My hand to Zeus – I’m only keeping five of those books

You would all be so proud of me. One of the things that goes on at the National Romance Writers Convention is that they give you free books.

FREE BOOKS, people.

You must know what a weakness I have for books. Books are my kryptonite. I just can’t help myself.

The freshly packed trunk on the way to Anaheim

But the problem, you see, is that there were four women in Carly, Ava’s Cadillac, along with the attendant amount of luggage. That trunk was unbelievably full and the idea of squeezing even one more thing into was unfathomable.

Yet, they were giving away books. I could feel my fingers itching.

On Wednesday we checked in with the RWA people. We each received a huge red and white canvas bag along with our credentials. Ava and I plopped on the floor right in the middle of the lobby like little kids and opened the goodie bag. Inside were maybe fifteen books, hardcover and paperback.

I felt heart palpitations.

We attended a signing for literacy and I only bought one book. Only one. I was quite proud of myself.

Throughout the convention there were massive organized book signings underwritten by various publishers. At these events, free books were given away as they were being signed by the authors. Ava and I didn’t attend any of these events. We thought it was best not to be tempted.

That, and we were so busy taking craft and career workshops we didn’t have time to get to any of the signings.

No matter how hard I tried, the damn free books kept coming. Sometimes at the end of the workshops, there were free copies of the speaker’s books. I tried to resist. I think we only collected four or five of those copies.

So Ava and I were up to somewhere in the neighborhood of thirty-five books in our hotel room. Don’t forget that there were two other women with a combined total of a similar number of books as ours.

We figured that we could ship the books home via overnight shipping. There was even a conveniently located shipping company in our hotel lobby. But, really, isn’t the reason for driving – besides that’s it’s much cheaper than flying – because you don’t want to worry about overweight luggage and such?

We ended up getting every single one of those books home by shoving them in every single pocket of space in that trunk and on the floor at Ava’s feet in the passenger seat. Our friend,Tara Simone, is a phenomenal packer.