Post Glorieta

And we’re back!

Welcome to the new BGs (bloggees, or blog readers) who are joining us after hearing about this blog at the Glorieta conference. Hope you’ll make yourselves at home. We talk about fiction here . . . and we have a lot of fun.

BGs, a little housekeeping. I discovered this morning that my blog has been being spammed in the comments section. I went through old posts and found numerous spamming comments, and had to go all the way back to February’s posts to get rid of them all. As a result, I’ve turned on the spammer protection for this blog. Now when you post a comment, you’ll first be asked to type a series of letters and numbers that appear on your screen. It’ll only take you a couple of seconds to do this, so don’t be alarmed. But it’ll save me a lot of time in policing this site.

So—a report post-Glorieta. This was a big conference: 450 attendees in total, including 100 faculty. Most faculty were normals (those nonfiction types), but there were a few fictioneers besides me—including Angela Hunt, James Scott Bell, Lynn Coleman, Steve and Janet Bly, Tracie and Jen Peterson, and Gayle Roper. I taught a couple of courses from Getting Into Character, sold a bunch of books (should have taken more), and generally had a great time. This is a very packed conference schedule-wise, with breakfast at 7 a.m. (can you believe it!). It started Wednesday evening and went through Sunday lunch. There were even some Sunday afternoon workshops for those late-stayers.

Four items of note from my travels:

1. When Southwest Airlines says 50 pounds a bag limit, they mean 50 pounds a bag limit. Either that, or I ended up with Miss Play-by-the Rules behind the counter. I was toting my own books, see, so I could charge less for them (I sell them at my cost to give conferees a break). And my two suitcases were loaded. One came in at exactly 50 pounds. The other was at 56. So I took out six books and stuffed them in an already full carry-on. Got the suitcase down to 51 pounds. I shot Miss Play-by-the-Rules a hey-come-on-what’s-a-pound-over look. No dice. She gave her head a severe shake and informed me I’d better get it down another pound, or I’d be forking over $25. The carry-on got another book stuffed in it. Sheesh.

2. Glorieta is at 7500 feet. This bothered me not in the least, probably because I run 5 miles a day. Or maybe because I blow a lot of hot air, who knows. At any rate, a few people got rather dizzy. So do be prepared for the heady altitude if you go next year.

3. Take comfortable shoes to Glorieta. There’s a bit of hoofing it, especially from the classes to the dining room. If you wanna eat, you gotta walk. Well, except for the numerous cheaters who drove back and forth. I was not technically a cheater, since I didn’t do the driving. But my thumb worked very well.

4. You have never seen Steve Bly until you’ve seen him in his ever-present cowboy hat and a pair of blue, rhinestone-studded sunglasses. The glasses belong to me. But they look mighty hot on Steve. A few folks took pictures. I’m waiting to receive one so I can post it. Trust me, this is a photo worth waiting for.

Okay, BGs, last week a couple of you asked that I tell you a little more about the 22-page editorial review letter for my novel Violet Dawn (releasing August 2006). What exactly goes into such a letter? What sort of rewriting has to be done as a result of receiving feedback from the editor? We’ll talk about that tomorrow.