Kristian Mercer

RWA Nationals for Beginners...

Oh, the wonders of the RWA National Conference! Even now, almost a month after the fact, I still have a hard time describing those 3 1/4 amazing days (of course I'm counting the Beau Monde soiree on Wednesday night!). What can I say about the insightful sessions, the inspiring guest speakers, the...huge box of books I shipped home? The new shoes (and skirts... and highlights...) I still have to pay off?

But I digress. I was able to indulge my love of historic costume in two great classes - a real treat for me, since I studied the history of dress while in graduate school and even devoted an entire chapter of my master's thesis to early 20th century couture.

First up was "From Pelisse to Chemise," presented by Heidi Hermiller. Assisted by her mannequin, Heidi candidly explained the ins and outs of Regency dress (yes, that was a double entendre, and yes, since you asked, I did find the information useful when I was writing that scene!).

"Kilts: The History of a Scottish Icon" was equally fascinating. Although I don't have a Scottish story currently in the works, Kalen Hughes made me wish at least one of my heroes was brave enough to show some leg.

Of course I attended "What Historical Slump?," presented by a panel of Avon authors and Avon editor May Chen. We heard the familiar - don't overwhelm your readers with your research, keep your heroines strong without being anachronistic - but we also learned that sales of historicals should increase within a year or two. There's some good news!

I was front and center for Eloisa James' talk, "Doing It All Over Again: Writing Novels in a Series." I took scads of notes, but basically she boiled it down to this: create an overarching theme for your books. Set it up in book 1, expand it in book 2...and by book 3, you'll have readers so desperate that they'll run to the bookstore. By book 4, you'll be on the NYT bestseller list. Hmmm. Maybe that would work for my changeling world...

But by far the best part of the conference was meeting people. I loved the booksigning sessions and I was thrilled to talk to so many of my favorite authors. Among them was Janet Mullany, who just happened to be one of my judges for the Royal Ascot. Janet was kind enough to share some of her thoughts about my contest entry - as well as being wonderfully encouraging - and that alone was well worth the price of the conference.

I'll end with a brief mention about the RITA awards. How much fun we had - dressing up in all our finery, laughing at the film clips, and cheering on our fellow writers. And how cool was it when we took a chapter photo and Nora Roberts just happened to walk by?

Amazingly cool!