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| Before take- off! |
CAUTION!! The following is the TRUE tale of two people's journey to New Mexico. And what happened at the Gay Romance Literature retreat. No names have been changed because they're are no innocent! YOU WERE WARNED! Article by Wt and Julie Prater
TUESDAY AND WEDNESDAY
"So before we began what was to be a 25 hour journey to GRL, there was of course a lot of very last minute packing. In a few hours we were due in Memphis to pick up the third for our cross country journey, Miss Allison Cassatta. (Miss Cassatta could not be reached to confirm or deny this story). And just fyi, although we were traveling to New Mexico this tale does not include any aliens or space ships although if we had been abducted it would have been a faster journey. As it was we encountered two major traffic jams (just before we got to Memphis and just after we left) that cost us 3 hours of driving time. We stopped at Denny’s (a Prater tradition since that is where we met) in two different states, Oklahoma and Arkansas. There were few memories that we had that were more traumatizing than Julie Waking to see a giant cross and the giant guy on the horse that tried to wrangle her from which she had to be saved by Will." ---Julie
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| Captured! |
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| Saved! | |
"Upon arrival to the Hard Rock Casino and Hotel we were impressed by it’s grandeur. For a fairly inexpensive hotel it was very posh. And overall incredibly friendly and helpful. The first person I saw was Eden Winters searching frantically for her packages at the conciege station. While Julie unloaded the car and had our bags delivered up to the room and Allison too pooped to talk nearly crawled to her room, I stalked the lobby looking for other people from last year's GRL. As I saw Kate McMurray standing in line and started meeting up with people from the previous year, I heard movement behind me. Xara X Xanakas had already put down her cup and was ready for the oncoming battle. Head up, arms open, she assumed attack pose." ---Wt
"Well, the first thing I heard was an unnatural noise, something like a squee of joy, and then at the speed of light, he was running across the lobby at her. They embrace seemed to last forever, i couldn't tell if he was attacked her or giving her Heimlich backwards. And da same thing with Poppy Dennison. I was scared, so scared." --- General Onlooker
"I was just excited to see them all. I realize the same thing kept happening over and over again with shorter hugs as I encountered people from the previous year especially my writing Family: Poppy Dennison, Michelle L Montgomery, Cherie Noel, Xara, L.C. Chase, M J O'Shea, Eden and so many others. And it does need to be mentioned that Missy Welsh you were missed!" ---Wt
"He was flying around, meeting up with various people he had been chatting with online such as Sara York (who gave lots of free books) Ellis Carrington, and Edmond Manning. We were so hungry that when he stopped for a moment, I plead for food. He asked about places and we ended up as Tiwa eating with Xara, Zach Sweets and his partner Neil, K-lee Klein, Adara, Shae Conner, Piper Vaughn and Sue. The food at Tiwa was awesome, particularly the egg rolls and coconut sauce.
During dinner William proposed to K-lee because she needed a "conventional" husband. And since we believe in poly relationships, she became the third wive, behind Julie and Xara. (Because, of course, Will had married Xara at the last convention so that was still in effect.) He even got them a ring (pop) each in their next adventure.
J. P. Barnaby showed up during dinner to say hi and ask for a small favor: Could anyone drive her to Wal-Mart? Will, in his usual nature, volunteered me. So the five of us (Will, J.P., Shae, Adara and I) went on a little excursion to wal-mart for candy and picture frames."---Julie
"We got back to the hotel, and Julie and I took much needed showers and then went to early registration! Getting checked in was done with a quickness, which amazed everyone. Many kudos to the volunteers and organizers for speeding up last years process. The only thing I missed was my t-shirt!
