I'm back!

Well, my body is back. Not sure where my brain is. And who knows which time zone my stomach is in. Didn't sleep on the plane (which was an overnight flight) because just as I settled down to snooze we hit turbulance - not drastic, just enough to jolt me awake every time I started to doze. Grrrr.

I'm hurtling towards a deadline and that is my priority, but I'd like to blog about my experiences in Dallas when either my brain is too fried to write or while the next scene is percolating in my head. I managed to get 6-7k written this week and I need to dicatate it into my laptop. Once I've done that I'm going to update my word counter thingy - which is seriously out of date.

Many thanks to all of you who commented and emailed me to wish me well! The conference was a blast and I had a great time. I wasn't that disappointed at not taking home a golden statue (I mean, I'd be bonkers if I said I wasn't disappointed at all, wouldn't I? There's always part of you that thinks, "Ah, but it would have been lovely...") because the books that won in both my categories were great! Especially, the lovely Barbara Hannay's.

Marion Lennox (who is just the sweetest lady I have ever met!) told me that she had to write 63 books before she got her first RITA (!!!). I'm just thrilled to have been a finalist. Maybe in another 60 books I'll stand a chance...maybe...with a following wind and fingers, toes and eyelashes crossed. But, since the Traditional category has been dropped from the RITAs, who knows? Having said that, with Harlequin Romances doing well in the Short Contemporary category in the last couple of years, I'm sure there will still be an opportunity for our biggest stars to shine.