Pictures from Cat Writers / CFA Annual Conference

Here are the few pics I took from my weekend in San Francisco:

 This is me at the Book Signing book at the CFA International Cat Show. I had great placement at the end of the booth.

This is a cat I adored--curly and cute and beautiful orange eyes.  Again...so hard not to grab and run!

This is curly cat again.  We love curly cat!!

Me and author Maggie Bonham. I bought her book and she bought mine.  Her book is a fantasy called "Prophecy of Swords."  I don't usually read fantasy, but I liked Maggie's personality so much I thought I'd give it a shot and SO glad I did.  I'm totally engaged in the story and the book made my 4 hour layover in Atlanta FLY by.  I highly recommend any of you pick it up for a read.

This is my friend and fellow pet author Arden Moore and her dog, Chipper.  The photo was taken at the elevator in our hotel, where this baby became fascinated with Chipper.  They were really cute to watch together.

 Earlier that day, Arden had Chipper at the Cat Show wearing an "I Love Cats" sweater as she handed out literature.  Chipper was a big hit!

The Last 48 Hours - Summary

First things first: I married a God.  I came home from my San Francisco trip to not just a clean, but a spotless home.  Toilets cleaned, baseboards dusted, bath mats washed, plants watered, countertops gleaming, dishes put away, laundry folded, floors vacuumed and the list goes on.  Nothing puts me in a good mood faster than a clean house, so bless him for what must have been a full day of cleaning yesterday.

Loooong travel day yesterday.  It was raining hard in Atlanta and most flights were delayed.  I got in at 7:30 PM from SF and my 9:55 PM flight home didn't actually leave Atlanta until almost 11:30.  That got us into GSO at 12:40 AM and I made it home by 1:30 and collapsed into bed.  Technically, I still haven't seen Blair yet.  He kissed me good-bye at 6 o-clock this morning but I don't think I actually pried my open to see him, so the homecoming will have to be tonight.

(Oh, and while I'm thinking of it, a big thumbs down to the Atlanta airport for charging $7.95 for their wi-fi service.  If you're going to delay us for hours at a time, how 'bout some free web time?)

Working backwards, I did not win the Muse Medallion.  It was 2 of my entries against the entry of one other person and guess who won?  I could have predicted that one. =)

It was still a great conference.  I made some helpful contacts and some new friends.  For me, the benefit of these writers conferences is always the networking and very rarely the workshops.  I also sold 10 books. Respectable, I suppose. 

I'm taking time now to do this blog because I have so much work to do that I can't even get my mind around it.  I'm almost scared to look at what's in front of me.  Knowing me, I'll spend today clearing out the myriad of little things that could be left for later, but that will make me feel like I'm accomplishing something if I check them off the list.  It's a short work week and Blair has said he's actually not going in to work over the holiday weekend, so I'm not planning to do much work over Thanksgiving either.  Which means this Tuesday and Wednesday need to be super productive days.

On the bright side, it's perfect working weather. It's cold and grey and rainy and makes me want to brew hot orange spice tea and snuggle down at my desk with the cats snoozing beside me.  A great day to not leave the house, which is exactly what I plan to do.

Cats and San Francisco

Day 2 at the Cat Writers International Conference.  Things are going swimmingly but I can tell I'm ready to come home.  I only attended 1 out of 4 panel discussions today.  The first panel involved feline medical issues, which I don't write about. The second was similar.  I did attend the program on Shelter Issues and learned some interesting information.  For example,  consider the terms "kill" and "no-kill" shelters. When anyone hears the two terms of course they think, "Obviously no kill is better."  But what the SF shelter people pointed out is they are "Open Admission."  They take ANY animal at any time for any reason.  So they're getting dogs 1/2 crushed by semi's, feral cats, blind animals, and a host of others. They do the best they can and then some but can still receive negative press because they are not at "no-kill" shelter.

There was also discussion on what makes an animal "adoptable."  A lot of shelters categorize animals as "adoptable" or "unadoptable," but those terms are misleading.  It depends on the person. What is unadoptable to one person may be perfectly acceptable to another and we're doing animals a disservice to continue these categories.  So, lots of good information like that.

Then I missed the agent/editor panel which was unfortunate, as I would have liked to attend.  But the CFA (Cat Fanciers Association) International Cat Show is two miles away and a group of us had to leave early to take a cab there for our book signing.

