAs.  (Long time ago, on a 60 minutes segment on Rudolf Nureyev, someone said of going to see him dance, “Even if you aren’t into baseball, when Babe Ruth plays, you go.”  And that little black dress was Babe Ruth.  It was Nureyev.)

And it was fun, fun, fun trotting about in pretty new frocks every day.  It was delicious.  It was addictive.

Must…not…go…back…to…WHBM…anytime…soon…

Oh look, a brochure from them in the mail.  And a coupon!

6) The Vibrating Mascara Wand

I always room with a bunch of my chaptermates from Austin.  Austin RWA is a wonderful, vibrant group.  It’s a treat every year to room with these fantastic women, stay in bed, and talk till late into the night.  In the last couple of years,  my RWA schedule has been jam-packed, so I’ve had less time to spend with my homeys.  But the half hour before the RITAs reminded me just how much I love them.

My roommates gave me a artful-messy French twist to go with my Nureyev LBD.  They primered the heck out of my almost non-existent eyelashes, put glitter eyeliner on me, and used a vibrating mascara wand for the finishing touch.  (Vibrating mascara wand!)  And all throughout, they oohed and aahed at me, my roommie Shelley, who is the prettiest and most put together woman you can imagine–her notebooks are color-tabbed!–said that she felt like a mother whose daughter is about to get married.

And I felt…just embraced and buoyed and exhilarated by so much love and support.  I am privileged to know these ladies and privileged to be a girl, so that I could know the joy of such sisterhood.  Thank you, Shelley, Tracy, and Courtney!

7) The Three Musketeers

I finally met my dear friend and critique partner Janine for the first time.  Janine and I have known each other a long time–since May of 2003 when she first emailed me to tell me she enjoyed the Desert Isle Keeper review I’d written for Judith Ivory’s BEAST at All About Romance.

We corresponded for a year–novella length emails–before we became critique partners.  I’m very picky about whom I’d show my work to and was hesitant to take our friendship to the next level.  But it has been one of the best decisions I’ve ever made in  my life.

And Janine made Meredith’s and my instant friendship possible.  She is such a wonderful person that I immediately trust those whom she trusts.

So it was wonderful meeting her at last and we talked exactly like we’ve been IM’ing all these years.  And of course fabulous to hang out with her and Meredith together, we the three musketeer.  We didn’t do nearly enough of it.  I must make sure next year that I don’t have a workshop to prepare at the last minute.

The conference itself

Writers, bloggers, agents, editors, publishers–we are all readers first and foremost.  RWA National is my yearly immersion in the energy and warm fuzzy of the genre.  I had so much fun seeing old friends and meeting new people and talking about what we all love.  And next year, watch out, I will boogie at the Harlequin bash and I will rule the dance floor!

(Run for your lives, in other words.) 

(And would you believe it, I started this post right after I came home from Nationals.  Deadlines, what can I say?  And I’m still not done yet.  But I can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel.)

These questions may be standard, but the answers are anything but.  Every writer seems to have a slightly (or drastically) different way of working.

Some of the methods I’ve come across make me white with terror.  For example, covering my entire living room wall with color-coded 8×6 Post It notes. Or outlining.  Others turn me green with jealousy (ahem: the Shitty First Draft).  All of them fascinate me. There may, in fact, be something a bit neurotic about the avidity with which I read explanations of methods that I know won’t work for me.  It reminds me of that phase in eighth grade when my friends and I used to get together to bake brownies, drink milkshakes, and watch exercise videos.

Anyway, there’s a specific reason that craft — and in particular, craftly excellence — is on my mind.  I’ve just reread Sherry’s new release, Not Quite a Husband.  NQAH effortlessly blends superb prose, incredibly nuanced characterization,  sizzling chemistry, very hot sex, and other manner of high drama (rebellions! potentially fatal illnesses! death-defying treks! many whizzing bullets!) into a moving, dare I say epic romance that traverses a not-so-familiar but altogether fascinating part of the world.  It’s a tour de force, and since I share a blog with her, I get to ask how she does it.  Sherry, brace yourself for interrogation!

(Sherry: When I first joined RWA–after finishing the first draft of PRIVATE ARRANGEMENTS–and heard people mention the RWA craft-loop, I used to think it was women more dexterous than me talking about their macramé.  That should tell you how much I know about craft.  So read at your own peril!)

