Dim Sum Diaries

The Top Ten Things I Learned About Reno


10. Asian beers are much weaker-assed then Mexican beers.

9. What do I do when I get drunk on one beer (Mexican), it's the last night before we leave for home and I am let loose in the hotel? Why, I tell my conservative Christian roomate that I really dig lesbian porn and dildos, then pass out in the hotel room.

8. At RWA Idol, which is a parody of American Idol, where the first two pages of real submissions from the audience are read and a panel of editors and agents give their gut reaction, the panel is strangely cynical. Snarky even. Only one or two were actually liked. The rest were torn apart, and after each one was read, a woman would leave the room of her own accord, tight-lipped and with a mad look on her face. Presumably that was her submission that had been just read. A bit off-putting.

7. It is possible to spend your entire time in the hotel and never see the light of day (except from your hotel room window).

6. Resolve to start writing again strong, with several new ideas to explore.

5. I still get very self-conscious when sitting at the table at lunch. Everyone asks what type of book the other is writing. Some people talk confidently about their next book, especially if they've been published already. I vaguely wave people off by saying I'm writing a contemporary novel. Somehow I can't not watch with a vague sense of horror as someone enthusiastically explains their latest romantic suspense with vampire and werewolves...

4. I'm a snobby, elitist Californian, and if you tell me If I was in a room full of horse shit, I'd look for the pony then confidently pinpoint the various areas of the nouveau riche v. the middle middle class in Georgia, I will get totally snarky about you on my blog.

3. There were a suprising number of men at this conference, my roomate and I breakfasted with an older man who was in the Air Force reserves (mil all his life) and wanted to write a sweet love story and submit it to Harlequin. Though they must have found the high number of for women only bathrooms off-setting.

2. It really is a small world. Whilst sitting at a random table for lunch, turns out one of the girls works with my sister at a major company. "Oh we called her Minnie Mouse girl because she dresses like a teenybopper." Her eyes narrowed thoughtfully at my Paul Frank tshirt and jeans. "You have her taste in clothes..."

1. There really is no place like home.