Next week, I’m headed to Dallas, TX for the Romance Writers of America National Conference. I’ve skipped the last two because in 2005 I was this close to giving birth to the Little Dude. (He arrived three weeks later.) In 2006, we went on our first family road trip to the haunted cottage in Carmel.
Anyway when I attended my first RWA conference in New York, I was a lost little lamb with a book that no one seemed to want. (Click here for how I almost didn’t sell my first book.) So I created a soundtrack with stuff like Hand In My Pocket by Alanis Morrisette (“I’m young and I’m underpaid; I’m tired but I’m working, yeah!”) and Celebrity Skin by Hole (“I’m not selling cheap, no I’m not selling cheap”). As you can see, I needed a little attitude to my then, flagging spirits.
My second conference was ironically Dallas, when I was technically a published author but my book wasn’t coming for another six months. My soundtrack was much more subdued than the previous with songs like Everyday Is A Winding Road by Sheryl Crow (“Everyday is a winding road, I get a little bit closer … Everyday is a fated sign”).
If you haven’t been to a national writer’s conference, the atmosphere is electric. You can smell the hope and the expectations and unfortunately, the crushing disappointment when the story a writer has put her heart and soul into doesn’t fly. No matter what happened to me at my past conferences, I always came back with renewed energy to write my buns off.
So while I’m supposed to be polishing chapters 26 thru 29 this morning, I thought I’d share the soundtrack that I’ll take with me to Dallas that has a little edge, a little sweetness and a lot of fun.
- Fighter by Christina Aguilera (“Made me learn a little bit faster…Made my skin a little bit thicker…Makes me that much smarter…So thanks for making me a fighter”)
- What You Waiting For by Gwen Stefani (“Take a chance, you stupid ho!”)
- Head Over Heels by The Go-Go’s
- Breakaway by Kelly Clarkson (“I’ll spread my wings and I’ll learn how to fly”)
- Bad Girls by Donna Summer
- How Bad Do You Want It by Tim McGraw (“Every night I give my heart and soul and sometimes it ain’t enough”)
- We Got The Beat by The Go-Go’s
- The Long Way Around by The Dixie Chicks
- Gone by Madonna (“Turn to stone…Lose my faith…I’ll be gone…Before it happens”)