Sherry, I understand that the idea for NQAH was sparked by a viewing of The Painted Veil.  How do you proceed once you’ve got the seedling of an idea?  Do you outline, do you daydream, or do you simply begin to write?

I am an epic fail as an outliner.   For doubters I submit the initial outline for DELICIOUS.  You need to break out a microscope find any similarity between that and the final book.

I do daydream.  And certain scenes of intense conflict play in my head.  I think that is one of the best things about the crafting of a story, daydreaming.  You see all the sparkling bits.  Everything works perfectly and seemlessly in theory.  And you conjure all these exciting scenerios.

And then you have to write it.

Many years ago, some friends of mine told me a joke about a first-generation translation software.  During the testing stage, the software performed satisfactorily in translating words and simple phrases.  Then someone got the bright idea to see how well it did with idiomatic expressions.  So in went the proverb “The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”

And out the other end came “The wine is good, but the meat has spoiled.”

I often feel like that when I put pen to paper.  My beautiful idea, it translates into spoiled meat.

Are you a fan of the “shitty first draft” approach — i.e., do you write without editing — or do you pause to polish as you go?

I used to sneer at the shitty first draft.  I edit and I polish and I spit shine.  And yet somehow I have always, without fail, ended up with an elegantly shitty first draft that makes my editor throw my contract onto a bonfire and drunk-shag her gay best friend.

Lately I have been reconsidering joining the shitty first draft club.

What does your writing schedule look like?  Do you write every day?  Do you have an actual schedule?  Do you write for long stretches, or in short, intense bouts?

When it’s not publicity season, I do write just about every day.  But I am terrible at time usage.  I write fifty words and I go visit a gossip blog.  Come back write another fifty words and check my mail.  Maybe another fifty words and then I’ll look at a romance review site to see what people are talking about.  (But that’s the great thing about writing: Once I have smoothed everything out, nobody knows it was written fifty words at a time. )

When the kids are in school, I work from 8 to 2:30.  When the kids aren’t around, I love to goof all morning (8 to 2:30, ha!) and then write till about ten in the evening.  (One of my sorely regretted shortcoming is that I can neither wake up early nor stay up late.)

If you could change one thing about your writing process, what would it be?  Also, how has your process changed since you wrote Private Arrangements?

I would love to stop writing when I don’t know what to do.  Just stop, and do something else until I have it figured out.  I was able to do that with PA in everyway: five years between first draft and second to learn what I need about writing, then stop and start as necessary.

What’s changed, obviously, is the arrival of the deadline.  It was worst with DELICIOUS, during most of the writing of which I was in grad school at the same time.  My first draft was pure filler, just me putting down words to get to “The End.”  And roundly rejected as such by my wise and strict editor.

I am still learning how to pinpoint in advance where my story is likely to go off-track.  It’s always hard to judge your own writing, it’s even harder judging it on a schedule.  The temptation is always there to just keep writing, instead of recognizing you might have to rework large chunks.

Do your characters ever “surprise” you?  Do you ever experience moments of serendipity when re-reading a draft — that is, do you discover things about the characters from re-reading sentences that you yourself wrote?  If so, what surprised you about Bryony and/or Leo as the story developed?

My gentlemen always surprise me.  Because I go into a book with the heroine much more fully envisioned than the hero, part of my journey is then to figure out who is this man who loves this rather spectacular yet also rather spectacularly troublesome/difficult/maddening woman.  I don’t know if I get inspired while re-reading.  It’s more likely to happen when I’m just thinking about the story, or when I’m actually in the middle of writing it.

For example, in PA, Camden, until I reached the chapter set in Copenhagen, was more an obstacle in Gigi’s way than anything else.  Copenhagen was when I realized his loss–and I went back and revised their interaction up to that point to reflect that.  In DELICIOUS, only in the third draft did I understand what manner of man Stuart was.  His sense of honor drove the story from that point on.

In NQAH, I wasn’t really completely sure of Leo until the scene with the microscope.  (Potential spoiler: On the day Bryony decided to speak to him about an annulment, he brought home a present for her, even though their marriage had been equally terrible for him.)  That spoke of his strength of character and his capacity for love.  That was the foundation of their future.

Imagine that you’re asked to guest lecture in a class on writing the novel.  The students write in various genres.  What aspect of craft would you choose to speak about, and why?

