You've got questions? We'll get you some answers.

From July 13 til July 19, the Playfriends will be out of town. This isn't one of our famous road trips with unplanned excitement. Or at least we hope it's not.

We will be in our nation's capital for the Romance Writers of America national conference. The actual conference doesn't start until Thursday, but we've planned some sightseeing and a special birthday dinner for Instigator for the days leading up to it. We're keeping our fingers crossed for a White House tour and swear to God we won't let Instigator anywhere near the Presidential Seal Rug with a root beer. ;-)

Problem Child has a leadership seminar to attend. We'll all go to workshops, and several Playfriends are giving workshops. I get to go to my first PRO retreat. Angel has a flurry of Golden Heart activities. Smarty Pants will be networking and, during our sightseeing part of the trip, will share her knowledge of DC with us.

Instigator and Problem Child will be signing at the Readers for Life Literacy Autographing. Over 500 authors will be signing their books, the sale of which raises money for literacy. Since 1991, RWA has donated over a half million dollars to literacy charities.

We'll have our annual breakfast with our good friend Barbara Vey of Publisher's Weekly and individually we'll scatter to meet up with friends we only see once every year or so. These meetings often take place in the Executive Conference Room AKA the hotel bar. Anyone who's anybody can be found in the ECR.

Then on Saturday night we'll get all gussied up and attend the Golden Heart and Rita Awards Ceremony. It's like the Academy Awards for romance writers. And as I mentioned earlier, our own Angel is a finalist. The Playfriends will share her butterflies as we watch her picture up on the Jumbotron and wait for the announcement of the winner in her category.

"What about the blog?" you ask. And that's a very good question. It's a disgusting fact that you can stay at a Day's Inn for $69 a night and get free wi-fi access, but if you stay at a Marriott for $250 a night, they want to charge you an extra $12.95 a day for wi-fi. Additionally, with all the "stuff" we have to schlep to DC, carting along a laptop is an added burden.

"Stuff" includes casual clothing for sightseeing, business casual clothing for the conference, party attire for publisher parties, formal attire for the awards ceremony, shoes, jewelry and accessories to go with all of the above, make-up, curling irons, toiletry items, undies (and you know how we are about proper undergarments), PJs, OTC and prescription meds, camera and cell phone (and charging cords), business materials (notebook and pen, business cards, conference schedule, etc.), duffel bag for the free books and goodies we get at the conference and gosh knows what else for a seven-day combination business and pleasure trip.

Anyway, back to the blog. This year we're going to let our readers help us blog that week. Blogger has this really neat feature that allows you to schedule a blog post for a future date. And the Playfriends are going to put that feature to good use when we answer the questions you ask us over the next week.

Ask us about us, about writing, about publishing, and we'll sort through the questions, combine the ones that are similar, toss the ones we refuse to answer (like how much I weigh) and answer them throughout the course of the week we're in DC. For some questions we may all chime in, but for others, certain Playfriends may be more knowledgeable (i.e. Angel is our Golden Heart expert).

Between now and next Wednesday, send your questions to the Playground Monitor and then tune in the week of July 13 to get the answers.

Remember the books and goodies I mentioned earlier? We'll be pulling from that stash to give prizes after we return and recuperate from going ninety miles per hour for seven days. Conference is fun, and you learn more than you could ever imagine, but good gracious I come home in a stupor and just stare at the walls for about seventy-two hours.

Put on your thinking caps and ready, set, go! Send us your questions!