The Genesis award was announced last. And my category was second-to-last. Which means I didn’t eat much of the steak dinner or cheesecake dessert.

About halfway through, maybe somewhere along the BOTY awards, I thought of the perfect thank-you line. I wanted to win so I could use that line.

Nononononono! I jinxed myself by thinking of that line. Go away, line. Get out of my head.

Finally, finally, when I thought my stomach had been reconstructed into a jungle gym for five-year-olds, they got to the Contemporary Women’s Fiction award.

They announced third place. Not me. Then second place. Not me.

(Side note: attending an award’s ceremony when you’re a finalist [or
nominee] is great cardio work-out. My heart out-paced and out-pounded Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture.)

Not hearing my name in third or second place must’ve meant I didn’t place. Third place, I thought, was possible. Even less did I think second place. So when they said my name for first place, I convinced myself I misunderstood. I’d heard my own name out of desire. Gina turned to me and said, "You won!"

Then I believed it.

I shimmied to the front, climbed the stage, and delivered my perfect line:

"I’d like to thank the voices in my head and my imaginary friends." Come one, it’s a perfect line for a writer’s conference, isn’t it? Give me some props. "And especially my husband, who besides being the sexiest man in the world, told me I should do this."

Then I walked off. First the wrong direction. They had to point me in the correct direction.

So I’m a Genesis winner. For five minutes I was a celebrity. Of course, the next morning at breakfast, I was invinsible again.

What else from ACFW?

I met Gina (pronounced Jenna) Hernandez. This girl is smart, funny and sassy. We talked writing, books, theology, life for hours on end. I found someone I could be catty with.

Not that I’m catty. No. Never.

I got to know D’Ann Mateer better. This woman is smart, encouraging and amazing. (I met a lot of smart people.)

Gina, D’Ann, and I should have a theme song: "Good morning, good morning. We’ve talked the whole night through. Good morning, good morning to you." Time? That became meaningless in our conversation.

(Do not judge us by this picture. It was the last morning of the conference. We probably had a combined eight hours of sleep. When I say combined, I mean adding together all nights for all of us.)

Friday night, after we sat in Friday’s for oh, seven hours, we thought it might be time to leave. We’d been sitting next to large windows that faced their veranda. As we walked out, some guy who apparently had been on the veranda asked us not to go. They’d been window watching, no, window shopping.

Ah, yes.

I also met J. Mark Bertrand, who is not nearly as scary as I thought he’d be. We conversed about postmodernism, philosophy, and, of course, writing. A lot about writing. The man is incredibly well-read and well-thought about what he’s well-read.

So that was the conference.