Conflict and conflict resolution. We are storytellers–or at least we should be.  As long as there is strong conflict and an equally strong resolution, we can have a good story.

There is an Austen-like quality to the openings of your three published novels, in which a wry, nameless voice comments sagely on the events about to unfold.  It’s charming and incredibly effective, as is the way you transition very skillfully into deep POV.  But what I’m curious about are your thoughts, as both a reader and a writer, on the first-person point of view.  Very few romance novelists have used first-person POV with success.  Do you think there’s something inherent to the genre — or perhaps specifically to historicals — which makes third-person POV more effective than first-person?

The biggest romance of our time has been written in first-person POV.  Yes, Twilight.  So there definitely has been phenomenal successes.  And when the generation of girls who grow up with Twilight move onto romance, I hardly think they will have much problem with first-person POV.

I myself am completely neutral.  When I saw that there are a lot of readers who don’t care for first-person POV, I was really surprised.  To me it’s like writing on paper versus writing on a laptop.  It’s just a way to write a story, a means to an end, not the end itself.

My own contemporary romance–completely a romance, with nothing remotely women’s fiction or chick lit about it–is in first person POV.  The beginning of the story had its origin in a quickie writing contest at Dionne Galace’s blog a while ago.  And it just so happened that I banged out those 200 words in first-person POV.

At various point, I’d considered whether to switch to third person.  Or whether to add to the narrative with scenes written from the hero’s POV, either first- or third-person.  But the more I write exclusively in the heroine’s first-person POV, the more I like it.  When a romance is written in the heroine’s  first-person POV, you experience the hero much more vividly and directly.   He is more mysterious and interesting and sexy, because you don’t get to know his secrets and his innermost thoughts except as they are revealed to the heroine.   I don’t ever fall in love with my heroes but I’m looking at this one with starry eyes.   Starry, starry eyes…

::wipes drool off keyboard; resumes professional demeanor::

As for why 3rd-person POV is almost universally deployed in historical romance, I think it is a reflection of the importance of the hero’s character development.  Thanks to the First Golden Age of Historical Romance writers, the hero’s arc is a huge part of historical romance.  And you cannot capture his journey properly from the heroine’s first-person POV.  You have to show it from his POV.

But, for instance, the secondary romance in Delicious was written entirely from the heroine’s POV.  That particular story could easily have been turned into a first-person POV narration, because the journey is largely hers.

So my 2-cents conclusion, when the H/H both have significant story arcs, you need to have both of their POVs.  When he doesn’t need so much of changing and growing up and whatnot, then heroine first-person POV should work just fine.

Writers of historical romance have to walk a tricky line between historical accuracy and effective communication with a contemporary audience.  Readers — and writers — want to be able to sympathize with their heroines and heroes, so writers have to wrestle with, and sometimes defy, certain historical probabilities (for example, the prevalence, in other time periods, of certain beliefs about class, race, and religion to which we no longer subscribe).  Diction also stymies me quite often.  (Example: the verb “stymie,” which I adore, wasn’t used to mean “to impede, obstruct, or thwart” until 1902.  Grr!)

How do you negotiate these often-conflicting demands?  Or do you even see them as conflictual?  To put it another way, how do you articulate the distinction between historical fiction and historical romance?  What limitations — and possibilities — do you see within the genre with regard to critically exploring the less savory aspects of times gone by?

The limitations–and possibilities–within the genre with regard to critically exploring the less savory aspects of times gone by is, er, determined by what I can stomach?  And the distinction between historical fiction and historical romance is that I rarely read the former because their endings tend to suck?

LOL, seriously, Meredith, you cannot have asked this question to a person who has thought less of these things.   But just for you, I’m going to scrape together the few thoughts I’d had over the years.

As for critically exploring the less savory aspects of the past, my guide is PRIDE AND PREJUDICE.  What does it explore?  Nothing.  Do I love it?  I do.  And I also look at the present.  If I were to set a story in the present–and I have, my almost finished contemporary romance–would I be exploring the dark underbelly of American life?  Nope.  Am I aware of the dark underbelly of American life?  Yes, I’m a pretty avid consumer of news and investigative reporting.  Do I want to read about it in fiction?  Not at all.  And if I don’t want to read about it, why would I want to write about it?

