Not Sure How Much This Helps

Despite frontloading a lot of the second-guessing of myself, and going in with a sense of not having a damn thing of use to offer; despite both of us being unreasonably tired and Damon missing half of Saturday due to health crap; despite a surprisingly small dealer's room (no t-shirts? How can there be no t-shirts?), Armadillocon was good for me this year.

I can never remember what I say on panels, though I always think afterwards of things I absolutely should have said, but after each one someone in the audience sought me out to remark favorably on what I said, and moreover on how I said it. I always have the vague sense that I've talked too much (and too loud, and too diffusely) and not said any of the right things, but the audience - or these specific portions of the audience anyway - perceives this as me being passionate about things.

That is certainly true as far as it goes. And apparently the other panelists don't find it too obnoxious, either, because when the ghost story panel was short of participants, at the tag-end of the day Saturday, someone I'd been on with earlier in the day invited me to get out of the audience and onto the panel. So I did. Because, ghost stories. And we were all weird by then anyhow, it wasn't just me.

I once again sat through a panel on promotion and was once again admonished that all sales involve "selling myself" and once again concluded that if that's true, I'm screwed, because I can't sell myself. This is not reluctance; this is not naivete; this is not cowardice; this is demonstrated fact. You might as well tell me to flap my arms and fly to the moon, or do a pull-up (honestly, how? I've never managed even one; I can't even bend my elbows), or fall asleep because it's bedtime. I've had 54 years to try this advice and it's not going to work because I can't do it, and my ability to network at all is small.

But I have sold books, and I have given workshops and been on panels that apparently were good for some of the participants, and I do get traffic on this blog, and somehow I've accumulated 337 simblr followers as of this morning, the vast majority of whom are not spammers, without any promotion at all. This is all small, but real. I'm okay with small success, and all my small successes have been the result of me telling stories and talking about the things I care about and basically engaging passionately with something, and conveying that engagement to people outside of it.

I do not know how to translate Being All About the Story into, say, a living wage.

But it's clear enough that Being All About the Story has to be where I start, or nothing else is going to happen at all.

Road Trip Time

Off to Armadillocon in the morning. We're leaving early so we can make a couple of stops on the way. My first panel is at 5:00 tomorrow.

If you're there too, find a panel I'm on and come say hi.

Maybe you can help me figure out this e-reader I bought.

Armadillocon 2015, Very Soon

The Armadillocon schedule is up.

I feel kind of detached from it all, as if I'm not really going. But I'll be there, and I expect I'll be present enough at the time. It's just that I'm so weird right now.

If you're there too feel free to say hi.

Armadillocon 2015

I just booked Damon's membership and our room for Armadillocon 2015.

I'm not sure why they want me. I'm not sure I'm a draw. I'm not sure I'm up to it. But I'm going and it'll sort itself out.

Because nothing good happens if you don't give them a chance; and the bad things that can happen aren't that bad.

TLA

It is always a good idea to go to industry conventions when they occur near you. So, as usual, I went to the Texas Library Association's convention, on an Exhibits-only pass.

I met friends, I couldn't buy enough books, I saw all the exhibits, I ate trail mix because there's never food I can eat at these things, I did not have enough money to buy the books I wanted to, and my feet hurt all the way up to my lower back.

Hardly anybody had catalogs at their booths this year. They must all be online.

Losing Track

Yesterday I went looking for the paperwork on my trip to the PaleoAmerican Odyssey Conference in Santa Fe next month, and couldn't find any. Since I'm not as organized about filing as I ought to be (I used to be great at it in soul-sucking dayjobs where I was desperate to fill my time) this didn't prove anything, but as far as Damon and I could reconstruct it, about the time I meant to register we had a sudden influx of demands on our money, and I put it off till a new payday, at which time the intention to register had transformed into a memory of having registered.

Property tax season is an unfortunate time to plop an extra $225 + airfare + hotel into the budget, and I was thinking I should probably not go (looking at my dismal money-making record for the year), but Damon, who will have to do all the money juggling, said if I didn't go I'd regret it, and he'd figure it out. So I'm registered, and have a hotel booked, but have not bought the plane ticket yet. (This is why creative people should marry supportive practical people.)

And digging in my paperwork reminds me that quarterly income tax is coming up in five days, too, so better to not let that get away from me, either. I actually have income to report and may even make a small profit on the year, hurray! But my, uh, ledger isn't up-to-date, so I'm not sure.

Even market research is more fun than filing and accounting, but you can't do the big fun stuff like this without them, so take a minute and look around. What have you lost track of lately?

Upcoming Public Conversation, or What Am I? Crazy?

