Saturday, November 11, 2006

The Writer's Conference

Today I drove my beautiful new little white car over gorgeous New England rustic fall roads through valley and mountain and into a college conference center. I told my friend whom I met there, "I feel so anxious coming here."

"You're one of the most poised and centered people I know," she said. "How can you be anxious?"

Well, it was easy to be anxious, especially when someone thinks you are behaving out of character but you know that you're not!

Friend and I sat in a corner watching hordes of writers stroll around the reception area. They looked sleek and clean, wearing new clothes in rich maroons and golds. They munched on danish and chatted about their contracts until time to go down to the room full of chairs and hear successful novelists talk about how hard it was for them until they finally got on the N.Y. Times best seller list.

After that panel came a speech from a N.Y. agent who explained that you're really a small business and the agent is a venture capitalist and every writer thinks she's going to be like D.H. Lawrence but you can't. You have to learn "pitchcraft."

After lunch I fled, in my pretty new car; did not stay for the inside secrets of editors or the revise-and-shape workshop or the door prize. I drove back through the gorgeous country and valley and then ran inside my hallway and called my dog and dropped the mail and bags and coats all over the floor.

"All writers hate selling," the agent's words were ringing in my ears, "but you have to do it." I admire them all so much, but I just don't think I can.

After re-writing my query letter according to "pitchcraft," I ate the rest of a tube of Pringles and a bunch of stale cookies I found in the fridge. Then the dog and I climbed upstairs to bed. This must be the writing life.

Thursday, November 02, 2006

Nothing to Say

Hello, readers--all three of you!
Today your favorite technophobe started to write a novel on nanowrimo, a site for writing 50,000 words in 30 days. Of course (I originally typed "of curse") I could not figure out how to work THE SITE!!!! So I ended up posting in the "Update" place.

When my friend doc bubbles showed me her novel last year ("nanowrimo" stands for "National Novel-Writing Month"), it came out beautifully formatted looking like a book. I can not find that BOOK PLACE.

The whole writing thing. AAAgh. I was reading something about being a writer--because to read about it is always more fun than doing it, that is a principle I hold to in all my affairs--and it said you come to the point where you realize you are one whether you like it or not. It's just part of your makeup. It follows you around even when you have nothing to say, like today.