But I think I answered a different question than you asked.  I think the darkness of history–history, period–holds more of a fascination for you than it does for me.    Then you can only use your own limitations as a test.  How much grittiness, pain, and inhumanity can you put into a romance before an optimistic new beginning is no longer possible for you to imagine for your characters?  Write to that limit if you would like to challenge yourself as a writer.  Half that if you want historical romance mainstream success.  Somewhere in between if you are hoping for both.

(Hey, nobody ever said it would be easy.)

(Or was that even what you were asking?!)

As for historical attitudes, I like to think I’m not writing bigots.  That even if my characters held views typical of their era, they would not let those generalized prejudices trump human decency and kindness.

Diction?  Well, diction can go to hell.  I look up just about every word I suspect isn’t old enough, even some I don’t suspect at all.  Still, a more modern word or two might slip through and I’m actually okay with that.  Think of it this way, do we expect our medieval authors to write in middle-English?  Even Laura Kinsale’s For My Lady’s Heart contained only modified middle-English.  And a lot of Victorian idiomatic usage we wouldn’t understand at all.

Riffing on that last question, do you think that it’s inevitable and even *requisite* to write heroines who are, in some way or another, proto-feminists?  I ask, because I think you’ve done a great job of this; your heroines’ concerns and convictions feel familiar and sympathetic to me while at the same time feeling true to the period in which they live. How do you walk the line between creating a character who feels “progressive” for her time and a character who feels anachronistic or (to invoke a much-dreaded word) “feisty”?

I don’t think it is inevitable or requisite to write proto-feminists.  The trick to making a heroine’s concerns and convictions feel familiar, I think, lies in her struggle for more control over her life and her choices.  There is nothing remotely feminist about that primal human urge for freedom, security, and respect.  It is a universal struggle.  (What the feminists did was to force society as a whole to recognize that women had these same aspirations, that we deserved to have the same opportunities–the struggle itself is timeless.)

That line between creating a chracter who feels “progressive” but still true to her time and a character who feels anachronistic or even feisty, ummm.  Okay, assume your basic research is correct, you have the right feel for your era in your book, that line, I believe, lies in your heroine’s dignity or lack thereof.  Lizzy Bennet still feels fresh and modern as a character today.  Yet because of her dignity, intelligence, and restraint, she never comes across as wrong for her own time.  The feisty heroines are the ones with no understanding of the consequences of their actions, they are the Lydia Bennets of the world, blithely dragging everyone into trouble and expecting to be patted on the head for it.  Lydia, the original TSTL (too stupid to live) heroine, you will note, has no dignity whatsoever.

What makes a book an instant wallbanger/DNF (did not finish) for you?

Incompetence/stupidity on the part of the heroine. And I’m not talking about IQ, but EQ.  A woman without self-awareness and sound judgment is not going to be able to hold onto any kind of happiness.

But that’s usually a mere DNF.

If, however, the hero looks upon this paragon of TSTL and pronounces her extraordinary, then it becomes an automatic wallbanger.

Finally, name a plot that you would never write yourself, but you would love to see written by a fellow author of historical romance.  Why wouldn’t you write it, and why would you love to read it?

LOL, anything I want to read, I will write myself.  Stuff I wouldn’t write, menage for example, I am also not terribly interested in reading.

Your question, however, makes me curious.  What is it for you?

Meredith: Oh, easy: a paranormal-ish romance set in Roman Britain.  At present, my knowledge of the period is so slim that I can’t imagine writing it.  But I’m thinking a starcrossed love between a Roman soldier (who  — naturally — was raised and trained by Druids before he was rounded up and shipped off to Rome, where he learned to disavow his formerly “savage” ways) and the proud Celtic lass whom he once loved, and who is now devoted to fighting the evil Roman overlords to whom he has sworn allegiance!  …I mean, just think of the fun possibilities.  He is fighting down the magical powers he has long since repressed.  She’s determined to reawaken him to his true self.

And on top of that… they used a lot of oil in those Roman baths… 

It is always an interesting experience meeting an author in person. I’m a huge fan of Bettie’s, who writes spectacularly badass heroines before whom the likes of us lesser mortals could only cower in fearful admiration–and sometimes just plain fear. If I’d only ever read Bettie’s fiction, my impression of her would be “awesome and badass.” But I’d also been reading her blog, so while the awesome part remained, the badass part has been, bit by bit, revised.

