Jenn LeBlanc

RomCon 2012

Posted by Jenn on July 2, 2012 · 4 Comments 

WHOA.

I packed the books:

I packed the car:

And I picked up Derek from the airport:

We arrived early and were put in the murder room. For those of you that don’t have degrees in criminalistics or watch CSI, that’s the room in the corner by the stairs. Then I pushed D back to the car so we could get to the airport to pick up Jamie + Kati of Romancing Rakes For the Love of Romance. (heretofore known as RRFTLOR)

That night was the cast and crew meet n greet for TRATR, which was a ton of fun, lots of authors and readers together. The next day this happened. Check out my bright shiny forehead! LOL, oh and the creeper in the alcove.

Teresa Medeiros and ME! She was my first, you know. 😉

Then THIS happened (and I about died)

SHE is SOOO sweet! And she took my giant book home with her.

And then there was this:

Me and Kati from Romancing Rakes… yup. AGAIN.

OH! And did I mention I played the iceberg that sank the Titanic?

OK not really, I just felt that way 😉

The best part of the books signing was everyone coming by my table and saying OH so is this the GIANT pink book we’ve been seeing everywhere?!?!? Yes. Yes it is. 🙂

BUT WAIT there’s more! MANGASM. This was the closing event, and it brought down the house. Delilah the wonderful was in CHARGE, and she had some great games for everyone to play. One of which was pass the dildo. I can’t even talk about most of the antics from this evening without blushing or laughing. You’ll just have to come next year. 🙂

Author Hillary Seidl all lubed up and ready for the musical dildo game.

Delilah Marvelle at the book signing.

Derek, Delilah and Maire chillin’ in Delilah’s bed after the mangasm.

The next morning was the brunch and awards ceremony, and I WAS A FINALIST IN THE HISTORICAL CATEGORY!!! *eep* *eep* *eep* OMGoodness. Incredible, right?!?! YES. But that wasn’t the best part, the best part was when I won a ticket to return next year, and then DEREK won a ticket to return next year, and he stood up and said the first person to catch me gets the ticket… I turned to look and all I saw was this blur heading straight for him, and his eyes grew wider, and I moved forward with my arms out, I dunno to protect him? WHAT?!?! I’m a mom, it’s built in instinct, the girl, Regina, LAUNCHED herself at him and I caught them both before they hit the floor. It was…uh…epic. And not a single image of it anywhere. Then she wouldn’t let go. And…she needed to. SHE was sooooo sweet though, and we took pics with her after the brunch, so she had some memories of her tackle, and so do we.

Derek and Regina, the tackler. 🙂

After RomCon we had a big studio shoot. It was HOT. It was also HAWT. I need some airflow in the studio, we were all totally fried in there. YEESH.

So I set the lights, then we dressed the models:

Karl weighed himself while I waited to get his shirt on. Gotta know how much muscle is on there!

And we shot ourselves some smexy like this:

And we did #StudioSmexy right. We had four very special guests in the studio, Kati + Jamie, of course but ALSO Delilah Marvelle and Maire Claremont! We shot a cover image for Delilah’s fifth book in the GALLANTRY series MASTER OF PLEASURE. This was a super sqeeworthy moment for me, because I first met Delilah last year at RomCon and then proceeded to read all of her books— one was just NOT enough. I adore her, and over the last year we became friends over the tweeter nets. Well when she came back this year it was so much fun to get together again, and to shoot a cover for the series that I LOVE? For an author I ADORE?!? *sigh* Best thing ever. So for the first time EVER I’m showing you the image that Delilah helped to create for her novel:

It has been sent over to Carrie, with Seductive Designs, one of my favorite designers, and I simply can’t WAIT to see what she does with it. I just LOVE this.

One other thing about Delilah. She makes me want to be more brave in my writing. She does such amazing, brazen and ballsy stuff in her books, and I want to do that. I really held back on TRATR because I was worried about, well, lots of things—being my first book. After reading Delilah, when I went to re-edit the original book and finalize Perry’s story, I let myself go places I never thought I would. I touched on subjects and pushed boundaries much more than I had before. It was empowering, and I think my writing, and the REDUX version of TRATR is much more powerful for it.

Delilah brought me a gift, and I just can’t tell you what this little trinket means to me.

I heart you Delilah 🙂

The next day, we had more to shoot, but it was so HOT here I think it was over 100. Terrible.

Jamie

Kati + Jamie (it got a little silly)

But it was fun.

So we decided to head for the lake, I called one of my girls and she was game for some wet shoot, so we headed over.

After the lake we boogied on over to the studio for some more shooting. It was a blast, of course, again. Then we did pickup shots for Pamela Clare’s DEFIANT trailer, which I will tell you all about SOON.

That was the coolest thing EVER.

After the studio we went to dinner at Steubens and dropped off the ladies at the hotel. My final farewell to Kati was from under the bathroom door. #awkward. I guess I understand why JR Ward has security now. (just kidding! Love you Kati!) 😉

Derek and I headed for Fort Collins for some fun with his friends and to just decompress from the chaos that was RomCon12.

We stayed with his friend Jake, who is such an amazing guy. The next morning we boobie trapped his house with Derek trading cards. EVERYWHERE. I need to find out if D has heard from him at all. I need to know.

Derek and Dream Girl, Jake’s BEAUTIFUL pit. 🙂

We had a cheater breakfast at Silver Grill, and met up with Levi, who is an amazing and wonderful soul. He was my Daniel when I shot fan images for Tiffany Reisz last summer. Levi’s family lost their home in the High Park fires. He showed us the pics and it broke my heart. It’s difficult enough seeing my mountains burn, but to see the devastation from my friends is just terrifying. To know how close they were. So any images purchased from Levi’s gallery in the next month,  the proceeds are going directly to Levi and his family. It may just be enough for a dinner or some ice cream. But anything I can do to bring him a smile and lighten the load on his family I will. Just click on Levi’s goofy face to go to his gallery. 🙂

After breakfast, beer, lunch and coffee, (it was Derek’s reward day, a tour de FoCo) we headed for the airport and Ds return to LA. Miss his silly face already.

Soooo….I’ve already got MY ticket to RomCon13. ill you be there?!?!?!?

THANK YOU to Jamie + Kati + Brandy for sending all the smashaliscious pics all weekend! SMOOCH!! ALSO for being the best girls a mess like me could hope for.