I got my schedules for LoneStar Con - the World SF convention in San Antonio this Labor Day weekend - and boy am I intimidated. Here's how it looks:

What Happened to US-Based Spanish Language Publishing?
Friday 10:00 - 11:00
Less than a decade ago Spanish-language readers in the US were looked upon as next big untapped market, a rare bright spot of growth in the otherwise saturated book market. So what happened? Did US publishers fail to find the Spanish readers, or were they never there to begin with?
Liz Gorinsky, Peni Griffin, Norman Spinrad, Rudy Ch. Garcia (rudy.ch.garcia@gmail.com), Miguel Angel Fernandez
Dear heaven, what did I checkmark to make them think I might be qualified to sit on a panel like this? I’ll be in the audience but the amount of research I’d have to do to be a useful contributor is too much. Somebody should really represent the educational/MG/YA angle though. Why didn't they get Guadalupe Garcia McCall to do it? She’s teaches MG and is on the front lines of the demographic wave.

Yellow Roses: Texas SF/F Authors and Traditions
Friday 13:00 - 14:00
Women writing sf/f in the Lone Star state talk about their work including their influences and challenges.
Elizabeth Moon, Peni Griffin, Stina Leicht, Lillian Stewart Carl
I’ll be there with bells on. Figurative ones, anyway.

The Future of the Border
Friday 14:00 - 15:00
The future of the (US-Mexico) border as fortification, as passage, as imaginative interzone, as DMZ. The future of the Mexico-US relationship, including the Mexicanization of the US and the Americanization of Mexico.
Madeline Ashby, Walter Hunt, Peni Griffin, Dave Hardy, Chris N. Brown
I’ll have to do research for this to make sure I'm up to snuff. Oh dear, I'll have to go to the library, however will I bear it? :)

Alternate Mexicos and Alternate Texases
Friday 16:00 - 17:00
Dave Hardy, Alberto Chimal, Harry Turtledove, Peni Griffin
Bring it on.

Mexican Folklore
Saturday 10:00 - 11:00
Carole Parker, Bridget Duffy, Peni Griffin, Guadalupe Garcia McCall, Miguel Angel Fernandez
More research to make sure I've got stuff at my tongue's end, but I can do this. It's too bad the Anglo names outnumber the Spanish ones but I'll try not to run my mouth too much. I work best as a support figure in this context.

You've Got Texas in my Epic Fantasy: The Lone Star State as Setting/Influence in Speculative Fiction
Saturday 12:00 - 13:00
Texas is a weird place. They have a whole city devoted to staying Weird. What makes Texas so weird? And how does the weirdness of Texas spill over into its massive creative community? Our panelists will attempt to futilely struggle with an answer that may be bigger than San Antonio.
Peggy Hailey, Martha Wells, Don Webb, Howard Waldrop, Peni Griffin
Ha! Yes! Bring it on!

Xenoarchaeology in SF
Saturday 13:00 - 14:00
Xenoarchaeology, a field of hypothetical science concerned with the physical remains of extraterrestrial civilizations, can be traced back to the Giovanni Schiaperelli's 1877 observation of channels on Mars. Xenoarchaeological themes are common in science fiction. Examples of xenoarchaeological fiction include Arthur C. Clarke's novel Rendezvous with Rama and 2001: A Space Odyssey, Frederick Pohl's Gateway, and The Engines of God by Jack McDevitt. Come and discuss this popular subgenre. What might real xenoarchaeology look like?
Marianne Dyson, Charles E. Gannon, Peni Griffin, William Ledbetter
I hope I’m not too disappointing in this one but I know Marianne, I'll be hobnobbing with archeologists soon, and I’ll give it a go.

Cambrian explosion: a Developmental toolkit for complex body plans
Monday 11:00 - 12:00
Peni Griffin, Mel White, Jeffrey Shanks
I’m so sorry, this is waaaaaay too early for my limited paleontological expertise. I was hoping for megafauna. I hate to leave them with only two people, but I couldn’t contribute enough, even with research. I hope to be in the audience asking intelligent questions, though.

Cross-Fertilization

I'm finding Facebook a lot less intuitive than I expected. Therefore, there's nothing on it and I haven't invited anybody to be friends.

For the record, I will not be your neighbor on Farmville and if you invite me to play Sims Social I will explain to you exactly why it is Not Real Sims. So don't even go there.

So far this week all the social networking I've done involved going to the SCBWI conference in Austin. I drove up the night before, stayed overnight with friends, and as usual left not long after the raffle to come straight home. In between, though I had a good day. Especially compared to the last time I attended this conference at this place, when I had to simultaneously cope with Moby's brakes and steering letting me down pretty badly. I saw people I only see at conferences, met a person I only know from online, bought Cyn Smith's most recent book about the supernatural scene in Austin, Feral Nights (you'll never know how menacing a werearmadillo can be till you read this, I tell you what), attended panels and breakout sessions, bid at the silent auction, and all that good stuff.

