Post by Sergio Impleton on Apr 16, 2008 4:42:14 GMT -5
I’ve just finished three days of extracted pleasure at a writer’s convention, that is, whatever pleasure I hoped to gain in the presence of peers and colleagues was extracted from me with as much pleasantry as pulling a tooth. Never believe a writer’s convention is a place where you get to promote a little of your work and hopefully find an interested agent. The only sharing that takes place is among a list of guest speakers who share the horror of their awakening delusion that they have suddenly become experts in the realm of writing. This delusion takes them so strongly, they invite a few liberal arts majors and pseudo-intellectual politicians to support it. This they do willingly as long as the delusionist a) has an impressive degree from a major University b) says nothing controversial or offensive and c) promotes the liberated female gender. You don’t have to be female to promote her liberation; there are a few gays and sympathetic males who have managed to obtain this recognition; but it certainly helps. I haven’t been very good at delivering this perspective. I’m never very sure just what it is women want to liberate; certainly not their tongues; so I held my own, trying to learn a few pointers from the experts.
The first expert was an iron-clad woman named Sylvia Grey. I couldn’t say if she chose the name to reflect her looks, or if she shaped her looks to accompany her name. All I know is Grey seemed a very accurate description. She had about six feet of greyness. Her hair was a tightly curled silvery grey, her skin had little greyish tinges, her clothes were grey and she had the lightest, coldest, blue-grey eyes I’ve ever seen. Before giving her lecture, she encouraged everybody to sign up for her afternoon work shop. Not wanting to be left out on any of the activities, I dutifully signed the work list. Ms. Grey looked over my petition as severely as an employer checking out the qualifications of an interviewee. “It says here you’re a fiction writer.”
“That’s what they generally call it,” I agreed.
“I’m not interested in fiction writers. This is a class on delivering the complete truth.”
“There’s a lot of truth in what I write,” I said hastily, feeling my opportunity for taking her class slipping away. “My characters are all based off real ones, and the historical background is real.”
“But you tell fiction. That means you tell lies. You’re not ready to take my class yet. I suggest you listen to my lecture than decide if you want to learn the knowledge I can impart.”
There wasn’t much left to do except agree, although it meant three hours in which I’d have nothing to do except dawdle over lunch at the cafeteria. I took my manuscript with me, studying it, trying to decide how much more truthfulness I should add to it. I finally gave up on the guesswork, deciding I would become more enlightened after the lecture. Somehow, I hadn’t quite visualized the type of truth she was aiming at. When she stood up at the podium and began reading excerpts from her celebrated book, I was astonished. Most of her truthful reflections sounded like the type of thing you’d reserve for telling a priest at confession. Some of it was down right embarrassing. I hadn’t really wanted to know what it was like for a young girl when she first uses a tampon, nor had I considered sensation of shaving all my body hair. Some of it was astonishing. I had not really thought that a woman of her age and demeanor would have so much fascination with the various attributes of her lower body parts. Having at last understood that truthfulness meant the verbal dissection of your anatomy, I looked forward to the enlightenment of day two.
The second day’s speaker was impressively youthful for a writer about to launch a leading best seller. Although her name was unpronounceable, and to this day I know I couldn’t get the spelling right, the entire audience was assured it was soon to become a household word. This I can believe. America is notoriously fond of making strange sounding names a household word. Look at Spiro Agnew and Arnold Schwarzeneiger. I don’t think anyone can list a single thing that Agnew did beside become a vice president, but everyone could say his name.
