Letter From A Writer's Conference

I know, I know, you come here on Mondays looking for my searing indictment of Parade Magazine. Unfortunately (or fortunately for my brain matter and Ed Klein's standing as a journalist), I've just returned home from speaking at a writer's conference and the newspaper is now covered in coffee grounds, empty 40oz bottles of Crazyhorse and the stink of human suffering and thus I'm left to fill this space with something far darker: Conversations I had or overheard, impressions, thoughts, and the detritus of my sordid, ugly world (which shall further be illuminated, I suspect, when I read the email I have from Nancy Taylor Rosenberg that, I suspect, reflects anger and dismay over something I wrote about her here...just a hunch). [Just read the email. She is.]

Before I dish, a few important notes: The conference I attended, the East of Eden Writer's Conference,  was quite splendid, well attended and loaded with interesting speakers, including Jean Auel and Dorothy Allison, both of whom were tremendously kind and gracious and spoke eloquently and at length about writing. It's still exciting for me to hear writer's I admire talking about their craft and it was no different with Ms. Auel and Ms. Allison.

Now, the good stuff.

1. A conversation between a self-published author and best selling author Christopher Reich, wherein Mr. Self Published lamented the state of publishing with a person he clearly had no foreknowledge of:

Mr. S.P.: You know how are hard it is to get published, just to get people to look at your work, nearly impossible, you know, just to get an agent to look at something.

Christopher: (Nods, smiles, notices me sort of giggling)

Mr. S.P: What do you write?

Christopher: Thrillers, mostly.

Mr. S.P.: Tough to break in there. I write historical children's fiction.

Christopher: That's great.

Mr. S.P.: Tough to get bookstores to carry a self published book, as I'm sure you know. How many did you sell?

Christopher: Of what?

Mr. S.P.: Your first book.

Christopher: About 2 million copies.

Mr. S.P.: [Stares blankly, slowly gets up and exists with a little wave of the hand and a grunt.]

2. After my workshop on short story writing, a woman approached me.

Woman: I would have enjoyed your workshop more if you enunciated your words.

Me: Pardon me?

Woman: You don't enunciate your words very well. It's hard to understand you.

Me: [Pondering the use of the word "fucktard" in a social situation, opting instead for total silence.]

Woman: You'd be a better teacher if you enunciated.

3. Number of writers who attempted to present me with velobound manuscripts: 9

4. Number of writers who asked me to write their ideas: 4

5. A conversation with a very nice woman who wanted some advice on her short story:

Woman: I think my short story would make a great musical.

Me: Uh, okay.

Woman: I've already written all the lyrics and am adapting it for a movie musical.

Me: What was the last musical you saw?

Woman: Oh, I can't remember the last time I saw a great musical. They don't make great musicals anymore.

Me: Then why do you think a movie studio would want to make a musical out of your short story?

Woman: It's a universal story, I write wonderful songs, it would be just a great musical. My screenwriting teacher at the junior college thinks so, too.

Me: What kind of movies does your screenwriting teacher make?

Woman: Documentaries and technical films for businesses.

6. A conversation I had with Adrienne Barbeau:

Me: When I was 13, we had a brief relationship.

Adrienne: Was I there?

Me: Well, you were in the room in a metaphysical sense.

7. Number of writers who followed me into the bathroom to ask me questions: 4, including a fellow who continued to ask me questions from his stall while I used the urinal. If someone can tell me what the proper decorum is when speaking to someone firing gas out of himself like Mt. St. Helens, followed directly by depth charge blasts of fetid human waste, do let me know.

8. A general question: Why is it when aspiring writers ask for your opinion on something and you tell them something they don't want to hear that they get angry with you, like you've been waiting around looking for them lo these many years? For instance:

Person: I've been trying to get an agent to represent my book for 10 years and none of them will. Why do you think that is?

Me: I haven't read it, obviously, but I'd guess that perhaps your book might not be marketable.

Person: Would you like to read it? I have it here.

Me: No.

Person: See, it's people like you who won't give me a chance.

Me: No, the people who won't give you chance are literary agents, which means they think your idea, or the book itself, is not publishable. And you have to ask yourself, why, after 10 years, does no literary agent want to represent it?

Person: That's what I just asked you!

Me: Okay, I'll venture a guess: It's not very good.

Person: What do you know, you haven't even read it!

9. I wonder why so few men attend writer's conferences and so many women do.

10. I think it must be hard to be an agent at writer's conferences; harder than it is to be an author, anyway. The aspiring writers put so much stock in their five minute agent pitches, so much angst, so much hope. I know a lot of writers and I can't think of a single one who met their agent by pitching them at a conference. I'm sure it happens, but I wonder if there's something about talent equity here: you might have the greatest pitch at X conference, but, compared to the slush pile arrivals at the office, might you just be average? Agents who'd like to provide some insight are welcome to via email or comment. I truly am interested.

Comments

[Mack]

Todd,
The answer to question 9 is - they want to sleep with a writer. They think we know more about sex because we have the balls to write about it. The men? Same answer. Isn't that what writing conf. are for? Oh, and of course for published writers to pick up a few bucks.
Mack

[David Thayer]

Tod, I think you should attend more conferences, you know, get on the road and blog from venues all over the world. In fact, this is a terrific idea for a musical. We have to cut the bathroom scene, though, but we can build on the Adrienne Barbeau theme as a leitmotif.

[Chadwick H. Saxelid]

"9. I wonder why so few men attend writer's conferences and so many women do."

My opinion? It's just a "guy thing." What, ask questions? "I don't need to ask questions (or for directions, or read the manual) I am more than capable of figuring this out for myself, thank you."

Oh, and Adrienne Barbeau pulled me through puberty as well. :)

[Robin Grantham]

You stayed true to your Monday Parade rant.

Unfortunately for you, this time the parade was into the bathroom.

Adrienne: Was I there?

Funny.

[Danny Barer]

The Walter Scott winner yesterday was the letter writer whose daughter was "disappointed" that the character Luna Lovegood in the next Harry Potter movie would be played by an Irish girl; and wanted to know if there were any American auditions.

The restroom phenomenon is not limited to writers conferences. When I went to appellate court to argue last month, I visited the men's room in the building afterward. From the stall wafted, "Tough panel, huh?"

[Dante Kleinberg]

Hmm. I posted on my own blog today about my less-than-stellar experience at the UCLA Writers Faire on Sunday, and was starting to break into a rant about all the weirdos and eccentrics that were there but I chickened out. I use my real name and am afraid to make people mad at me.

In other words: I admire your bravery, good sir.

[John Donald Carlucci]

6. A conversation I had with Adrienne Barbeau:
Me: When I was 13, we had a brief relationship.
Adrienne: Was I there?
Me: Well, you were in the room in a metaphysical sense.

This exchange is why you are my hero Todd.

JDC

[Tamara Kaye Sellman]

As an editor, writer, workshop presenter, small press publisher and realist (!), I can't tell you how many times #8 has happened to me.

"Why is it when aspiring writers ask for your opinion on something and you tell them something they don't want to hear that they get angry with you…"

I've been cyberstalked for this so much that I can't even come close to a writer's forum on the web anymore. And hey, I'm a friendly, diplomatic person who likes to share.

[[[shrug]]]