I often say that I don't know anything about art, not even what I like; which is probably why my favorite parts of the conference involved listening to illustrator E.B. Lewis talk about the visual language used in picture books. Possibly because he was a teacher and a fine artist before he became an illustrator and was used to thinking and speaking analytically about art as well seeing and feeling analytically about it - these are separate skills for all the creative arts; many excellent artists can't explain why this or that work in their art does or doesn't succeed - he was able to discuss both the various pictures of his own that he used in his presentation, and the submitted portfolio pieces in the "First Impressions" panel in terms I could actually follow.

Make no mistake about it - the trained eye sees (and the trained ear hears) differently than the untrained one. I look at a picture with human figures and think that they're stiff; Lewis looks at it and says that the artist needs to decide whether his voice is stylized or realistic, because if the one then this is where to focus effort and if the other then that is.

It would never have occurred to me to think of an artistic voice in a visual medium, either; but once he started talking about it I started being able to hear it. And choosing between stylization and realism - writers have to do that, too, though I hadn't put it in those terms before. For all I know, so do musicians. It's certainly at the heart of the art of gaming.

I do not know how useful, in the long run, this sort of cross-medium enlightenment is, but I know it's refreshing, and I know it can't be useless. So I'm going to call that a weekend well-spent.

News, and Contingency

Yesterday was Award Day at the American Library Association Convention, and guess what? I haven't read any of the awards or honors.

Yet.

I'm particularly anxious to read Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe, which took both a Belpre and a Stonewall.

And it should surprise no one that Katherine Paterson landed the Wilder Award. It was never a question of "whether," with her, but of "when."

I no longer kick myself about not having read the award books before the awards are announced. It takes an on-the-ball reader to keep up with the industry as it comes out, and I'm not that person. Wasn't even in my young vigorous days. I'm a serendipitous reader who reads what she finds and finds what she reads - it's all contingency with me. Readers like me are why awards exist to begin with - they increase the contingency of books. Not just the award winners, either. Buzz beforehand increases contingency; the public guessing games of the on-the-ball. Sharing your favorite reads of the year is just so much more urgent in the lead-up to award season.

Another thing came to my mailbox yesterday: an e-mail prodding participants in the Paleoamerican Odyssey Conference in October to get their poster presentations in. I, of course, have no poster and will be going as an interested layman. But I'll be a very interested layman indeed, listening in on the conversations of people whose names became familiar to me in the books and articles I read while researching 11,000 Years Lost. I haven't been able to do avocational archeology since the Health Crap really kicked in, but by golly, I can sit in an air-conditioned lecture room with the best of them! Just thought I'd mention it here to increase the contingency factor. I'm sure many more people would like to go to this, than would find out about it in the normal courses of their daily lives.

And though ALA is all about books, it is an interesting fact that the floors of scholarly conferences are littered with more story ideas to trip over than those of literary ones. Because what you're coming across in the floor of a convention that's about books is ideas that other people have already turned into books of the sort you want to write. Scholarly conferences are all about the ideas no one has thought to put into your medium yet.

In other words, they're vast smorgasbords of yummy, yummy inspiration.

Analogy

A woman I talked to in Austin this weekend asked: "So is a conference really a good place to find an agent?"

I didn't know how to answer at first. For one thing, how would I know? I don't have one yet. "Well - is a church singles group a good place to find a husband?" I asked.

She laughed. "No!"

"But you're not going to find one sitting at home, are you? If you want it, you've got to go out and try to get."

Or words to that effect.

Queries are out on the ether and tomorrow I can indulge myself in some revision of the lesbian western, since I got feedback from my fishing expert late last week. Much more fun than market research! Plus I have a feeling it'll be easier to hook an agent with Len than with the Astral Palace.

Event: Writer's League of Texas Agents Conference

I'm driving up for Saturday only, as the early morning and Friday events didn't seem worth the price of a room at the Hyatt/hassle of begging a room from friends for my particular conference behavior patterns. I'm not hyped about going, alas. A friend of mine has warned me that it's a "shark tank," not the cozy friendly hyperstimulating place conferences limited to children's and YA authors tend to be. And I hate meeting people. And I don't think anybody I know is going. But I really need an agent and I'm not going to get anywhere racking my brains over pitches, so onward and upward.

If anybody out there in blogland is also going, I'll be the one in the hat, dress, and backpack, quite possibly surreptitiously eating trailmix and clutching an insulated cup. (Can't get through an entire session without drinking something.) The sessions I'm interested in are:

10:15 to 11:35
Welcome to the e-World: What it Means for Authors (Susanna Einstein, Jane Friedman, Kevin Smokler) OR Kid Lit: One Sizzling Market (Laura Rennert of Andrea Brown and Authors still TBA at the time I printed the schedule). The Kid Lit one is kind of obvious, but I'm afraid it'll tell me a lot of stuff I already know; whereas the panel on electronic publishing is almost certain to be full of stuff I don't know but will be inherently disinclined to implement even if I find it out.

