I Forgot My Pants, and Other Musings on a Weekend Well Spent

(warning…long post)


Just back from a lovely writers conference underwritten by the Steamboat Springs Arts Council. I am, as usual after a conference, re-invigorated in my own writing efforts, and heartened that so many are as in love with words as I am.

Right – enough with the sweet. If you‘ve spent more than 5 minutes in my presence, you know I don’t really do much sweet, so let’s get to the kooky bits which, when added to all the writing awesomeness, made this a Weekend To Remember (In The Annals of Deb).

Travel Nicknames

On every roadtrip I take from now on it shall be mandatory for all people in the car to have a road trip nickname. For a variety of reasons, I was known for the duration of the trip as Naan Sequitir. This replaces my previous assassin alias of Black Ice. The Boy, who tagged along, was code name International Waters. Here’s the thing about road trip nicknames – they must grow organically from the absurd conversations one has while on a road trip. No arbitrary road trip nicknames, please. At least for the duration of the trip the name must have contextual significance. My game…my rules.

Where all your dreams are for sale….

Accommodations in Steamboat were lovely and comfortable. However, I have never stayed anywhere that has had so many dreamcatchers hanging on the walls. Just when we thought we’d found them all, we came across secret hidden dreamcatchers. With price tags on them. The fabulous Susan Mitchell remarked that she felt as if part of her subconscious might be trapped in the condo forever. I wondered if the entire property, when viewed from above, might actually be in the shape of a giant dreamcatcher, rendering the whole area a giant vortex of dream sucking. Without dreams, we die. You see why the entire thing then degenerated into….

Zombie Cannibals


Some road trips lend themselves to brainstorming movie plots. Horror movie plots, to be precise. Though we never quite settled on the finer points of plot, the roadtrip to a small mountain tourist town off-season lent itself nicely to either attack of zombie cannibals OR insane but unknowable serial killers who would slowly eliminate writers conference participants until just myself, The Boy and the fabulous Susan Mitchell were left, fighting for our lives and trying to escape in a convertible with only 17 dreamcatchers as weapons. Apparently our plan was to flail at the bad guy(s) with fluffy bits of string and wool until they gave in and bought one, or some nasty nightmare from a previous tenant came to life and whooped some zombie cannibal butt.

Yes I Really Forgot My Pants

Here’s a conversation you don’t want to have while attempting to dress professionally for the seminars you will be teaching in an hour:

Me: Uh, I have a weird question. Well really a statement.
Sue: (raises an eyebrown in question).
Me: So, it appears I forgot my pants….
Sue: uh….
Me: No really, I forgot my pants, so my wardrobe selections are the cocktail dress I wore to the opening party last night or the minidress I wore for the drive up.
Sue: (stares in disbelief)…Bahahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaa……
Me: Sigh.

Thankfully the fabulous Susan Mitchell had something I could borrow which was suitable. Adding insult to injury, after I shared this with the conference attendees as an ice-breaker (yes, getting everyone to laugh at me IS an icebreaker), I was informed that in British English, pants refer to underwear, and the nice British woman at the table over on the side had almost choked on her coffee thinking I’d just informed the entire room that I’d forgotten my panties…..yes. Sigh.

Life brings us many adventures and absurdities, if we only bother to be present and pay attention. I like to do both, so I guess I get more than my fair share of absurd. Isn’t it awesome?

The Final Snippet: When you don’t know what something is, I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t walk up and stick your face in it.

Ten Things That Come To Mind on the Occasion of Finishing A Book Proposal

(In which a writer shares her actual thoughts as experienced in the first few minutes after the actual completion of an actual book proposal).

1. Vodka. Need Vodka.

2. Writing is vile, wretched and hard. What was I thinking?

3. Holy crap, I am freaking brilliant.

4. Uh, this is terrible. Awful. What was I thinking?

5. 38 pages. This is perfect. The best book proposal ever written. Clearly I will land an amazing book deal in the next few moments.

6. What was I thinking?!?!?!?

7. It feels excellent to have finished such a long, involved and detailed task. Even if the idea doesn’t sell right away, I am pleased with the accomplishment of having gotten this far.

8. I am an idiot. The rejections will be epic and unparalleled, and I will forevermore sit on the double super-secret blacklist that all agents have, which they take out and laugh about over fabulous martinis in Manhattan, while sitting in bars from which I am also clearly banned for life.

9. I finished, I finished. Nyah, nyah, na-nyah nyah!

10. So. Schizophrenia. At least I have that going for me.

Actual thoughts. I kid you not. Still, it feels good to have finished the whole non-fiction book proposal. Now I wait. And hope the schizophrenia does not get the best of me in the meantime….

