Writers Weekend 07

[nonionay]

Writers Weekend Report, Part 2

San has a theory about the number of obnoxious writers at the events we go to. NJ AWW was awesome, the PNWA workshop had some idiots. Therefore, this AWW would be awesome. (Not sure what that says about Foolscap. Maybe it only applies to events Sän and I attend together.) And with the exception of some people who should probably know better, this one was idiot-free. Much to awritersweekend's relief, I'm sure. True, there were only fifty attendees, but there were fewer than that at the PNWA one.

There were two rooms, one business-related, one craft-related. Rather than sitting through Pitch Basics again, I went to the Memoirs panel. I don't actually want to publish my life story, but the panel made me realize that I need to write things down anyway, for my family. I've suffered from a disconnect with my family, and I think that interviewing them will help breach that. And, while I'm pretty sure my dad won't appreciate my usual writing, he will appreciate this.

At lunch, we went to Barnes & Noble. There was a book with "UCK IT" emblazoned on the cover, the "U" halfway wrapped around the back. So of course I picked it up to see if it went all the way around. It did. It also had the full title on the spine, so I imagine book stores would therefore be more inclined to display it face out!

In the afternoon, I found myself running the critique session. Everyone had good stuff, and it was lots of fun. The way it works is that everyone has ten minutes to read one person's manuscript. Then we discuss, and move on. During that ten minutes on mine, I was tempted to go to the bathroom. But everyone was snickering, so I stayed to watch. Yes, they're supposed to laugh. Cait Donnely (a sweet lady who's been at every WW event I've been at) thought Ianto's brown coat was a Firefly reference. "I knew he had to be a good guy when I saw he had a brown coat!" I just wanted to do something other than black leather. But if people want to see Firefly in my stories, I'm fine with that. :-)
Candy Sonoza (she who ran the memoirs panel) had a great piece about a suicidal woman which managed to get deep inside this disturbed woman's head without sounding whiny or angsty. I'd want to read more just so I can learn how to do that.

For dinner, we ended up going out for Italian with davidlevine; his wife, Kate Yule; and another nice lady named Stephanie. Chelsea had octopus. She said it tasted like bacon, which kind of disturbed her.

But first, we were diverted by street blockages heralding the President of Korea, who we didn't actually see.

Then we went to see Ratatoille, which, being Pixar, was awesome. I can't imagine anyone else would have made it work, because fundamentally, it's kinda gross -- rats cooking. but Pixar gets all the details right. They didn't have a rat that humans can hear talk, which makes me happy beyond words.

Sunday

Nothing too exciting, which is pretty nice since now that I'm home, I don't have the feeling of missing a weekend. Saw blackaire, met cmpriest. Listened to a former Federal Deputy Marshall (Deputy Federal Marshall?) talk about fugitives. He was a great storyteller, and obviously had a lot of respect for intelligent people, criminal or otherwise. So now I know what to do if ever I'm on the run.

The train home was filled with mariners fans, and there was some kerfuffle over seats. But all worked out. When we neared home, however, the conductor walked through (the really fool one) and said, "We're going to have to have you walk up to car three and disembark in an orderly fashion onto the street. We've got a situation at the station. There's a dead," and here he paused just long enough for us to think, dead what? "train in our spot."
So we got to walk down the middle of the street.

Overall, it was fun. Not as fun as last year, but also not as stressful. Stay tuned for Part 1!