1:00-2:00 Sum it Up: Writing a Killer Synopsis. Well, obviously I need help with that. And the Kidlit panel for that hour (YA or Not? How to tell if your book is for adults or teens or both) is definitely redundant for me.

2:15-3:15 7 Secrets of Amazing Author Websites. We can all use that, and again the Kidlit panel is redundant (Tots to Teens; Writing Children's Books. I know I can do that, thanks.)

3:30-4:30 Tales from the Trenches: What Happens After You Land an Agent? and The Ties that Bind: The Author/Agent/Editor Relationship are both addressing my ignorance zone. I'll probably go with the second because that's where the Andrea Brown agent is and the agent listed for the first as participating doesn't do kid stuff.

4:45-6:15 General Session: First Pitch. Where a panel of experts reviews pitches drawn at random from a box that's been sitting at the registration desk all conference long. Kind of a public-dissection raffle. Potentially educational. Of course I'll put a pitch in, but if I'm sufficiently tired, overstimulated, etc. I may just drive home.

Wish me luck on the parking. Austin is also hosting the Republic of Texas Biker Rally (Hey, they've got Eddie Money and the Doobie Brothers performing!) and we're being advised to avoid downtown and be prepared to be stuck in a lot behind Threadgill's or something. At least I can eat reasonably well at Threadgill's.

The Look

So this morning, as part of my routine, I clicked on a sewing newsgroup, ran the search for new posts since my last visit, and read the two or three in threads that sounded like they might have something useful to me in them. I generally only go there once a day unless I have a sewing question and no one else to consult, because I'm not into the whole clothes thing enough to hang with these people, who can get down and dirty about style and stuff. I've never been like that: don't wear makeup, hate shoe shopping (you'd hate it too, if you had my feet), choose my clothes based on factors like pockets. I only sew at all because I can't get clothes that meet my basic utility criteria unless I do. But today on one of the threads I read someone asked for advice on what to wear to a writer's conference, so I replied, and realized I have in fact accumulated some opinions on this topic.

First of all, when you're at a conference you're going to be running from panel to panel, standing in long lines at booksignings, browsing the dealer's room, and accumulating free stuff - handouts, schedules, maps, business cards, catalogs, galleys, books. So whatever else you do, come prepared with something on your feet that won't render you lame the next day, and something in which to carry your loot that won't a)be easily lost b) take up as much space as you do c) violate the rules of the venue and most of all d) injure you. I'm serious. I know someone who tore a ligament at midwinter ALA carrying around the catalogs she collected. I have an enormous backpack, designed to carry a laptop, that can be squashed into any number of shapes and fit into a surprisingly small space even when laden with books and food. (I don't go anywhere without emergency food.)

Second, one of the prime reasons to go to conferences is to hook up with people in your profession. Of course you plan to schmooze editors and agents and get critiques from big names, but be honest - didn't you choose this conference over that one in order to finally meet in person your favorite blogger or members of your online group who also plan to attend? Then you get there and the spot where you agreed to meet is harder to find than you thought, or bigger than you thought, or contains more people than you expected. So how do you find each other?

I once had to take an online friend of mine to the emergency room when she ran a high fever during ALA. In her conference report afterward, conveying the disjointed sense of unreality under which she labored, she said: "Peni wears a western hat. That's how you know it's her." And it's true. I started wearing a hat thirty years ago when I became dependent on the bus. I want one in summer to keep the sun out of my eyes and I want one in winter to keep my head warm. I like hats. Most people don't wear them because they restrict vision when driving. So without my ever intending to, The Hat became a kind of trademark. When I'm meeting someone who's never seen me, I usually tell them: "I'll be the one in The Hat." When I'm in a crowded venue with a party that gets separated, I tend to be the focal point that brings everybody back together, because when they can't see faces they can see The Hat. I went to Winter SCBWI in 2008 and didn't wear The Hat on the con floor because I was staying in the same hotel and didn't go outside; with the result that people were looking for me on the second day based on the color I wore on the first day, and missing me because I'd changed clothes. If I want people to find me, I have to wear The Hat. The Hat itself changes year to year and occasion to occasion, but if I don't wear some variation on it, nobody knows it's me.

You don't have to have something as permanent as The Hat, but it doesn't hurt to choose your clothes with recognizability as a key criterion. For a particular conference, you could be The Lady in Red. The Guy in the Cardigan. The One with the Big Braid Wrapped Around Her Head. Anything your friends can home in on. Jeans aren't distinctive enough; jeans and superhero t-shirts may be, depending on the conference.

And last: Periodically throughout your career, stop and ask yourself whether now is a good time to do a little branding.