Bar Haiku, PPWC and You

WARNING – LONG ENTRY

Five days after the event ended, I may actually be recovered from all the awesome that was PPWC 2011. I was thinking about the recovery time and why it gets longer each year – and it is not because I am getting older. I reject that premise. It’s that the conference gets better every year. More sessions, amazing faculty, wonderful attendees. It takes longer to process all that I have learned. That’s my story, anyway.

From the amazing Phil Nutman, to the inspiring John Hart, and running the gamut from aspiring authors to those who are multi-published, the folks I played with this weekend have re-energized my own writing….wait, did I say playing?

In fact I did.

While in every way a professional conference which assists people in moving their careers to the next level, PPWC also does an amazing thing in bringing together a bunch of writers. If you’ve ever been around ‘a bunch of writers’ (not sure what number that is, only that there is a sort of tipping point to a gathering of writers that constitutes a ‘bunch’), then you know it is an odd and gorgeous collection of kindred creative souls who can finally be who they are in public…without having to apologize for the solitary hours spent at a keyboard, or spent listening to the voices in their heads, or for having the hubris to think they have something important to say.

Being me, I wanted to exploit…uh….commemorate the event in some way, so I spent about an hour or so after the main banquet Saturday night walking up to strangers in the bar asking them to write Bar Haiku. Ok, some of you weren’t strangers, technically, but you have to admit you’re strange. And if I didn’t think that before Bar Haiku….well, I do now.

Funny thing about writers – they like to write. Funny thing about writers who are asked to write Bar Haiku, is that they can’t seem to say no, and then I get to watch them stand around and count syllables for a while as they engage with the process. Which amuses me. Which was kind of the point…


At any rate, I have culled the submissions into two categories – one appropriate for the PPWC Writing from the Peak blog, and, well, the rest of them. Here we go with The Rest of Them.


Surreal Haiku
Haiku can be fun
But sometimes they make no sense
Refrigerator


Booze Haiku
Beer, beer, beer, beer, beer,
Beer, beer, beer, beer, beer, beer, beer,
Beer, beer, beer, beer, beer

I can’t believe I’m
Finally twenty-one and
Drunk after one shot

T----- has Jack and coke
Inebriation ensues
What can one man do?

I hate alcohol
Don’t know why I’m in a bar
Oh, f---, now I’m drunk

Kind of about Sex Haiku
Pikes Peak Writers are done
The shoes and thongs have come out
Tomorrow we blaze the trail

Dirty martinis
Red lace panties hit the floor
Writer make your pitch

Male desperation
Hard wired to hunt and consume
Before the sunrise

Tattooed and muscled
Have him washed and brought to my
Tent and do it now

The well-known author
Surrounded by swooning girls
Work less, write more…sex?

I write books and junk
I can spell “décolletage”
But I can’t get it

Pouty lip bite, please?
If ever I could, I would.
See me in my dreams

Kegel, kegel…whoa
I must retain self-control
Um, what did you say?

Deb Haiku (a whole new and unexpected category)
Deb wants me to write
How can I when my brain’s fried?
With liquor in hand

Deb made me write this
She handed me the card and squinted
She got her money’s worth

I purposefully left off names, but if you signed the card when you gave it to me, I’m happy to add attribution. Wanted to give all you writers the option of claiming or not.

As you see, if you did not attend PPWC 2011, you missed a super time – from the perspective of furthering your career, and because you missed Bar Haiku with Deb. Do yourself a favor and join us for the 20th anniversary conference, PPWC 2012.


The Final Snippet: I like trees too, but I wouldn’t want to lick one (by all reports this conversation started with a discussion of the merits of gin….)


Deb Answers: Jessica in Springfield: No. Just no.

Random Shoplifts, the Nth

Overheard in various places in the last week or so...

~Gravity is not gonna be generous to your short crooked ass. (One woman berates another for wearing her backpack wrong. Just...weird.)

~I know some things about him that I will never tell, but I think he should leave women along and stick with something plastic. (Uh, note to self, try and figure out who this guy is and NEVER date him)

~If you're not touching the top of it, what's the point? (I have no clue what the topic was, but other than lifting it, I'm not touching anything. Certainly not the top of it.)

~Rose pedal, with floral aroma and spice flavors. (I'm neither wearing nor drinking this, whatever it was).

~When you get three without getting anywhere near a bar, it's a good day (no context. I like this one as it is. If you're curious, email me.)

Happy eavesdropping!

The Final Snippet: redundant

Deb Answers: Margaret in Tacoma: It is not in fact the spirit of your favorite orchid that was in the perfume, but an entirely different, yet similar orchid. Your orchid's soul twin, if you will.

