The Company We Keep

Enjoyed giving a presentation to the Suguaro Romance Writers in Tucson yesterday. True to my standards, I made a dramatic entrance.

Enjoyed meeting with the board Friday night, and over a spectacular Mexican dinner, I began to pass out. One minute I twas speaking, and the next, I was looking down at someone kneeling and asking me if I was okay. I don’t even remember them separating the tables, customers from that side of the restaurant looking on. Light-headed and unable to finish my food, and a little sick to my stomach, I was confused and unable to move.

Well, next I heard they’d called paramedics. “I’m fine!” I said, to which they all laughed. I was helped outside and was treated by six (count them) handsome paramedics. We’re all romance writers. We write about firemen and paramedics all the time. I’m telling you, if I’d felt better, I might have laughed it off better, but the ladies were having fun. Every single one of our paramedic crew knew we wrote romance. I heard about it all the way to the hospital.

This could be Sonoma County, but it’s India.

I waved good night to my group of board members who were having me speak, from the back of the ambulance, and was transported to the Emergency Room.

Okay, so I did admit to passing out a few bookmarks, and one of the nurses who attended me was a big military romance reader and had heard of me. I got an Uber driver for $5.67 who took me from the hospital back to my hotel at 2 AM, after I’d been checked out, hydrated with an IV and discharged. We talked romance in his RAM truck. I think his girlfriend will be getting one of my books.

And at 9 AM, I was feeling great. After my grand dramatic entrance, I was on.

A grand railway adventure to the caves in Goa?

I talked about my journey, and literally had some laughs about stories I’d heard about other writers and their perserverance, which was a theme in my talk, about not giving up, not ringing the bell. We talked about exposure, getting follows, getting a dedicated fanbase of readers. Taking what we got and just expanding on that, large or small, grand or simple. The pros and cons of different types of marketing and Newsletters, assistants, review teams and reader groups. It was all out there.

Of course I talked about my thoughts about watching my son get his Trident. What he had to go through, and showed what things did or didn’t make their way into my books and why.

Life is color, and meant to celebrate.

It was inspiring for me to get up and talk for a couple of hours, to laugh, and to demonstrate the sisterhood (and brotherhood) of writers we are. Great group, and was one of my better days. Hospital scare and all.

I come back refreshed, recalibrated. Sometimes I think I get so wound up with my own goals and focus, I forget that being an inspiration is part of what I love about being a writer. If I didn’t feel I gave anything back, it honestly wouldn’t be worth it.

Indian monuments of love. My kind of trail. I’m going.

On the plane home, I found something new for my bucket list. I have a story brewing about India, about a time travel romance spanning a hundred and fifty years crossing three continents. Now I have a new mission. This picture is pasted on my wall by my computer screen to remember.

Visiting the great monuments of love? What’s not right for a romance writer? I have to get there, somehow.