Julia Quinn

Romance Writers Ink -- the most fabulous chapter in all of RWA -- brought Julia Quinn in this weekend to present two workshops for us, and they were great! Though I've spoken to her online, this is the first time I've ever met her, and she is a sweetheart. She writes the best dialogue in the romance business, so I was excited to hear her speak on "Dialogue: It's More Than What You Say."

Leah, Robert and I picked her up at the airport on Friday evening and stopped for dinner on the way to her hotel, so we had a nice chance to really talk. Then on Saturday, she did the dialogue talk -- the best I've heard on the subject -- plus one called "JQ Talks Business." Interesting stuff!

Hopefully, I can incorporate some of what I learned into the current book. It's so nice to be writing real stuff again. (I don't think of revisions as "real" writing -- I've already written it once, so how could it be real the second time around?) It seems I spend so much time revising and rewriting that I just kind of get sick of it. The real writing, though, makes up for it. Then it's fun again.

I'm also doing some reading. Got my RITA books to judge yesterday (this is the granddaddy of all awards for the romance genre -- got mine entered and am keeping fingers crossed!). They used to give you six or seven books all in the same category, but then they started mixing them up. This year I've got short historicals, long historicals, novellas, single titles . . . lucky I like just about everything!

Well, guess I'd best close this down for now. Later, gators! Rachel9:06 AM