It's easy to go overboard on this sort of thing and become a caricature, especially if you do it prematurely. Even at a science fiction convention, there's something pathetic about dressing up as your own series character. If you haven't even sold the series yet - don't do it. Please. Don't. And it takes a very special mystery writer to carry off wearing a deerstalker and carrying a magnifying glass. But if you're subtle and modest and have a sense of humor, and if the brand you're trying to associate with is (as it should be) a true enthusiasm of yours or a natural part of your life, go for it. Chris Barton, who wrote The Day-Glo Brothers, has a fluorescent green tie. I have an outfit with cave art embroidered all over it and get t-shirts with megafauna on them as often as I can. If you write westerns and you live west of the Mississippi, you can probably knock their socks off in New York with your "cowboy look" wearing clothes already in your closet. But don't wear the riding heels, wear the boots you'd wear to walk around the exhibit halls at the rodeo, even if they're a little down-at-heel.

But don't obsess about any of this, either. Odds are good you've already evolved an effective look without thinking about it. Trust your look the same way you trust your style and voice, as natural parts of you that only need to be polished a little bit to shine.

Today I am Inefficient

I am on the downhill slide with the lesbian western and sort of expected to write a chapter today and be done with the draft; however, I found myself doing anything else rather than starting, and when I put my hands on the keyboard I realized what the matter was. I still have a fair amount of exposition to get through, after the story has to all intents and purposes ended. I need to keep it short and interesting and dynamic, but these are not loose ends I can afford to leave flopping around. In its way, this is going to be as hard to choreograph as the chase scene was and it could take me all week.

Meanwhile, I had been counting on finishing the book to clear up some mental space to devote to things like contractors for the back porch (the one we had lined up went bankrupt and is no longer in business; we don't even have the plans), the piled-up filing and mail, sewing, selecting agents and editors to send books to, and February's Austin SCBWI conference. That'll either be $130 or $140 depending on which cut-off date given in the registration packet for early bird registration is correct, Dec 1 or Dec 15. So what I ought to do today is read over the material, decide if I'm doing it, and write the check or not. But when I try to do that my brain tangles back up in the story. Thinking about the story gets my brain tangled up in all sorts of things, including but not limited to the necessity of making an informed decision on the SCBWI registration. (Leveling up my Pathfinder characters! Sewing! Filing! Agents! Global warming! Pearl Harbor Day!)

This sets up enough tension that I want to say screw it and stick the Sims2 disk in. I've been playing a phenomenal amount of this game lately because there appeared to be some kind of backbrain synergy going on with what I was doing with the game and what I was doing with the book. At any rate, the two were mixed together in my dreams and some days when going about my non-writing business I would find myself easily and naturally thinking about the two storylines in alternate paragraphs, though they have no obvious relation to each other. The current impulse, however, is pure running away from the problem; so no Sims till I've accomplished some damn thing or other, and even then it has to be after 3:00 this afternoon, when I'll bottom out physically anyway.

At this point I'm not picky what I accomplish in the real world, but it's not an accomplishment unless the result is a clearing of the mental decks so I can think coherently about something. Anything! (One of the reasons Sims, or even solitaire, is more tempting an escape than diving headlong into a book is that the book requires concentration; computer games require a less-focused attention so the fact that I'm distracted isn't as annoying.)

So I don't know what I'm going to do today. I've made a list of discrete jobs, but this list may be summed up as "get head straight" and it's possible nothing I wrote down will do the trick.

At least laundry can get clean without reference to my state of mind.

Message on a Styrofoam Cup

Our local chapter of SCBWI held an editor's day on Saturday, which you can read about on Lupe's blog and also on Bish's. (Check out how great Carmen Tafolla looked, by the way - that deep red dress and the turquoise rebozo and the chili pepper necklace really work for her. I hate going to events and seeing everybody all in black. But anyway.)

I don't go to a lot of meetings because if you're talking about writing you're not writing and there's that whole time/energy/money budget to deal with. But I try to go to editor and agent events in central Texas, not because I can schmooze the editors - I seldom even try - but because conference attendance provides a leap-to-the-top-of-the-slushpile card, and even a pierce-the-agents-only-veil card, for that specific editor, and listening to an editor or an agent provides valuable information. Is your work compatible with this person? Could you work with her? And so on. I don't go in for critiques because those I'm well past the point of being desperate for feedback and I don't want to take a slot somebody else needs more, but all attendees were asked to submit a "first page" (actually a synopsis for us novelists), and mine was one that was chosen to be read aloud and evaluated. My query for The Astral Palace actually sounds pretty good, read aloud, but the comments gave me a crucial piece of information.