I sold 4 books (so far, the conference is still going on) but that's far, far less than what I'd hoped to sell. I think it was a matter of cat material overload for attendees.  I market my book as a great gift book, especially with the holidays fast approaching.  But the Cat Show had cat toys, cat carriers, cat food, cat tree ornaments, cat socks, cat clothes, cat art, cat jewelry, cat sculpture, cat stationary, and a million other cat related products.  And like me, all vendors are of course thinking, "Hey, a cat show.  What a great place to sell my stuff!" But put all under one roof and it just becomes too much.  I think my book would do much better in a venue where maybe it was mainly dog or bird items (or whatever) and I was one of the few cat products.

I did spend some time with Dan Poynter, self-publishing and marketing guru, and got some GREAT advice for converting my books to audio at a highly discounted price.  So I'll act on that once I return home.

I was also fortunate enough to share a breakfast table with Shirley Rousseau Murphy, a well-known mystery writer of the Joe Grey, PI, feline mystery series.  I confessed to Shirley that I never had an interest in her books until I had to read one of them because I was a novel judge for this years award. And I LOVED it.  Great plot, great fun, and a very entertaining read.  I'm delighted to find a new series I enjoy AND have the added bonus of knowing the author behind the words.  Getting up early (we were two of the few people in the dining room at 6:30 AM) pays.

And finally, my workshop.  Huge success.  I'm extremely pleased with how it went.  As always, I managed to leave out a few key points, but such is the public speaking life.  I'd say about 40-50 people attended.  My ice-breaker, People Bingo, was fun (I had people doing jumping jacks and singing "I'm a little teapot,") and got us up out of our seats and talking.  This group can always be counted on for interaction, which makes my part much more relaxed.  One long-term exercise ended up a bust, which I'll try to remember to discuss in a later post.  I've got a 3 hour layover in Atlanta tomorrow and will need something to do to fill the time!

And that's it for now.  The awards banquet is tonight.  I won 2  "Certificate of Excellence" Awards for my humor stories so I'm actually competing against myself (and a few others) in the humor category for a Muse Medallion--the highest award bestowed by the organization.  (Blair's comment was "Gee, since you have two chances of winning you'll feel really, really bad if you lose, huh?" Thanks for the support, honey.) Winning a muse medallion would be nice because both the stories are in Lessons In Stalking and I could order award stickers to put on the cover--something which is supposed to increase book sales. 

Fingers crossed!

Dena is in San Francisco!

Actually, I'm right outside San Francisco in San Mateo, for the annual Cat/Dog Writers Conference.  I'm speaking this morning at  9 as the opening session on Networking.  I spent last night having stress dreams and waking up every 30 minutes to look at the clock and make sure I hadn't overslept. In my dreams, I lost my handouts, nobody showed up, I had the wrong location, it was supposed to be dressy but I was in sweatpants and couldn't find anyone to drive me back to the hotel to change clothes, got lost, etc.  A really fun night!

Right now it's 6:30 am and I'm sitting in the breakfast area of the hotel, which I suppose is "mood lit" but which in my opinion is pitch black.  A few minutes ago, a 70-year old woman took a tumble down two stairs and landed on her hands and knees.  Maybe they make it so dark in the hopes you won't notice that they're charging $8 for one egg.  Give me a break--I'll buy and raise my own chicken for that amount.

The flight in was uneventful.  A young girl in my aisle in her mid-twenties was flying for the first time so we chatted a bit during take-off and landing to calm her nerves. The best part was having a 3-hour layover in Cincinnati.  My best friend Trisha took off work and met me at the airport for an hour-long coffee and chat.  I hadn't realized I had that long a layover there and had e-mailed her last minute and wasn't sure if she would be able to meet me.  "No problem," she said.  "I informed my boss this morning I'd be taking lunch at 9am today and she was good with that."

Our Cat Writer's conference is held wherever the Cat Association holds its competition.  I am in heaven right now as the hotel is FILLED with cats and their owners.  And these are show cats...beautiful, well-behaved, well-trained cats.  People are riding up and down the elevators with carriers and it's all I can do not to grab a cat and run.  The shuttle from the airport to the hotel yesterday had 4 cats on it, two of which were PERSIAN KITTENS.  Oh my God, how cute were they??  Indescribable.  Big blue eyes in little white faces gazed out from the netting in the top of the carrier.  Just to die for.

I"m doing a book signing (along with a lot of other authors) at the cat show tomorrow.  They told us not to expect much and just bring 5-7 books.  It seems like the perfect place to sell cat books, but maybe owners are so focused on the show they don't shop?  We'll see.

Okay, time to start getting ready for the speech.  I bet I'll sleep better tonight. =)