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| All the swag. |
At some point a black hole occurred and a few hours disappeared because the next thing we remember we were at Fusion505 with a large group of GRLers and eating not so great food. However it did give us the opportunity to hang out with KC Burn and her husband Alex and talk to Elisa who hosts the Rainbow Awards. And of course get to know Adara a little better, which is only right, with her being a fellow Nashvillian. After a long day that had actually started Tuesday morning we finally headed to the room and crashed after hanging out with William Cooper and Anel Viz, our roommates, ever so briefly." ---Wt
THURSDAY
"Thursday morning came too soon, as I headed down to the main room to get the prime swag ahead of Julie. Within the first half hour or so of being there, I lost my phone in my abundant swag wrangling fervor. Luckily Julie was there to save the day and hawked the registration table until it was turned in. Some of the memorable swag was: Christopher Koehler’s giant blue bags, B A Tortuga had some awesome squishy bulls, Kiernan Kelly had some kickass nude playing cards, Vicktor Alexander's notebooks were awesome and of course, Joyee Flynn's pecker checkers. "--Wt
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| Bottom Corner, Wt! |
"All the publishers had awesome giveaway items, cups and calendars, and such. There were some yummy book sales. So of course Will started yoinking them up asap. I noticed from across the room that Kiernan Kelly grabbed Will and took him over to the Torquere table and showed him a piece of swag. Much squeeing and bouncing occurred at this point. It turns out that his name was on one of the cards announcing his first published short story, Two Tiny Secrets. The swag room was so awesome (six bags of swag!) that I was late for the newbie meet and great and was just in time to be advised that it was rude to hop in and out of the various sessions. At which point is when Will wondered off." ---Julie
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| Blinged out! |
"I escaped when I got a text from Lissa Kasey asking where I was. So I joined her and Xara for another meal at Tiwa, and then we all went to the Musa spotlight to learn more about that publishing company. I got to talk and hang out with Elizabeth Silver, Kelly and Carrie Mand. Meanwhile, Julie went and pimped the hell out of her badge." ---Wt
"Next was the Red Hot Pictionary. So various audience member were picked, and we had to draw a picture of the word they received based on an exerpt from the book Unconventional Love. When it was Devon Rhodes’ turn to pick someone, Will got chosen. What followed was nothing short of a laugh riot.
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| The Unconventional Writer's and Julie! |
As the panelists, the authors of the book sat there (Carol Lynne, Jambrea Jo Jones, T.A. Chase, Amber Kell, and Stephanie Hecht, and Devon Rhodes),Will attempted to draw his word. The first part of the drawing appeared to be a candy corn and next to it a rocket, I thought it was a dildo vs. a butt plug but nope, foreskin. After the audience laughed for about five minutes, Will then read the exerpt, which was even funnier. There is video out there of Will reading the exerpt if you would like to search for it, it isn't hard to find." ---Julie
"Then we went to the Resplendence Q and A. And hung out with Xara, Lissa, Zach and his honey. Afterwords, we all wanted non-hotel food. So we ended up traversing out to Cervesas for lunch. There were 7 of us (K-lee had joined us at that point). The restaurant was very good, but the thing that amazed us were the decorations. (Pictures coming soon). Then we rushed back to the hotel and were only a few minutes late for the opening ceremonies which MLR hosted. I sat with AJ Kelton, and Brandi (Will's roomates from the previous year) while Will floated like a butterfly around the room talking to everyone and anyone." ---Julie
"To finish up that night, we celebrated at the Gentlemans Juke Joint, where we sat with Keirnan Kelly and her husband and watched the mediocre strippers that didn't really strip (or dance with the guys much). Cat Grant stopped by and hung out with us a bit, and I won some books by Barry Brennessel (OMG! So cute!) Apparently, we left before the best dancing started. According to Adara and her video phone, Damon Suede and Jared took the stage and burned it down, SO DAMN HOT!" ---Wt
COMING TOMORROW . . . .
PART TWO: THE JOURNEY INTO THE CITY, THE WORSE DANCING EVER,
AND THE FINAL FAREWELL!
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| More to come! The journey into the city! |
So. . .the past couple of weeks have flew by, with the Halloween and Thanksgiving pasting and my birthday and Christmas coming. I've tried to keep my nose to the grind stone, writing almost every day and working toward writing my new goal of 5,000 words per day. It seems the higher I aim, the more I accomplish. So I'm hoping this trend will continue. I finally sold Exercising His Options, to Breathless Press for their Ad-Dick-tion, Volume 3 which is exciting. I'll still waiting to hear back from Kris at MLR about Shattered Mirrors. I am hoping to finish off the year strong, with at least five stories being published, or in process. So, here's my WIPs updated and re organized. I want to finish at least two more shorts and work on editing Dark of Day or writing Roads Traveled during December. Those are some of my goals, which I'll be doing a post about soon, as is my annual tradition. Thanks, as always, for your continued encouragement, ass kicking, and advice. I love you, oh ever faithful reader!
