by Alethea and Kerri Mermaid
Alethea: This week, the Waterworld Mermaids celebrate our SECOND ANNIVERSARY of blogging! Can you believe we’ve made it this far? I mean…without killing each other?
Kerri: No!!! It seriously seems like just yesterday we met at the Washington Romance Writers’ Retreat in Leesburg, VA. Fun fact: we met the same day as the royal wedding. So a lot of us (me! me!) were tired from getting up at 4 in the morning.
Alethea: Some of the Mermaids asked that I talk a little bit about our origin and how we came to be. You can still read my first Mermaid post about it here…but I think what they really wanted me to mention was The FBI List.
Kerri: I told you not to tell people about me being on the FBI’s list!
Alethea: Bwahahaha! Okay, seriously: Back in 2011, before the retreat happened, the WRW released a list of attendees. Now, I’ve been to conferences the size of Dragon*Con, so I can appreciate what a pleasure it is to have your attendance cutoff down around 160. With a list that size, why, a person could easily Google everyone on it and make some notes, so that when they introduced themselves to, say, Aix Rickloff, they would know a little bit about her and her work. I mean, if I had a personal assistant, it’s exactly the kind of thing I would have her do, so she could whisper this vital information in my ear at parties, a-la The Devil Wears Prada.
Kerri: I LOVE The Devil Wears Prada! But the book is so much better than the movie.
Alethea: Gah! Another book for my TBR pile! So what I didn’t take into account was that at an intimate convention like this, they might not be prepared for a princess in possession of information that only the FBI might know. It looked a little something like this:
So, while *I* was fully prepared, others weren’t. Like Denny Mermaid, for example, who I apparently scared the crap out of, right off the bat. THAT’S a first impression a girl likes to have when trying to make new friends. For sure.
Kerri: Plus, when you bombarded Denny, you totally interrupted our Buffy the Vampire Slayer conversation!
Alethea: I should have been part of that conversation ANYWAY. *pppffft* Happily, Dana and Carlene were *not* scared out of their fins. In fact, Carlene and I had met previously at a Sherrilyn Kenyon signing…and I was so glad she brought that up, because it was killing me trying to figure out where I knew her from.
Kerri: Time to off-road-topic now.
Alethea: ::SCREEEECH::
Kerri: Let’s tell them about how we got the name “Waterworld Mermaids”
Alethea: Heehee…okay, you start.
Kerri: One of the highlights of Retreat is Romance Jeopardy. Trust me, that game gets crazy-sauce real fast (and it’s “not fair“). That year, one of the questions was something about a Kevin Costner movie. Someone shot their hand up and guessed Waterworld. Wrong!
Alethea: The answer was actually “What is The Postman“, which I knew, but I wasn’t on anyone’s team. Which was probably a good thing, ’cause I’m one of those idiots who actually likes to PLAY games. *snicker* So I was sitting way in the back, next to an editor who was knitting furiously and only half paying attention, and we were heckling.
Kerri: The next person threw their hand up. “What is Waterworld?” Still wrong!
Alethea: I don’t even know if anyone actually got the answer to that question (or, rather, the question to that answer). It started to devolve pretty quickly after that.
Kerri: The next person tries. “Um, is it Waterworld?” Nope, besides being wrong, we are all very bad listeners!
Alethea: I think that last one was Karen Johnston and she was SO CUTE when she did it, we all cried we laughed so hard. At which point, the answer to EVERY CLUE became “What is Waterworld?” It was hilarious. I remember the Romance Jeopardy hosts throwing a LOT of candy at the audience that night.
Kerri: They didn’t throw as much stuff this year. I know this because I like to pick up the candy and throw it at our lovely Avery Flynn, which I’m pretty sure she enjoys as much as me. Ummmm. Maybe?
Alethea: This year it would have gotten stuck in her beard.
Kerri: Anyhoo, the night we got home from Retreat (which would be two days after the Royal Wedding) guess what was on TV? Sadly, not The Devil Wears Prada. WHAT IS WATERWORLD! Alethea and I started tweeting back and forth about it and out of that conversation, we thought it would make a fun blog name. But it needed… something.
Alethea: I just had that feeling. That “almost there” kind of feeling.
Kerri: What goes in the water? Beautiful mermaids. And what are we? Beautiful, talented Mermaids in different stages of publishing, supporting one another and returning each year to Retreat so we can throw candy at Avery Flynn learn to be the best Mermaids ever!
Alethea: Huzzah! *glitterbomb*
Kerri: Whether you stop by the lagoon on a daily basis, or just when the fancy strikes your fin, a huge thank you for joining us over the last two years!
Alethea: And a very happy Mermaid Blogoversary to us all!