WHEN THINGS GO WRONG

Today I’m welcoming guest blogger, Peggy Webb, to My Kitchen Table. At the RWA conference recently events occurred that that shed new light on the entire conference experience for Peggy. Ones that shifted priorities. I was moved by it and asked her permission to share this here. Peggy granted it.

When Things Go Wrong

©2010, Peggy Webb


Everybody I know starts planning for the RWA conference weeks in advance.

You make appointments with agents and editors, make plans to reconnect with long-distance friends, buy plane tickets or plan a fun road trip, shop for the perfect clothes, and agonize over which shoes to wear so you’ll look good without killing your feet. You scroll down the long list of workshops, note the ones you want to attend. If you’re lucky enough to be a presenter, you put together handouts and enough notes to sound intelligent but not so many that you don’t sound off-the-cuff. If you’re really organized, you create a day planner for the convention – one small enough for a purse - so you can see your personal schedule at a glance.

You make arrangements for the dogs and kids you leave behind, the husbands and boyfriends and aging parents. You sign out of church choirs, tell the mailman to hold the newspaper, tell the post office to hold the mail, tell the neighbor to water the herb garden and harvest the tomatoes.

Finally the big day arrives and you head off to Orlando full of high spirits and big plans. If you’re already published, you’re going to blow your editor away with your brilliance. She’s going to salivate to send you on book tour and give you a huge print run and put you on the Today Show. If you’re unpublished, you get your pitches ready, perfect the hook, figure just the right angle so that you will rise above the masses and come away the chosen one.

But what if things go wrong? What if you’re a thousand miles from home, the conference is just getting into swing and your best friend has to be taken to ER? What if she has to stay?

You stay with her. You hold her hand. You assure her everything is going to be all right. You pray that it will.

Suddenly the meetings in your day planner no longer seem important. While your friend is in x-ray you call your agent and ask her to contact your editor to please explain why you won’t be at the luncheon. You call your friend’s agent and tell her the same thing. You call your friend’s family and tell them what happened. You pester doctors and nurses for answers. You pray some more.

When your friend comes back from x-ray you bathe her face with a wet cloth. You ask for an extra blanket to cover her feet. You go to the water fountain and call another friend to see if she will please present the workshop that by now you know you can’t.

You go back to your friend and the nurse shoos you out. You update the family again. You call to make sure plans are going forward for the workshop without you. You find a vending machine in a hospital you don’t know but that you believe was designed by the Devil. You get a bag of chips for lunch. You hurry back because the doctor is coming (FINALLY!!!) and if you miss him you just might kill somebody.

He’s not there, but your friend is worried about the workshop, because she was supposed to be a presenter, too. She has you call the dear-friend-sub and tell her to get the handouts from your room. The front desk at the hotel won’t let her in without your permission, so you call them, too, and make arrangements. It’s like coordinating the train schedule at Grand Central Station.

Your nerves are shot. You’re worried sick. Your stomach rumbles, signaling starvation. You believe that both you and your dear friend are half dead. You pray that you are not. In spite of the fact that she’s the one on the gurney, her spirits are high. Yours are not. Your feet hurt, your asthma meds are back at the room, you’re still worried sick, you think the staff in this hospital was trained by chimpanzees and you might just bite somebody’s head off. You don’t because you’re from Mississippi and contrary to what some people expect you know how to smile and say, “That’s precious,” when you really want to use language you read on bathroom walls.

You’ve now been in ER with your friend for nearly eight hours and it’s obvious they’re going to keep her. You tell her family and you wonder if things would have turned out differently if you’d pitched a hissy fit and insisted they transfer your friend to a hospital designed by God where the nursing staff would get her something cool to drink without you having to threaten to cast yourself on the floor in front of the desk. A hospital with doctors who show their faces, for Pete’s sake! You’re aware that your civility is slipping a tad.

Maybe you’ll write a book about it. Maybe you and your dearest friend in all the world will plan another workshop at another conference. You’ll tell how to arm yourself with phone numbers instead of cute shoes – the numbers for your roommate’s family and her family doctor, her agent, her editor, another writer she knows at the conference but you do not.

You’ll tell how to put the Do Not Disturb sign on the door of your hotel room so that no one will come in and leave a trap behind for you, - a little puddle of water on your bathroom floor, a wastebasket out of place that you might trip over, a wet spot on your foyer.

You’ll tell how to take extra cash in case you need to ferry back and forth from the hotel to a strange hospital run by Godzilla in a taxi that charges two arms and a leg every time you set foot in it.

You’ll make sure that if you plan a road trip, both of you know where the car is parked. Both of you will be comfortable driving it. Both of you will be capable of driving home alone if necessary.

But most of all you will tell that friends are more important than conferences. That there will be many more meetings and workshops and extravagant parties and agent appointments, but there is only one of your dear friend. And she’s worth every sacrifice.❖


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Peggy’s website: www.peggywebb.com



I just posted my August newsletter. Click HERE to read it online!