Well, she arrived in a cute little minivan–which held, among other things, a darling floral parasol and a large-brimmed straw hat pretty enough for the Ascot–and brought with her a polka-dot valise. And badass-ery is deader than Caesar, after Brutus was through with him.

(His Hawtness, looking over what I was writing, said, “Bettie? Badass? But she’s such a lady!”)

So that made me think. I’ll be meeting people at RWA. RT is going to do a video interview with me in SF. And I’ll be meeting even more people when I go on the Levy/Meijer authors tour. What impressions will I shatter will I show up in person?

My guess, sophistication.

I like the idea of sophistication, of being devastatingly witty, and able to charm men and women alike with my worldly charisma. You know, kinda like this woman,

She looks very, very sophisticated. She looks like she’d know what to do with a pound of Beluga caviar when she flies on a Gulfstream G550 to Davos. Not sure that she necessarily looks like an author, but if someone tells me that she is one, I’d believe it.

But I don’t know that I’d buy a book from this woman.

In fact, you’d have a hard time convincing me I haven’t seen that girl waiting for the school bus. She looks like she still needs to finish her trig homework before she can sneak out to meet her boyfriend.

On top of not looking very sophisticated, I’m afraid I don’t sound very sophisticated either. Bettie Sharpe had this idea that I had an “expat-in-a-smoky-Parisian-cafe” voice, until she heard my voice on the phone for the first time. Then she turned to her husband and said that she’d bet I probably got whatever I wanted from people.

That was such an intriguing opinion that after she left I taped myself saying “Hi, my name is Sherry Thomas. I write historical romance.” Perfectly serious, harmless words, right? When I played back the tape, I sounded like an adolescent Minnie Mouse propositioning her sugar daddy.

So…you have been warned. Partially, that is. You must still throw in some general silliness and empty-headedness and a bit of occasional lewdness. And that would finally begin to approximate what I’m like in person.

And it’s like people say, don’t judge a book by its author.

1. I am useless between the hours of 11pm and 7am. You hear a lot about writers who get up at 4am to write before they go to work. When Kidlet #2 stayed at home fulltime with me, I think I tried that a bit. And gave up after 2 days. Nor can I stay up late to write. My brain turns into a pumpkin by midnight. So if you are glad that I’m publishing, you should totally send perfumed love notes to my husband, who never—not once—asked me to get a real job, even though there were times when we really could have used the comfort and security of a second income.

2. I don’t own a belt. I don’t remember if I’ve never owned a belt, but I’m pretty sure I haven’t had one for the past ten or twelve years.

3. I went to see Godzilla—yes, the American-made one—twice in theaters.

4. I don’t watch TV. And it’s not because of any personal disdain for pop entertainment—heck, I work in pop entertainment and have extremely suspect taste in movies (see 3)—but because when Kidlet #1 was small, he was a TV zombie. If the TV was on, he’d be staring at it mesmerized, unable to do anything else. I also hate commercials. But I’ll happily watch TV shows on DVD. I have The Office about to be viewed. Next up, Prison Break.

5. The word “trousers” used to be the bane of my existence. As some of you might know, English is not my first language. When I was in fifth grade, and happily ignorant of alphabet-based languages, my grandmother—who, along with my grandfather, had attended an English-medium college in Shanghai in her youth–decided to teach me English at home. Ah, the torment. The sheer WTF-itude of it all. English wasn’t taught at regular schools until 7th grade, why was I always singled out for extra work that I had no desire for doing? But Grandma was a formidable individual and it never occurred to me to dare to refuse. So I submitted to it. But it was slow-going and reluctant and to be honest I sucked pretty hard at it. And I could not spell “trousers” no matter what. Which is kind of astonishing looking back, because there are a bunch of words that I habitually misspell these days, but none of them “trousers”!

6. I compulsively turn off lights whenever they are not shining on someone. Have been that way since long before I’d even heard of global warming or peak oil.

7. I only wear my wedding ring when I am in an environment teeming with cute guys.

In other news, the Pay-it-Forward contest is scheduled to open in the first week of February. It will be a post of its own. The prize? A query letter consultation. The contest will remain open until I’m done with my line-edits and can pick a winner–so it’s not for someone in a desperate hurry.