Covered in Cat Writers Part 1 of 2

Once a year, as the full moon rises and the planets align into a cat-shaped orbit, the scribes of the feline world join together. It's a sacred gathering of secret handshakes and mystical rituals that date back to 1992, when the organization first came into being.

In other words, The 2010 Cat Writers' Association, which was established in 1992, held its' annual Conference in White Plains, New York at the Crowne Plaza hotel. Oh yeah, and there was a full moon.

Prior to the formal Conference starting, many of us got together for the “TNT”-Thursday Night Thing? I have no idea what the last “T” stands for, so you'll have to excuse me for guessing. The goal of TNT is for everyone to help stuff the HUMUNGOUS SWAG BAGS full of cat-centric goodies and to get to know each other. After the bags are stuffed, we get to stuff our faces with pizza. Post stuff-fest, We were asked to form a circle, but no joining hands or animal sacrifice followed. We simply took turns saying a few words about our background, how many cats we had and what sort of books we had published so that everyone could get to know us a bit better. There were quite a few folks in the circle, so we added a second concentric ring to accommodate everyone. Many folks said their bit and moved on to the next, but a few decided to pontificate (that's a big word meaning they were time-hogs/show offs, were inconsiderate since it was pushing 9pm and instead of being naked, perhaps we only needed a tease to know enough. I struggled to fight off the urge to roll my eyes back and scream; NEXT! as loudly as I could.)

The thing that surprised and or scared me was realizing that with the exception of only one person, we had the MOST cats of anyone else-by far.

Oops.

I hoped we'd get an elevated status within the organization for our cat-population prowess, but maybe these folks knew better than we did- that having so many cats is not necessarily a great idea. (this is written as I fear finding out how many times my cats puked, pooped and peed in the house while I'm away from home.)

©2010 Robin A.F. Olson. Enter the Swag Bag!

But then there was the swag bags. As I live and breathe, it's like the Christmas I never had, looking into the depths of that black World's Best Cat Litter Bag. Every time I took something out, I'd get a peek at something even better. My imagination ran wild, anticipating how my cats would dive bomb the bag the second I walked it in the door. They'd drag out the catnip laden Hot Cat (awesome!) or wrestle the KONG Kickaroo (love those!) and we got a NEKO Flies wand toy (with the great tagline: “It's swat cats love!”). I can't wait to see how the cats will react once they see it. In addition to the super-schwing-swag-bag, we got eve MORE goodies. I scored some Feliway diffusers (THANK YOU CARRIE!), a cute kitten-sized cat tree (THANK YOU ALLIA ZOBEL! and ARUBACAT) and coupons to buy World's Best Cat Litter at a discount (YEAH, BABY!). ...AND some folks didn't want some of their swag so they gave it to me to give to my foster babies!

©2010 Robin A.F. Olson. Blitzen and Pattycake get first dibs.

Honestly, I could have just gone home with that bag and skipped the Conference, but heck, I had a hotel room booked so might as well stay...oh that and This year I was slated to be a Speaker! The topic was: “Using Analytics to Measure Your Reach.” How boring does this sound? Yeah, pretty boring. In fact, our (Sam was a Co-Presenter with me) presentation was quite perky and charming, but there wasn't much time to get folks excited about it since we were FIRST to go on Friday at 9AM.

©2010 Robin A.F. Olson. I can't believe Blitzen used this tiny cat scratcher right away!

But now we must change pace. This is the first of two sad parts of my story. We got all set up, the projector ran just fine. Mary, my sister-in-writing, had loaned us her projector as a backup! How great was this? No worries about a failed projector. The Keynote presentations we created were working fine, too.

©2010 Robin A.F. Olson. MINE! MINE! MINE!

©2010 Robin A.F. Olson. Like Catnip much?

©2010 Robin A.F. Olson. Spencer, Nora, Petunia and Blitzen are mesmerized by the Neko Flies.

©2010 Robin A.F. Olson. Moonpie grabs it!

But my camera was not doing so well. It showed signs of being under the weather about a week before the Conference. I didn't have time to fool around with it before we left and it was in our room, moments before we were to being that I realized my camera, though it functioned, it only worked when it FELT like doing so. I thought it might be the battery or the fact that my Digital SLR had reached retirement age. Drat! Not having a good camera is like having my arm cut off. Let us take a moment to reflect on the thousands of cute kitten photos that camera has captured for me, as we try not to be pissed off that it's going to cost and arm (and leg) to replace it. But, the show must go on...camera or no.

©2010 Robin A.F. Olson. No, our Presentation wasn't in an empty room. Folks actually showed up!

©2010 Robin A.F. Olson. The graphics are ready, the bowels are empty, let the Presentation begin!

The Presentation went well. Sam did the tech stuff, I told the warm fuzzy story. We hit our times well, fielded a few questions and were done! Felt good.

Then I realized I had a “pitch” session with Susan Logan the super-boss of Cat Fancy magazine in 30 minutes. I'd worked so hard on the Presentation, I didn't prepare my pitch, which I hate doing in the first place. If I ever want a shot at writing for a national publication, I better get my act together.

My brain started to fuzz over. I hadn't sleep more than an hour the night before. You know how it goes when you try to sleep in hotel. Some times it just doesn't happen. The thought that I'd become accustom to cats jumping on my face, screaming in the middle of the night and laying all over me as my evening tonic was depressing. Here I was in a king sized bed and no cats and sleep would not come. The real reason I couldn't sleep was this.

So I dragged my sleepy self over to the Editors room. I prayed my mind would begin to fire on at least ONE cylinder. I sat down to speak with Ms. Logan and my mind went blank...

...part two of my adventures at the CWA Conference soon! Will I face plant in from of a respected colleague? Will I WIN an AWARD for..umm...ANYTHING YOU MIGHT BE READING? Will I make a new friend? Get rid of an old one? Will I wear more bling than the ladies from Texas? Will there be an underlying theme of FIRE TRUCKS and loss in this story?

Stay tuned...