Blessings,

Vicki

Published with full permission of author, Peggy Webb.

Post-Conference Blahs! St. Simon's Island

I spent last week at St. Simon’s Island as a faculty member teaching the nuts and bolts of writing at the Southeastern Writers Association 32nd annual conference with my dear friend Elizabeth Sinclair.

The classes went great, but as I sit here this morning, I’m suffering a serious case of post-conference blahs. You know the ones I mean. The isolation and quiet after a hectic week of talking writing with people whose eyes don’t glaze over during discussions of craft. Late night laughing yourself silly over missteps and goofy stories about characters taking over your book and your life. Things common to all writers but alien to everyone else.

Definitely post-conference blahs. And it is the images of the people there who are most on my mind.

Elizabeth. We’ve been friends for about fifteen years, but the only time we see each other is at conferences or during hurricane evacuations. To have a week together in this relaxed setting is a royal treat. I laughed so much I ached, seriously.

Bill Olsen. Another dear friend there teaching film. A friend I first met at St. Simon’s six years ago. While there, I looked at the photos in the album from that time. We didn’t look any different really. But a lot has changed in all our lives in these past six years.

Then there were familiar faces and new ones, many of whom touched my heart...

Lee, who six years ago was an author and now is an editor and publisher as well!

Paul, who in his 80s has seen his first book published. He was a railroad man and the stories he tells about it are amazing.

Harry, who at 81 published his first book--and has three more in the works at this moment. They’re scheduled to come out every six months. And just as he did when I was there six years ago, Harry started off each of my mornings with a limerick. It set the tone for a humorous day. I am very fond of Harry Rubin’s limericks.

There’s Darrell Huckaby, a humorist steeped in old south mannerisms and traditions that are charming and would serve other men well to watch and learn. I sat in on Darrell’s classes, which were always entertaining and laughter-filled (without an utterance of a dirty word) and wasn’t at all surprised that he and Louis Grizzard had been well acquainted. Darrell is a dying breed of southern gentleman with a keen eye for seeing the unusual in the everyday. But that was never more evident than when Ruthie, who needs hip surgery, won her second award and he stepped out from the podium to meet her so she wouldn’t have to walk as far. His southern gentleman ways are etched in his bones, and it reminded me of a time not too long ago when this type thoughtfulness was common and ordinary and it was in not exhibiting this type thoughtfulness that warranted notice. We are poorer that it isn’t common anymore.

Lee, with his deep radio announcer’s voice and gentle spirit who handled whatever fires might have arisen without a whisper to the others attending. So far as we knew, there hadn’t been a single glitch all week. I’ve coordinated too many conferences to believe that possible.

Rhett, a nurse from Chekoslavia; Mary and Diane from Rome, Beverly Sue who is charming and somehow looks like a southern belle even in a t-shirt and jeans, and Amy and Charlotte and Nelle, whom I hadn’t seen in such a long, long time.

So many others, traipse through my mind, and I feel blessed.

My favorite part: sitting on the rocking chairs at Miss Ellie’s porch and listening to Chris play the guitar in the background while others shared stories. Some were about writing, most were about life. I loved every second of that time--almost as much as I loved open mic night, where anyone who chose to read from their work. The stories were amazing, diverse, riveting. Poets recited from memory that left not a dry eye. Stories of caring for Alzheimer's patients that were touching, loving and funny. Novelists read openings and Bill read a bit from his novel where the characterization was so vivid, I was standing there with the characters. I could tell by others’ reactions and facial expressions that they were sharing that same experience. Loved that. Susan’s story--boy, does she have the south downpat! And I loved Louis’s gripping tale about a watch. I will never look at a watch the same again!

I could rattle on, add dozens more names. I really, really loved open mic night. I loved the Low Country dinner at Holly’s and hearing Beverly Sue’s voice--a true, deep southern drawl and soothing gentleness. I loved getting to spend some time with an old friend, Haywood Smith, and chatting with Bill Jenkins, a super bookseller who went the extra mile and then some.

Actually, I guess I loved everything about this conference. Mostly I loved the people. The sharing and stories and the laughter. I loved what wasn’t there, too.

There was no talk of how rough the business is; everyone knows it. No talking of how hard it is to get published or talk of frustration and weariness; everyone knows all that, too. Many there felt those things, are experiencing those things, but focused instead on their love for the writing. On telling stories and enjoying the creation process. It was a refreshing breath of spring to experience that; to be immersed in the love of writing.

I’ve been attending conferences since 1987, and never have I enjoyed a conference so much. I usually come home voiceless and exhausted and soul-weary, hurting for so many people who are facing diverse challenges, personal and professional. But from this conference, I came home relaxed and rested and energized down to my soul by the spirit and joy of all those there. It was an amazing treat. A blessing.

And I look forward to seeing everyone there again next year. I can’t wait!

Blessings,

Vicki