After that, I could have left if I'd felt crappy; but it's fun to hang out with other authors and I didn't feel as crappy as all that. I wasn't expecting much from Carmen Tafolla's workshop, not because Carmen isn't brilliant but because conference workshops have an upper limit to how useful they can be. I've done them myself, and when you're faced with an hour of time, a large audience whose level of experience ranges from maybe-I-could-do-this to I-don't-need-a-day-job-and-not-'cause-my-husband-works, most of us go with exercises geared toward making a single point. Which is what she did, and I didn't do all that well at them for various reasons that don't matter, but my response to the last exercise is worth mentioning.

Tafolla told us that prisoners in Gitmo, denied access to writing implements of any kind, resorted to writing on Styrofoam cups with pebbles. She also told us that most writers have one important thing they want to say, and their body of work boils down to successive attempts to say it. This may or may not be true, though there's certainly such a thing as recurrent themes. So she asked us to write our story so it would fit on a Styrofoam cup. And for what it's worth this is what I wrote:

I can't do the styrofoam cup exercise because my stories are not messages & messages are not stories. We make our own meaning, each of us. I tell a story and I let go of it. I tell the truth & somebody else - each one else - reads it. No one else controls the meaning your reading of life.

The Kaleidoscopic Aftermath

TLA is only a memory - actually a shifting kaleidoscope of memories that are hard to sift through. Here's the sorts of memories that stand out for an author who is attending as a personal act, with no current book to promote and no particular agenda to pursue:

Kathleen Duey acting all overwhelmed that she was put on an all-star panel (the Tayshas author round-up) and me telling her emphatically (I was not yelling, don't believe what she tells you) that she's a National Book Award finalist and is finally among her peers; that in a line-up consisting of Kevin Brooks, Chris Crutcher, Matt de la Pena, Cory Doctorow, Kathleen Duey, and Shannon Hale, her name was far from the smallest one there.

I saw that Toni Buzzeo was signing so I crept up on the Upstart Booth, wondering whether she'd recognize my name or if I'd have to prompt her. She hasn't been on the mailing list where we met in years and I think I've only seen her face-to-face a couple of times. But she jumped up to hug me as soon as she saw me. I may have half-talked her into coming back. I hope so.

Standing in front of the regional SCBWI booth luring people to sign up for the raffle, holding my stack of speakers' booklets so they could use them as a table, and telling them about the booklets as they signed. They all took one - but will they use them? Time will tell...

Admiring the graphic album adaptation of Darwin's Origin of Species at the booth. The rep said they were free for librarians. I admitted sadly that I wasn't a librarian. She told me to take one anyway. It's gorgeous.

Standing in line an hour and a half for Gary Paulsen, reading Mudshark and listening to West Texas librarians discuss budget cuts in their systems, none of which seem to affect the admin side, only the teaching and library staffs. Then going to the next line, for Jacqueline Wilson, and getting through in five minutes. That must have been a novel experience for her! I hope the quality of fan she met made up for the quantity.

Going by the signing area during the Bluebonnet luncheon on the theory that the lines would be short. I was right! Joelle Jolivet had time to make elaborate drawings along with her signature as she signed Oops! and 365 Penguins.

The librarian from Laredo assuring the rep for Arte Publico Press that the sorts of books they produce are passionately wanted along the Rio Grande.

The D&D-playing kid who sold me a book at the Otter Creek Press table, which I would not have bought on my own because there's no point studying the list of self-publishing houses and I justify the books I buy here as market research. I ran into him again on Friday and he told me he'd found some D&D books. I hope he can get into a good group.

Realizing there were books behind the hand puppets at the Overlooked Books booth and having to break out the credit card.

Me, Christine Kohler, Kathleen Duey, and Dori Hillestad Butler sitting in the registration area after the exhibit hall closed gabbing. I gradually got time limits from everybody and herded them down the Riverwalk to eat at Acenar, where the dishes are just as pricey as at other restaurants, but you can get a perfectly good lunch off the appetizer menu. Christine and Dori knew each other online and Christine, Kathleen, and I all knew each other from before; I'm afraid we spent a lot of time gossiping about people she didn't know, which wasn't because she wasn't interesting.

Running into local SCBWI stalwarts Cyn and Greg, Maritha Burmeister, and Lupe Ruiz-Flores periodically. The line of librarians around the Simon and Schuster booth waiting for free display copies. Being first in line for Brian Yansky to sign arcs of Alien Invasion and Other Inconveniences. Hearing the scoop on how nice Rick Riordan's mother is - she was at one of the cocktail parties. Seeing the line for Suzanne Collins an hour before she showed up and throwing in my hand. I heard they gave away wristbands and people ran to get them, but I didn't see that. I told a teen-age boy Kathleen was signing Skin Hunger and Sacred Scars right now and he immediately headed over to get them. Publishers pushing free chocolate. A bronze hippo bench. Library system reps wearing Fiesta paper flower wreaths.

