Gay Rom Lit: Day 3

After a full day of running around from one event to the other yesterday, today was a bit rough for me. I truly needed this morning’s Beignets & Café au lait, hosted by Treva Harte and sponsored by Loose Id.

I’m not ashamed to say that I felt like I had a hangover. Nope, not because of alcohol; I didn’t have any until tonight. Let’s just say that after the lovely conversation shared on Facebook with Silvia Violet and Beverly Carr, Creole twins kept running around my mind. No plot bunnies yet, just nuances. Don’t know if it will amount to much, but you never know.

The other thing is that in addition to the Beignet Twins, as I’ve taken to calling them, I went to the bathroom yesterday, turned on the light and one of the bulbs in the bathroom started to crackle and sizzle. I called housekeeping and had to wait for them to show up. They never changed the bulb but at this point I’m like, screw it, I check out tomorrow. After that it's their problem, not mine.

The rest of the day was spent doing a bit more running around, meeting a few more people, and listening to a few more author readings. This time with Belinda McBride, Lynne Lorenz, KC Burn and Tara Lain. I won a few more goodies, too!

Strangely, I even managed some down time and did some more editing on a story I wrote earlier this year, “The Rosas of Spanish Harlem.”

As I write this, it’s a little after 10:00 p.m. central. The festivities at GRL 2011 are beginning to wind down and the MLR Press Wine & Cheese Party is coming to and end. In fact, I can still here a handful of people outside talking and laughing.

Here’s William Prater with a tee-shirt that nearly made me pee my pants with laughter.

Here’s Elisa, from Elisa’s Ramblings, a beautiful woman with a terrificly sexy voice who flew here all the way from Italy.

And speaking of traveling, I know several authors from the UK attended, one of them being Clare London. I think someone mentioned we also had a couple of writers from either Australia or New Zealand. I don’t know for sure since I didn’t speak with any of them.

It’s with mixed feelings that I end tonight because I’ve had a lot of fun and met some really fantastic people. Truly, there are way too many to mention. But I’ll say this: it was great to have established authors who paved the way in the m/m genre share their personal writing experiences. It was just as wonderful hearing from some of the readers who’ve read my work.

I will admit that there’s one big drawback to a convention such as this. Well, maybe two. Oh, alright, three things, although I think this one counts as three by itself.

1. I miss our pugs, Trinket, Googie and insane Lola;

2. I miss home and sleeping in my own bed, although this one is EXTREMELY comfortable and they have great pillows; and finally

3. I miss my partner. More than anything, I miss him; my beautiful man who is my rock, my entire reason for living and without whom…well, let’s just say I miss him and leave it at that.

The first Gay Rom Lit will end tomorrow morning, at which time they’ll announce the location of the next event. I plan to do it again and, now that I know what to expect, hope to be a bit more active with either an Author Social an Author Reading or some other thing.

As a final parting shot, here's Damon Suede for those of you who asked to see him in his kilt.

Thanks to the organizers -- J.P. Bowie, Ethan Day, Lynn Lorenz, Carol Lynne, Amanda Young and their helpers -- for coordinating and pulling off this amazing feat. It was well attended, everyone was quite passionate about being here and I think it's going to be even bigger next year.

And thanks to all of you who followed the goings ons from my perspective and took time from your busy lives to comment. As it was with those I met this year, it will be an honor to one day meet you as well.

Who knows? There’s always next year, right?