Now Where Did I Put My Sparkle?

There have been a lot of posts about how to pack for the RWA National Conference, what to bring to the conference and how to prepare for the conference's many offerings. You can read all about the various ways my fellow bloggers are getting ready for conference on some of these blogs:

Lynn Raye Harris
Okay,  Listen Here
Writing Playground

I won't add much to their words of wisdom other to say that along with all the clothes, shoes, makeup and hair products I plan to bring, I also pack a corkscrew. Now you know where my priorities are. Also, once at the conference hotel and situated in my room located in the beautiful Walt Disney Swan Resort, I will also trek down to a spot I know sells wine by the bottle and snacks (the Beaches Disney Vacation Hotel along the lagoon). This will help offset some of my costs while I am at the conference. Again, gotta have priorities.

I've got my main stuff ready: pitch, general packing list (always stored on the computer, then tweaked for the different events), a dress (actually 2!) for the Golden Heart/Rita Ceremony. Now I have some last minute preparations which have little to do with selling my work and more to do with finally beautifying myself for presenting my work and having fun with a group of women who are highly charged on romance and estrogen. And let me tell you, romance writers who usually sit around in jammies or work out clothes to write with their tied up in ponytails and who wear no make up on their faces transform into princesses for this RWA Annual Conference.

We Writing Caterpillars love to put on our sparkle for the the main ceremony: the Golden Heart/Rita Awards Ceremony for writers. The Golden Heart is the Oscars for Unpublished Writers. The Rita is the Golden Globes for Published Writers. And we love to celebrate all of these fantastic writers as they bask in the Golden Aura of their successes. So we trade in our slippers for fancy shoes, and we put on our Cinderella dresses. We toss our hair into coifs fit for royalty, and we powder sparkle on our skin. And voila! We become Writing Butterflies!

But oh, the transformation is not as easy as Cinderella's Fairy Godmother's wave of a wand and a "bippity boppity boo." Nope. At least not for moi, the voluptuous 40 plus "gee I feel like a watermelon with toothpicks for legs" writer. The transformation happens in stages. In no particular order, they are:

*buy a dress
*buy shoes
*buy bling for the hair
*buy bling for the neck, ears and wrist
*get hair done
*treat writing hands to a very necessary manicure
*treat feet, especially summer heels, to a super necessary pedicure
*use wrinkle erasing products around eyes and on forehead
*find elusive Miss Oops deodorant line smudge eraser
*buy anti puffy eye cream
*pray for a fairy to come erase 10 pounds and some cellulite (or buy spanks)
*find sparkle
*trade slippers and jammies for sparkle clothes and shoes

Somehow, I have to transform from this:

 And become fabulously sparkled enough to wear all this!

Let the sparkling begin!