Sore feet, full backpack, books by friends, books by strangers, everybody everywhere I turned completely into the books.

It's always the same. That's why I go, even in off-years when I have no books to promote, even when cash flow is poor, even when it pours down rain, even when I know I'll need three or four days to recover.

Why You Want to Go to TLA

Maybe it's a long drive into San Antonio, you're at a stage of your career at which the whole schmooze librarians/collect catalogs/study the resources round seems less important than staying home with your butt in the chair writing, you've got a day job that's nothing to do with libraries and you'd have to justify taking a day off, it's supposed to rain some more today, your niece's birthday party is tonight; so you're thinking: "Naw, I don't want to go to TLA."

Yes, you do. Check out who's signing today:
Suzanne Collins - 10-12 in the Author Signing Area.
Chris Crutcher 10-11 in the Author Signing Area.
Kathleen Duey 10:30-12:30 in the Author Signing Area.
Shannon Hale 10-11 in the Author Signing Area. (She also signed yesterday.)
Gary Paulsen 2:30-4:00 in the Author Signing Area.
Liz Garton Scanlon 11-12 in Booth 1031, Simon & Schuster Children's
Cynthia Leitich-Smith 2-3 in the Author Signing Area.
Jacqueline Wilson 2-3 in the Author Signing Area.

Check out who you missed yesterday:
Karen Cushman
Kimberley Willis Holt
Ingrid Law
Rick Riordan
And that's only the ones I know will make most people in juvenile/YA lit squee; you may well have a favorite author in the schedule whom I skipped.

It's almost 8; Exhibit Hall opens at 9; I'm not dressed yet. If I want to catch everybody I want to catch I need to get going. So - see you there. (I'll be the one in the hat, the beautifully matched green stripes, and the big black backpack.)

Overload

The Ides of April are upon us and I've let things get atop of me again. Here's what's happening today:

Last year's tax return due (did that in February, already got the refund - yay Block!);

First quarter estimated taxes due for us self-employed types (wrote the check two days ago, it's sitting in the mail slot waiting to go out; since I can't predict my income I take the money I made in the relevant months, divide by 3, donate 1/3 to the gummit and 2/3 to savings. This pretty much guarantees a refund rather than a nasty surprise at tax time.);

Manning the SCBWI booth, #2649 at TLA, 2-5:30 (printed the instructions, have backpack partially loaded);

Support Teen Literacy Day (Zoned completely on this one till Cyn mentioned it to me; however, looking at the SA Library Event Calendar, the Enchilada doesn't seem to be doing anything specific for it, either, so I refuse to feel bad);

Operation Teen Book Drop (Aagh! I've dropped the ball on this one, and no excuses. Technically it's not too late if I can get my act together. Perhaps if I drink more caffeine and clear my head - get thee behind me, Meniere's!); and

Getting together with friends at TLA. Often when there's a big convention in my town I'll do a lot of welcoming prep, take responsibility to coordinate everybody so we can meet at a specific place at a specific time - one year I even printed and distributed maps for my ALA company - but - not this year. The only person I've met so far is a friend of my husband's, for whom we acted as native guides Tuesday and Wednesday.

I'm a good native guide. She's writing a paper on O. Henry, so we took her to the O. Henry house. We took her to three restaurants (Twin Sisters, La Margarita, and The everlovin' amazing Cove) she probably couldn't have found on her own, took her to see some of the Missions and the egret rookery at OLLU, walked her all over downtown to show her selected highlights and get her as oriented as we could, brought her home to see my husband's Sherlock Holmes collection, and even managed to get her to Cheever's Books, though not to any of the other used bookstores on Broadway; all with a steady infodump on how various places were haunted, what happened to who where, what used to be here, what's going to be there, why I regard the Guido Brothers as heroic despite their being part of the overdevelopment of my beloved town, and all the other stuff that spontaneously spills out of me if you dare to accept my help. But that was two afternoons I didn't spend doing other stuff.

It's always like that. It's always going to be like that. More stuff should be done than anybody can actually do. So I chant my mantra - All I can do is the best I can do - and now I need to find my center and figure out what I can still do about Teen Book Drop (I don't feel good about leaving books lying around for people to find; it's supposed to rain all week - maybe the bus drivers would let me leave something on the wheel well? - and I don't think I have any backed paper to print the bookplates on) instead of fretting about how hard it all is. Then it'll be lunchtime and then time to head downtown, and no housework done, and I haven't had a moment to look at the historical maps on the CD I bought at the San José gift shop yesterday but - at least the birds are fed and the blog is posted, right?

And I'm only a little lightheaded. Nothing is spinning. Physical limitations suck.

Okay, Conference Report

And I'm back, clearheaded and ready to overachieve. But first, let's talk about conferences.

