Whidbey Writers Conference *sigh*

Months and months ago I volunteered to assist with the Whidbey Writers Association Writers Conference.

  Oy with the poodles already! 

It was crazy. When I was asked to volunteer, I assumed that it would be more of a; here, sit at this table and help this person sign in. This was a bad assumption. It was more of a- here amanda, you're in charge of the schedules of the agents and editors that are coming... that people are paying to see. Once again with the Oyy. 

I won't go into crazy detail but it was overwhelming. Madness. I didn't know what I was doing. Truthfully, I've never really BEEN to a writers conference LET ALONE know what goes on behind the scenes. It was me struggling with figuring out excel, keeping up to date on the people signing up and letting them know details and times, etc. And that was before the conference. 

Friday was check-ins and critique day. People signed up in advance and we emailed 2o page manuscript to agent/editor of their choice to look at. Then, on Friday, they got 20 minutes with said person to critique their work. Grrreat! That's awesome! Except people didn't sign up as much as they should have. 

A GEM of a lady came in, Louise she said her name was, and signed up for the conference. She wanted a critique. 

I'm sorry, but we can't sign you up for the critique because they have to get the manuscript in advance to read and critique. (I explained this to her repeatedly) 

I was told I could. I have it here on my computer, they can just read it now. 

(on-your-COMPUTER!) 

Sorry, it's just not gonna work out that way. 

(rinse and repeat) 

The saving grace of this day was this older gent and his mom, who seemed to see my frazzle frantic reaching its end and for some reason took it upon themselves to bring me back to reason and humor me. They did this throughout the conference and I will be forever indebted to them. 

Saturday morning I was the "host" of one of the chat houses. We had different locations that had different subjects/genres. Young Adult/Childrens/Social Media/Fiction/Humor... etc. I got placed into the "Power of Memory" house.. Memoir/Essays/Poetry. All of which, not my cup of tea. And one of the ladies had us all go around the room saying what we're writing. Well.. not memoir, essay, or poetry. BUT! Of course, I got some awesome insight and ideas. It was actually pretty fantastic. 

Saturday consisted of me with 3 timers going at some point, my volunteers no where to be found or useless, trying to make sure that people were arriving on time and getting to who they needed to be with. Because Saturday were these consults where you got 6 minutes to pitch your idea to an agent/editor. SIX-MINUTES. So every 6 minutes, I attempted to usher people away to get a new person in. I had hoped I would be able to sneak away to a class. This was a vain hope. 

And hey, remember Louise? She goes by L now. She signed up for a consult at the END of a shift, which would make the woman she was meeting chill out for 3-4 hours just to meet with her. I attempted to explain to her that we really really really couldn't do that to the editor. She wouldn't budge. Thankfully we worked something out with the editor. 

The lady in charge of the conference had me "host" one of the night events. I didn't want to do it. I wanted to go home and sleep. I was so exhausted from work that week and the conference. It was called "Bedtime Stories." People could come and read sections of their work. Did I mention it was at the funeral home my mom used to work at? It's a real happenin' place. I considered reading something I had written but held off. There were probably 8 total of us for that particular event and some of the stuff people read were weird.. and freaky.. and all had something about death in it. Hello funeral home! The final lady gave a dark and depressing story that left me feeling black and empty inside. So, because we had some time left, I jumped up and read something I had written. I felt young and juvenile in front of the group. Even more so when my story started with a "In a far away kingdom, in a far away land..." We ended on a significantly lighter note. I was the final and Susan (conference lady) told me later that she was glad I had finished it off, and that the friend she had brought really liked my story and her students would have liked it a lot too. A few ladies stopped me the next day telling me how much they enjoyed the story. Points to me. 

Sunday was close to the same level of madness with the consults. Not enough people were signing up though. We had so so many times open for people to sign up and they weren't taking it. 

And hey, remember Louise that went by L? She's Max now. She once again signed up for a consult at the end of a class because she didnt want to leave in the middle. (Understandable if you don't want to be rude, but everyone was aware of this and we're okay.) She wasn't trying to be courteous. She said that she couldn't leave early because she'd get confused coming back in. (Mind the classes were at least an hour plus. She'd be gone for 10 minutes) The editor waited around for a couple hours after her last consult for Louise/L/Max and lo and behold! She didn't show! No more consults, no more agents. BAM! So L shows up afterwards and says, hey when was my consult. Enter me with shock face. You bailed, she's gone. Things kept changing on me, she said... That because of some things in her life she couldn't do change. (wai.. whaa?) 

Highlight of my day and potentially the entire conference was this. People were starting the last class of the day and I had finished helping. I figured I'd catch one of the last classes 5 minutes late or so and sneak in. I had heard of a guy all weekend. Ernie Witham - supposedly a funny guy. I'd go to his. I found his classroom and stood outside for a second and waited to hear him speak or laughter. I heard nothing. How strange. I creaked the door open to find him sitting by himself at a table. 

Ah! Someone came! 

Uhh. Whaaa? 

He was working on his article. I told him I could go to another class and let him finish. 

That wouldn't do. I sat across from him at a middle school table for an hour and a half. I asked him questions about his writing and what he did, and he asked me about mine. He had me read something I'd written. I read him Safe. I'd actually gotten that story published in The Outlet (the BYUI literary magazine) a few years back. He laughed at all the right parts as I read it out loud to him. (thank goodness i had my computer on me) I couldn't help but smirk to myself as I continued on. He really liked it. There was something so absolutely satisfying about reading something I had written to this stranger and being told that it's funny and well written. It was also uber satisfying when he was going through his notes on what he had planned to talk about to the class and skipped over the basics. You already know this__. Let's go to this...  Seriously, the highlight of my weekend. I was so happy. He was one of the guys that did the critiques. Note that a guy at the conference paid 80$ or so for 20 minutes of this mans time. I got to talk to him for an hour and a half. We finished up and returned, he gave me a hug as he left for the airport. (It was a "brothers don't shake hands, brothers gotta hug" moment. pshahha) 

So of course, I leave being energized to write. I even started a blog strictly for writing. It's blurbs at this juncture but it's nice to throw something out there. 

This was way longer then I intended. Maybe it makes sense. ?