i  spent most of the day sleeping, trying to catch up on what I missed these last few days. I never wanted to go to bed; there were always great people there, great conversations to have, new people to meet. There were too many highlights to list. There were the free books. And the chance to meet so many FanLitters. There was Lisa Kleypas’s keynote speech (I cried when I heard about Vern). And then there were the free books. There were late nights spent practicing pitches (and grinning gleefully because I didn’t have to do one of my own, which transformed into confused frowns as I stupidly tried to pitch the book I hadn’t yet rewritten in the way I had thought about rewriting, which of course was an unholy mess). And the late nights spent talking about works in progress, plot holes that had cropped up, and coming up with Actual Solutions to (some) of them. There were late nights spent just talking, and nights spent in the bar. There were the chances to meet fantastic authors (too many to mention, but Eloisa James, Julia Quinn, Julie Anne Long, and Anna Campbell are standouts). And then there were the free books.

And you know what else? It was shocking how, in a conference with thousands of women, you could introduce yourself to one person and keep running into her again and again. By the end of it all, I was recognizing people everywhere I turned.

I can’t wait for San Francisco! I hope to see more of you there!  And maybe by then, those of you who were pitching will have little pink “first sale” tags to sport.  I’m sure some of you will.

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