When we last left our story, I had wiped myself out going to a one-day SCBWI conference in Austin. I bought two books, both signed; met one Newbery honoree; remet a few people; did not introduce myself to a single agent or editor; forgot my crappy-looking business cards; ate a lunch that probably had more sodium in it than my doctor wants me to eat (most meals cooked by other people do); ate trail mix for supper; and wiped myself out for a week. But it was worth it.

Why?

Well, let's see. All the speakers were excellent. Although a lot of SCBWI programming is focused on the author who wants to break in rather than the author who has an existing career, and some of what I heard is what you hear at every conference, none of the speakers bored me. My favorite talk was the one by Marla Frazee,, even though, or perhaps because, I'm not and never can be a picture book author and don't know anything about art, not even what I like. Yeah, I think that's a "because." I understand how stories work. I do not understand how art works, so everything she said was new. Will I ever use that new knowledge? What does "use" mean? Maybe I'll never need to understand how artists think for a story, but understanding visual art better is a good in itself.

All of the agents and editors I avoided meeting are accepting manuscripts from conference attendees, met or not, for awhile (time varies). All that information is in my packet (which was, thank goodness, closed when the cat got sick on it, so everything is still legible). My husband, looking this information over, found it discouraging, focusing more on how to go about submitting than on what to submit. But that's okay, because I was able to size up each of them during their talks, and having a set of instructions for submission is a tried-and-true way to weed out the wannabes who aren't putting in their best effort without having to read their not-ready-for-prime time submissions. Editors and agents don't come to conferences if they aren't looking for new work and clients. My chance with them is as good as anybody's there.

As good as? Seriously? I was in an overcrowded venue with two Newbery honorees (Kirby Larson and Jacqueline Kelly), a Sibert honoree (Chris Barton), a double Caldecotter in Marla Frazee - and I think I have the same shot at acceptance as them?

Yeah. I do. And that's not vanity. The degree of excess self-esteem I have may be measured by the number of editors and agents I have ever deliberately walked up to at a conference and introduced myself to (zero), even when I'm well. I am nothing special; my books are pretty good. I prefer to present my books before I present myself. This strikes me as reasonable. The numerous authors who haven't sold any books have as good a chance as I do, also; a dozen publications and a school award don't make me better than them. When I am among authors, I am among my peers, not my competitors and not a range of my superiors and inferiors. There is no hierarchy.

(Well, okay, most of us are inferior to Diana Wynne Jones, but I'm talking about ordinary mortals here. And I could probably even speak to DWJ without stammering much. As good a shot at representation or publication, though? No way.)

Industry Internet Goddess and all-around great person Cyn Smith, when she saw me at lunch, threw her arms around me and cried: "Peni! Penipenipeni!" That was worth the trip right there. She tried to persuade me to go up to the editors (everybody underestimates my conviction that I'll make a bad first impression) by saying if she were them, she would be excited to meet me. I don't know where I get off not believing Cyn, but I seem to be physically incapable of it on this point. But I like seeing her, and she was sitting with Jacqueline Kelly and Varian Johnson, so I got to talk to them, and to Cyn's husband Greg. And a couple of people from San Antonio who I don't see often because I don't often go to local meetings were there, Heather Powers and Catherine Stier.

Talking to other authors, to people who have the same priorities and problems and can either advise you about what to expect, or benefit from your own experience; that's a big, big reason for going to conferences. Writers live in their heads a lot; and when we don't, we live in a world of people who aren't looking for the story elements and character arcs in real life, people who have no idea what it's like to have a book in your head and midwife it out where it can be seen. If we hang out together too much, we talk about it instead of doing it; but if we never see each other, we get tired and lonesome and discouraged. It's worth a conference fee and a drive to shake off that feeling, talk face to face with kindred spirits, and get a free pass for a couple of "no unagented submissions" and "referral only" obstacles.

And if I gave anybody my cold while doing that, my apologies.

Not a conference report

I do not regret going to Austin SCBWI's Destination Publication conference with a head cold, as the speakers were all good, I got to see friends and meet Newbery honor medalist Jacqueline Kelly, and it's always good to hang out with other writers. I think I deployed enough hand sanitizer that I didn't infect anybody. I didn't introduce myself to any of the speakers because I didn't want them to remember me as That Red-Nosed Incoherent Lady. It was past nine by the time I got home, and I spent all Sunday in bed under the close medical supervision of my cats. Today I'm moving around more, but am still not coherent and the nose could still light Santa's way through a peasoup fog.

So instead of blogging properly I'm going to encourage you to read this recent blog post by Cyntha Cotten and reflect upon the importance of brainstorming with friends and losing your inhibitions in order to create.

Then I may go crawl back under the cats. Gimme a couple of days and I'll be interesting, or at least informative, or at least writing connectedly, again.