Reno, here I come!!!

All right, my suitcases (please note the plural) are packed, my workshop/paper is written (finished it at 1:00 a.m. Sunday morning), the transparencies all printed (did that today) (and just realized I forgot one picture. Ah well ....) (as you can probably tell I was slightly disorganized) (slightly!), hair is dyed (did that half an hour ago) (as I said, disorganized), flight tickets are in my rucksack, and for the first time since weeks ... months ... eons! ... I feel relaxed and almost human again. *g*

I packed Gaelen Foley's ONE NIGHT OF SIN for the journey -- I bought this book weeks ago, but just was too busy and nervous to read it. So now I'm going to make up for lost reading time. I'm very much looking forward to it.

There're, of course, lots of other things to look forward to: apart from the conference itself and meeting friends, there'll be the big booksigning on Wednesday afternoon. A whole ballroom filled with authors and books! And THE LILY BRAND and me among them! Yeah!

And yet another thing to look forward to: as some of you might know, last year's RWA national conference was held in Dallas -- at the same time as the annual Mary Kay meetings! Imagine a city overrun by umpteen thousand women! While this was indeed a rather fun experience and made for some interesting anecdotes, this year's conference venue's definitely going to beat Dallas and Mary Kay: there'll be MEN!

So stay tuned for an exciting conference report!

Tuesday Betthupferl

The chat tonight was lots of fun (even though I did have to get up at 2:30 a.m. in order to be awake enough at 3:00 a.m. *g*) and I really enjoyed myself (well, yes, otherwise, I wouldn't have stayed until 4:30 a.m.). So a big thank you to everybody who stopped by!

To end this day on another positive note: I've just checked my sales ranks, and at amazon.co.uk I'm down to 6,613 !!!!! Hooray!

So I'll be doing some more glowing tonight! :O)

Chat Tonight!

Hi everybody,

this evening at 9 p.m. ET there'll be a chat with me and fellow Dorch authors Sandra Hill and Liz Maverick at WriterSpace. If you've got some time and 9 p.m. ET doesn't happen to be the middle of the night for you (it is the middle of the night for me, so the chatting is bound to be interesting *g*), please feel free to come and join the fun!

See you there!

Author Competes with Glossy Cover

Just had to share this with you: This is the first pic of me and The Book, taken by Julia Zipfel, one of my students, for our departmental student newspaper (there'll be an interview with me in their next issue -- remember, when I told you about my first interview ever? Yup, that's it!) When I looked at the pic for the first time, I thought, "Uh-oh. Definitely glowing!" *LOL*

London

I'm deeply shocked and saddened by today's events, and my thoughts and prayers go to the victims and their families, but also to all people of London and Britain.

Wee Note on Tuesday Night

Ha! I've got another very nice e-mail from a reader, who stayed up almost all night to finish THE LILY BRAND! That's really the most wonderful feeling, to see how much enjoyment my book gives to readers. :O)

There's a new interview with me online at Once Upon a Romance. If you like to find out a bit more about my current WIP, that's the thing to read! I hope you'll enjoy it!

To celebrate the release of my debut novel and all the things that are happening to me, I'll spend a few days in London in August. (YES!) And -- that's the best thing about this! -- I'll go and see Adam Cooper's Les Liaisons Dangereuses! Twice!!!! (YES! YES! YES!) I even got a ticket for the very last performance. Gosh, I'm soo looking forward to that! If don't burst with happiness now, I'll certainly burst with happiness then. *G*

More Firsts

Found the first negative comments about THE LILY BRAND today. On a message board where I'm a regular poster. Ouch. That makes it so much more personal, thank you very much. On the other hand, I got the impression that particular reader either didn't really understand the premise of the story, or wanted to score a personal hit against the book, or me, or whatever. Sheesh. That's definitely a new experience: even when you want to hit people over the head, you have to sit back and smile demurely. I can't say I like that part about being an author. But I'm sure it's very character-strengthening.

Yet Another First

Today I got my first e-mail from a reader. A real reader's letter. Wow!

Another first

Today I went to Frankfurt to sign books: I signed five books in two bookshops. I took my special glittery orange booksigning pen and my brandnew "Autographed copy" stickers and felt as if I was walking on clouds!

Oh yes, and I bought some terribly expensive shoes to celebrate. And a picture book: "BooBoo" by Olivier Dunrea. It's so cute!