name dropping and clothes busting.

Where the devil have you been? Oh, wait a sec. Yeah, I mean where the heck have I been?

URWA

Say what? You don't know that that means. It stands for Utah Romance Writers of America. And last week I was the 'esteemed' photographer of honor. (Alright, so maybe I wasn't the esteemed guest...whatev! But I was the photographer.)
Authors, agents, editors and publishers came to the conference. I shot all day long, and learned a thing or two about writing. Mostly it was awesome. Especially when I got to see the amazing Karen Hoover, and Candace Salima, and Laurie Mclean, and Amy Moore-Benson, and Victoria Dahl, and Bree Despain, and Jessica Day George (who, I personally believe, should just go by JDG. It sounds supa' cool).

Whoa, breathe. That was one heck of a name drop. Am I cooler now? Am I? (Fingers crossed you'll say yes, but if you say no that's ok too because the rest of this post is for you... I am SO. NOT. COOL! Read on, and you'll see why.)

THE MOMENT YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR:

Remember a paragraph and a half back when I said "mostly" awesome? Here's the small, miniscule, nothing to worry about part of the conference that was definitely NOT awesome. At. All.

While shooting headshots of all the amazing conference attendees, I met an older gentleman who was sporting quite the manly goatee. I asked him what he wrote. (That's what non-published-aspiring-writers mostly talk about) The goatee-wearing man said, "I write erotica."

My jaw dropped to the floor. "Um, yes, well. That's nice, and lovely. And I'm sure it's very interesting." And then I put the camera in front of my face and started shooting. There was nothing coherent left to say.

That evening, at the conference dinner I wore the new blouse I purchased earlier in the day at JCREW. (So maybe I wasn't shooting the entire time of the conference.) While I was looking for my seat, the goatee-gentleman waved me over. When I reached where he was sitting, I placed my hand on his table and leaned over to talk to him.

SNAP is what I should've heard. But I didn't. Those top three devil buttons on my blouse came undone on their own without so much of a warning noise. In front of Erotica-writing goatee-gentleman, my top three buttons popped open to expose my hot pink brazier. (The white one was dirty.)

He looked at me, then looked at, um...you know. And he said, "Looks like you're coming undone."

In that moment, I wanted to DIE.

Did I? Of course not. That's why I'm writing this extremely long post on why I am so, so, so not cool. I'm just a person who as of late is not published and happens to expose fluorescent undergarments at Erotica-writing, goatee-sporting gentleman.