Young woman of the unpronounceable name curtsied to applause of the audience and explained how her eminent success had been made possible. She talked about her years in college, several of which were supported by a student loan which hadn’t yet been paid back. With a shiny new degree in her hand, she petitioned a magazine for a grant to cover an archeological dig in Peru. Grant duly granted, she went to Peru but in a few short months, she became more interested in the history of a violinist who had been born there but who had gone to Europe in the 1930's to become successful and then, of course, had taken the inevitable dive into desperate women and alcohol during World War II. Flinging all caution to the wind (grant be hanged; it was free money) she borrowed funds from somewhere; I’d like to know a few of these generous sponsors; and flew off to Europe to acquire the background for a fiction novel. Several more years of borrowed money as she wrote her story, then submitted it to a round of agents, who then distributed the wealth of the mortgaged novel among a list of sub-agents. Eventually, the agents and sub-agents discovered a plot worthy enough to be presented to a publisher.
As she wound up her success story, I kept a furious tab on the calculator concerning the accumulated costs of her endeavor. By my estimates, she owed a total of $145, 896.00 to various agencies before she would realize the first dollar from her novel. On the other hand, it was a clever strategy. She had so many investors, they were sure to do everything possible to turn her novel into a best seller.
I can only call the third day the most bitter-sweet memory I’ve ever had. It began, excruciatingly enough, with one of those angular, tea fed types who absolutely must use the words “oxymoron”, “serendipity” and “ecclesiastic” at least once in every page they write. After subjecting us to a medley of strung together words; all requiring the use of a dictionary to identify them; and gyrating her hips in a sort of simulation of sensuality while she recited her verse, she went on to announce the recent publishing success of her latest book. After the seminar, she would be gracious enough to sign autographs for those who purchased her new novel.
One thing I had to say about this lady; she really knew the art of sales. Before she was finished speaking, I was seized with an urge to buy this book and learn all there was to know about the indigenous people of the Russian River. I had half way risen from my seat, along with a lot of other people all eagerly pressing into line for an autographed copy, when I heard a commotion behind me. “How much are you going to pay the Indian community you got your information from for writing your book?”
I turned around to look at the speaker. It seemed several indigenous people of the Russian River had appeared for the express purpose of addressing the tea cup lady. “Umm. I hadn’t thought about paying anything,” the author stammered.
“You pried into our private lives, exposed our customs, borrowed our history and you don’t feel you owe us anything?”
“Let me explain,” she protested as the tribe got up to leave.
“You’ve explained everything we wanted to know,” said the speaker.
As he made his exodus, I reflected that this was probably a very good time to make my own. Wrapping up my manuscript that hadn’t even been peeked at in three days of writer’s convention, I followed the disgruntled tribe out the door. I shook the hand of the man who had saved me from spending $23.95 on a heretic, then boarded the bus going home, wondering how in the world I’d ever make it as a writer when I don’t even have breasts.
- Sergio Impleton
The first expert was an iron-clad woman named Sylvia Grey. I couldn’t say if she chose the name to reflect her looks, or if she shaped her looks to accompany her name. All I know is Grey seemed a very accurate description. She had about six feet of greyness. Her hair was a tightly curled silvery grey, her skin had little greyish tinges, her clothes were grey and she had the lightest, coldest, blue-grey eyes I’ve ever seen. Before giving her lecture, she encouraged everybody to sign up for her afternoon work shop. Not wanting to be left out on any of the activities, I dutifully signed the work list. Ms. Grey looked over my petition as severely as an employer checking out the qualifications of an interviewee. “It says here you’re a fiction writer.”
“That’s what they generally call it,” I agreed.
“I’m not interested in fiction writers. This is a class on delivering the complete truth.”
“There’s a lot of truth in what I write,” I said hastily, feeling my opportunity for taking her class slipping away. “My characters are all based off real ones, and the historical background is real.”
“But you tell fiction. That means you tell lies. You’re not ready to take my class yet. I suggest you listen to my lecture than decide if you want to learn the knowledge I can impart.”
