July 17

As you all know, the Sisters are at the RWA conference this week which doesn’t end until Saturday night. So next week’s Favorite things will cover that. For now, here are some ridiculous items/thoughts we messed around with at odd moments while we’re in Atlanta.  We haven’t been asked to leave the city yet and we think that’s a win. The hotel? That’s a whole different story. We may yet be asked to leave the hotel. Actually, that’s entirely possible at any minute.

1. Service Dogs. We love service dogs. We love to see them out in public because they make us feel better when we’re not at home with our pets. We hate that we aren’t allowed to touch them. We know they’re working – we understand, but still… One of the Sisters, who shall remain nameless, went ahead and touched the service dog of a blind person at the conference. She fully admits she was wrong to do it, but the doggy was adorable and wagged its tail. Who could resist?  Not the Sisters that’s for sure.

2. Redecorating hotels. The conference is in an old hotel. The walls are concrete in a very Frank Lloyd Wright-ish way. However, when it was refurbished the decorator pretended that wasn’t the case. The whole decor is a weird juxtaposition of stuff that looks out of place. Ava can complain all she wants about the state of the decor, but painting the walls and putting in new carpet are never going to solve the problem we have of getting dizzy every single time we walk out into the atrium. The hotel is open all the way to the tippy top floor and every time we look up to track the glass elevator we nearly fall down. It’s very disconcerting.

3. Infiltrate. Many of  the seminars are about the craft of writing, but there are also a lot about the business end. In one of those on the topic of getting your books found on the internet, we discussed the technique of infiltrating blogs and such. We like that idea a lot. There are many places we’d like to infiltrate, and if some nice young author can teach us how, we’re pretty sure we can make that skill carry over into other parts of our lives. We also like the word, we used it all day – infiltrate this, infiltrate that, we’re surprised anyone is still talking to us.

4. “Don’t Write Shit.”  Sometimes the obvious is so close you miss it.  Well, why didn’t we think of that??  Why did we have to wait to hear that little gem at an Amazon class today.  The speaker just rolled it out as gospel.  “Don’t write shit.”  Well, hell . . .

5.  Amy’s New Baby.  We were in a marketing seminar and the speaker mentioned she had worked at “Bank of No Forks”.  She had our sympathy.  Then she mentioned she had 5 months of paid medical leave when she had her baby.  Ava immediately decided that Amy needed a baby.  She could get an entire manuscript done in that time while being paid.  Score!!!  Inexplicably, she adamantly said, “NO.”  NO!  Can you believe it?  Ava’s too old and peri-menopausal.  How could she not take one for the team?