I think this story bears repeating (forgive me, if you've heard it) Colleen and I met to do a novella collection through Loree Lough. Loree got busy and didn't do the novella collection, but Colleen and I joined Carol Cox and Gail Sattler in "Forever Friends" a Barbour publication. The book definitely didn't last as long as the friendship, but it was a good starting point and aptly named. Anyhoo, Colleen and I became good friends over the Internet because she thought she might have MS (she didn't) and we didn't meet for another two years.

When we did meet it was at the Glorieta Christian Writers' Conference in New Mexico. We roomed with Carol Cox. Let's just say I was not familiar with the ways of the religious retreat world and had I known I'd be essentially camping dorm-style in an aqua-on-steroids painted room with Brown Native American quilts, I may not have been so friendly.

My mother-in-law, who stayed with the kids, was freaking that I was going half-way across the country to stay with people I'd "never met" before. She was convinced I was meeting up with a serial killer. (Little did she know, I was -- that's what Colleen writes now!)

So here's where it turns ugly and Colleen becomes my lifelong friend. I find out, there is no such thing as espresso on this little Southern Baptist spread. And the nearest town is about a half-an-hour away. This was in my convertible days -- when I had the convertible for coffee jaunts and the minivan for the kids. (I know, I know, but it was the beauty of Reagonomics that held on through Clinton, all right?)

Anyway, I decide that I'm going to take a shower when I get there. So I go in and take a shower. One towel is on the floor. One is wrapped around my head and the other my body. I emerge from the bathroom and say, "We have to call down for more towels. They only gave us three!"

It turns out, that's all the Baptists give you. Three people, three towels. For the week!!! What are we, on safari?? So I have just met these people and essentially, I am wearing their towel reserve for the week. They laughed like hyenas after they told me, but first they tried to get more so as not to "hurt my feelings." They were so nice, no one wanted to tell me! So if that didn't cement my Diva reputation, THEN, I rented a car so I could go into town and get espresso. Because I was NOT going to sit through classes without espresso. This is how I got Colleen hooked on espresso. I gave her the entry drug: her first iced mocha.

We got along swimmingly and no one killed me (though they may have wanted to) and here's the pic of us from that conference. But it's a bonding experience when you make an idiot of yourself in front of new people. Try it. Worked for me. And if this picture doesn't tell you that writers' conferences are worth your money, I don't know what would.

In Pic from left to right: Carol Cox, DiAnn Mills, Colleen Coble, Tracie Peterson, Freda Crisman, Judy Miller, Joyce Livingston and moi.