There wasn’t much left to do except agree, although it meant three hours in which I’d have nothing to do except dawdle over lunch at the cafeteria. I took my manuscript with me, studying it, trying to decide how much more truthfulness I should add to it. I finally gave up on the guesswork, deciding I would become more enlightened after the lecture. Somehow, I hadn’t quite visualized the type of truth she was aiming at. When she stood up at the podium and began reading excerpts from her celebrated book, I was astonished. Most of her truthful reflections sounded like the type of thing you’d reserve for telling a priest at confession. Some of it was down right embarrassing. I hadn’t really wanted to know what it was like for a young girl when she first uses a tampon, nor had I considered sensation of shaving all my body hair. Some of it was astonishing. I had not really thought that a woman of her age and demeanor would have so much fascination with the various attributes of her lower body parts. Having at last understood that truthfulness meant the verbal dissection of your anatomy, I looked forward to the enlightenment of day two.
The second day’s speaker was impressively youthful for a writer about to launch a leading best seller. Although her name was unpronounceable, and to this day I know I couldn’t get the spelling right, the entire audience was assured it was soon to become a household word. This I can believe. America is notoriously fond of making strange sounding names a household word. Look at Spiro Agnew and Arnold Schwarzeneiger. I don’t think anyone can list a single thing that Agnew did beside become a vice president, but everyone could say his name.
Young woman of the unpronounceable name curtsied to applause of the audience and explained how her eminent success had been made possible. She talked about her years in college, several of which were supported by a student loan which hadn’t yet been paid back. With a shiny new degree in her hand, she petitioned a magazine for a grant to cover an archeological dig in Peru. Grant duly granted, she went to Peru but in a few short months, she became more interested in the history of a violinist who had been born there but who had gone to Europe in the 1930's to become successful and then, of course, had taken the inevitable dive into desperate women and alcohol during World War II. Flinging all caution to the wind (grant be hanged; it was free money) she borrowed funds from somewhere; I’d like to know a few of these generous sponsors; and flew off to Europe to acquire the background for a fiction novel. Several more years of borrowed money as she wrote her story, then submitted it to a round of agents, who then distributed the wealth of the mortgaged novel among a list of sub-agents. Eventually, the agents and sub-agents discovered a plot worthy enough to be presented to a publisher.
As she wound up her success story, I kept a furious tab on the calculator concerning the accumulated costs of her endeavor. By my estimates, she owed a total of $145, 896.00 to various agencies before she would realize the first dollar from her novel. On the other hand, it was a clever strategy. She had so many investors, they were sure to do everything possible to turn her novel into a best seller.
I can only call the third day the most bitter-sweet memory I’ve ever had. It began, excruciatingly enough, with one of those angular, tea fed types who absolutely must use the words “oxymoron”, “serendipity” and “ecclesiastic” at least once in every page they write. After subjecting us to a medley of strung together words; all requiring the use of a dictionary to identify them; and gyrating her hips in a sort of simulation of sensuality while she recited her verse, she went on to announce the recent publishing success of her latest book. After the seminar, she would be gracious enough to sign autographs for those who purchased her new novel.
One thing I had to say about this lady; she really knew the art of sales. Before she was finished speaking, I was seized with an urge to buy this book and learn all there was to know about the indigenous people of the Russian River. I had half way risen from my seat, along with a lot of other people all eagerly pressing into line for an autographed copy, when I heard a commotion behind me. “How much are you going to pay the Indian community you got your information from for writing your book?”
I turned around to look at the speaker. It seemed several indigenous people of the Russian River had appeared for the express purpose of addressing the tea cup lady. “Umm. I hadn’t thought about paying anything,” the author stammered.
“You pried into our private lives, exposed our customs, borrowed our history and you don’t feel you owe us anything?”
“Let me explain,” she protested as the tribe got up to leave.
“You’ve explained everything we wanted to know,” said the speaker.
As he made his exodus, I reflected that this was probably a very good time to make my own. Wrapping up my manuscript that hadn’t even been peeked at in three days of writer’s convention, I followed the disgruntled tribe out the door. I shook the hand of the man who had saved me from spending $23.95 on a heretic, then boarded the bus going home, wondering how in the world I’d ever make it as a writer when I don’t even have breasts.
- Sergio Impleton
