Yesterday I mentioned that last weekend was a tough one—but not in a bad way. I was extremely busy and had loads of fun from Thursday evening through Sunday afternoon, and I collapsed into bed at the end of each day.
Here's how I spent last weekend.
Back in the spring, I got involved in a local writers' group that puts on a conference for poets and writers each year. A fellow D2U professor, Sue-Ellen*, had planned on attending the meeting and invited me to come along—"Besides, if we help put on the conference in the fall, it'll look good on our vitas." So I agreed to ride along with her to the meeting.
At that first meeting, I was worried because I was the youngest person there. Sue-Ellen*, in her late 50s, was the next-to-youngest. These folks dithered for nearly two hours on the smallest of points having to do with putting on this huge event, and several members were nosy, even a little bossy. As the meeting was ending, the chair asked me, "Kitty, you seem to be full of energy. How would you like to be interim chair for hospitality, along with Sue-Ellen?"
I said yes, and then immediately gave myself a mental ass-kicking for doing so.
But as the weeks and months went by, the group managed to cut meeting lengths down to about an hour, and I got more used to the other members' personalities. The people whom I'd thought were just bossy were also very concerned about seeing the conference go well; I learned to get along with them, and came to like them. When Sue-Ellen* ended up having to drop out of the conference because her elderly mother fell and broke a hip, I started to worry that I couldn't handle the planning on my own. But suddenly, a week before the event was to start up, I found myself looking forward to this four-day-long party for 90 that I was to put on the last weekend in September.
Thankfully, it all went off with almost no problems. The caterers were
freaking brilliant, and we got so many compliments on the quality of the reception and the lunches. My estimate for catering costs was $1,000, and our final bill came to $1,067. Pretty good for a first-timer! I estimated almost perfectly the amount of breakfast/snack food we'd need—left over on Sunday afternoon were a dozen raspberry-lemon mini muffins and five cheese danishes. While we had left over three cases of soft drinks, I'd much rather have had them on hand than to have run out. And while I forgot to bring coffee for Saturday's morning session, a fellow committee member and Dunkin' Donuts saved the day. (I usually have a Diet Coke for my morning caffeine, so coffee didn't even cross my mind until I arrived at the conference site.)
But I was also facing the conference with a little dread. We had invited a literary agent from a major city
and the editor of an up-and-coming press to review and critique attendees' manuscripts for a reasonable fee. I submitted the book I've been sort of working on for the last 18 months—while
my sister had read it and said she really liked what I had so far, I'd hemmed and hawwed about truly getting down to work on it. It was time for a couple of good review sessions, and I gladly paid the extra money to get two expert, unbiased opinions.
But what if my idea was a bad one, after all? What if I'd been blowing smoke up my own ass about the whole project, taking too seriously the preemptive praise from family, friends, and colleagues?
Thankfully, the agent and the editor each had a lot of good advice; their very helpful and constructive criticisms were on target. So the sessions weren't at all
like this.
At the end of our session, the editor showed me what he'd written up on the commentary sheet for my 12 or so pages. He'd typed nearly a full single-spaced page of comments—
and encouragement. "Kitty, you have
incredible potential with this book. I'm
very serious when I tell you that."
"Rrrr—really?"
"Really. How long have you been working on it? Is this all you've got?"
"Wellll, about a year and a half. I've got a few more pages..."
"What's been getting in your way? Professional obligations?"
I paused. Should I tell him I've spent most of the last year severely depressed? Unable to get out of bed some mornings?
Suicidal?
Exhausted? "Well, yes. I'm currently teaching five sections of Comp I."
He shook his head in empathy. "I know how that goes. But seriously, Kitty—you could make so much out of this book, and
it. would. sell. Change the names and some details to avoid lawsuits, maybe change some town names, and you'd probably be in the clear."
I shook my head. "Mm-hmm."
His expression became deadly serious. "You have a choice here. You can either decide to write the damn book, or you can decide to forget it, give it up, walk away." Both scenarios spun through my head. "But you are going to have to make that decision pretty soon. Know what I'm saying?"
Yes.
Exactly.
"Here you go." He handed me his elegantly engraved business card. "It'll probably take you about another year to really write the book. That's sitting down a couple hours a day,
every day, letting go, letting the words flow through your fingers." He paused to hand me the reading list he'd put together for me. "Feel free to call me. I'd love to take a look at what you've got in six months or so, maybe review a few chapters. This has
tremendous promise."
I left the conference room fighting the urge to go skipping and dancing through the parking lot. A professional, one I'd never met before, thought my work had merit. I had some validation.
But a new fear crept through the delight. Now I actually had to
write the book. What if it turned out to be crap? What if it fell
far short of how awesome the early chapters looked? What if it went nowhere once I showed it around?
If I don't try, I'll never know.
And I'm still scared to death, but also forging right ahead.
Labels: BLEH, Let's Have a Party, Teaching, Writing
It's not nearly as silly or ghoulish as I'd hoped, but my creativity well is just about dry. However, here's the link to "An E&P Halloween" from two years ago. You'll love it. 
