the convention

The writer's conference was yesterday. Funny how I didn't have the energy or motivation to write about the writer's conference on the day of the writer's conference. Actually, that's not true. I did write about it. I just never put it down on paper or screen. So we'll start from the beginning.

I got there too early. By at least a half an hour. I'd never been to the west campus of the school before, and I didn't know what the parking situation would be like, and I didn't want to be rushed. There was a lot of free parking right in front of the building. I got there way too early. When I arrived, there were already a bunch of people, professionals in businesswear, milling about the tables in the hallway. I thought that these people did not look like writers. I was correct. There was a dentist convention going on at the same time. So, I went into the bathroom, and a man, blatantly ignoring men's room etiquette, came up to the urinal next to mine despite the numerous empty urinals that would leave a buffer urinal between the two of us. Out of the corner of my eye I saw his glasses, slightly mussed hair, and nice shirt that didn't quite fit right, and thought that this guy looked like a writer. He washed his hands a little quicker than I, and I therefore had to wait behind him at the paper towel dispenser. He apologized as if his presence were regretful. He was a writer alright. Back out in the main hall/lobby area, I didn't see the man from the bathroom. But, a little ways past the dentists there was a momish woman and a dangerously (illegally?) young woman, who I later found out was kurtvonnegutskiller, standing awkwardly and chatting. I went up to them and asked if they were with the writers, and they said that they were. We smalltalked a bit. What do you write? What do you read? Is this your first convention? And the normal blah that goes into laying the foundation for more meaningful conversations later on. Then the man from the bathroom joined us, made a sarcastic joke of a question having something to do with how many books we had each written, or were writing, or. . . I can't remember. It wasn't funny. But the effort was appreciated and I think we laughed. kurtvonnegutskiller explained her writing with a fairly pretentious swagger of teen cynicism and overconfidence. The momish woman had disappeared. They asked me what I wrote, and I just said stuff. I have a clever answer that I like to use when people ask me that question. But I didn't really feel like bringing it out at this point. Then the man from the bathroom told us that he had researched Salem a lot, and he was writing a book based on that research, and something else that I'm failing to remember right now. He then said that he wasn't sure he was going to finish it, because his mom had read it and said that people who don't know a lot about Salem wouldn't really get that much out of it. kurtvonnegutskiller said that he should finish it because she loved stuff based in Salem, and I then kind of slinked away because the two seemed to be kind of hitting it off a bit, and I didn't want to interfere with the jailbaiting. . . Before the event actually began, kurtvonnegutskiller had left the man from the bathroom, and he came back up to me. It turns out, I think he was maybe a warning to me: a 42-year-old man who was just now starting to make it without his parent's supporting him financially. I'm not sure why he shared this bit of information about himself when he'd just met me, but I'm glad he did. It makes me think, at least I'm not to that point. . . but don't let yourself get to that point either. He was a really nice guy though. Smart. Friendly. He offered me so much advice and encouragement. Whenever I would mention some plan or idea of mine, he would say "I think you should do it. Yeah. It sounds good. What could it hurt, you know?" I was glad to have met him, and we sat together during the keynote speaker, a good credentialed author who many people, not including me, have heard of. He's published like eighteen books and done things for NPR and several of his books have been translated for international publication and he's won awards and one of his books is in works to be made into a movie. But anyway, while we were sitting at our table, waiting for the keynote speech, a guy with scraggly long hair came, set all of his stuff on the table, sat for less than ten seconds, and then stood and hurried out of the room. I had never seen a picture of the keynote speaker, but I knew that this guy must be him. When he got back, I, along with the other people at the table, got to speak with him for a few minutes before he went on. He was nice, funny, and very approachable.

The Keynote Speech

The keynote speech was good and bad all at once. It was good in that it was very entertaining and had some good advice that I found quite helpful. It was bad in that it started with the guy tooting his own horn, listing credentials that were already listed by the woman who introduced him, and had a lot of the cliche advice that one can get out of every book on writing known to man: in order to write, you must read. . . blah. . . I actually wrote down several of the things he said, because they seemed relevant to me. The one I'll share here seems relevant to this blog: "Lack of experience can lead to a book. The things that don't happen are often as important as the things that do." I hope that's true. I've got a life full of things that didn't happen. Another thing that he said that struck a chord with me was that, instead of trying to find an agent right away, it might be just as beneficial to seek one of the smaller publishing houses that accept unagented submissions. . .

alright. I'm getting tired. I don't want to cut any more corners than I already have on this post. I'll finish it tomorrow.

I'm grateful for Stranger Than Fiction (20). Wow, did I love that movie.