Stranger Than Fiction, Man

I just had this conversation. It is worthy of a shoplift, but too long for my normal pithy phrase grab. So I will relate it in its entirely. I can only imagine were I to incorporate this into a book, some editor would say it is entirely unrealistic and could never ever ever take place in reality and therefore is entirely unbelievable for fiction.

"Hi, can we we chat for a few minutes about the firewall rules I need to document? There are a number of line items designated as servers which don't seem to exist in any list I have and I don't know who I should assign them to for documenting," said Deb

"They're not really servers. You can call them servers for the purposes of this discussion but they aren't really. They are for security stuff," said IT Security Guy.

"Oh," said Deb, now a little confused. "So, YOU are the owner for purposes of documentation?"

"Yes, you could say that," replied IT Security Guy.

"So...you pulled the list of rules together for me..." said Deb.

"Yes," said IT Security Guy.

"And you sent the list to me so I can make sure I get the proper documentation?" asked Deb.

"Yeah," said IT Security Guy.

"And you sent an email to your boss saying you can't complete your tasks on this phase of the project until I provide said documentation?" asked Deb, her voice rising a bit in tone.

"Right," replied IT Security Guy.

"And the documentation I need, as it turns out, has to come from you?" asked Deb, now clearly disturbed.

"Uh, yes," responded IT Security Guy slowly.

"So, uh, why didn't you just fill that part in when you sent me the original file? Or, you know, let me know you were ultimately responsible for doing it so I didn't spend 4 days asking you for help. Or, you know, when I started asking you about the servers in question so I could identify who was responsible for the documentation, you might have said it was you..."

"I wasn't tasked with that," said IT Security Guy.

"You weren't tasked with that?" Deb parroted.

"Right."

A long silence ensued during which Deb's face turned several apoplectic shades of puce which are clearly not in a normal face-color spectrum.

"So, you should send it all to my boss and ask him to task me with that, so I can get it added to my task list."

"Because you won't do it until you are tasked by him, but you WILL send him emails complaining that it isn't done...."

"Well, yeah. It's holding me up."

"Uh, sure. I'll do that," said Deb, showing all the restraint she could possibly muster. She turned and walked away muttering under her breath something that sounded suspiciously close to 'beat you to death with my stiletto' but which could not possibly be what she actually said, because that would be wrong.

Sigh.

The Final Snippet: I am not inconsistent. I just have an expanded repertoire of emotions.

Deb Answers: Lissa in Stoughton MA: Pick a mood, woman, and stick with it. Seriously.

Writing That Next Word

I spent the weekend writing.

Damn, it feels good to say that. Ok -- that's not all I did....I managed some laundry and cooked a rack of ribs for some delightful men. But mostly I wrote. Then revised. Then wrote some more.

I wrote on Friday about being excited for a mini-retreat -- I'd managed to set aside Friday night and all day Saturday to go to a pal's place with a number of other writers and really focus on getting some heavy lifting done word-wise. And I got some heavy lifting done -- Chapter 1 of WIP needed a revision. I'd been putting it off even though I knew what I needed to do. And Friday night I talked my way through it; Saturday I did it, then workshopped it with some amazing writers (who were kind enough to provide me with instant gratification...er..feedback), then made another pass to add some layers of refinement.

Funny thing -- all that work lopped over into Sunday, when I made yet another pass and added some addition refinements. Probably still needs some fine-tuning, but I have that planned for tomorrow night.

My lesson at the moment is that scheduling time to write, and having some accountability about it (and not just to myself) is helping to keep me motivated and moving forward.

And writing that next word.

And when it comes down to it that's really all we can do -- write that next word.

Are you writing your next word?

The Final Snippet: Now we have a use for that Kama Sutra Chocolate.....

Deb Answers: Beth in South Florida: Step away from the beer. Really.

Mini-Retreat - Yay!

In preparation for pitching at Pikes Peak Writers Conference at the end of this month, I am fortunate enough to be participating in a mini-retreat tonight and all day tomorrow.

I have realized that since I work a day job, I kind of view my time at home in the evenings or on the weekends as relaxation time, and sometimes have a difficult time making myself write. I kind of resent it in a way.

But, if I remove myself from my home environment, then I seem to be in a more disciplined head space, and have a much easier time being productive. Weird psychological trick, that, but if it works, I'm willing to do it. So I'll be at mini-retreats and the local coffee shop a lot this month.

How do you prep as you are coming down the final stretch with a project? I know a bunch of people who can write any time, any place, and sometimes I wish I were one of them. But I guess we all have an innate process -- one of my goals for the rest of this year is retraining my brain to a new process :)

Meanwhile I will spend tonight and tomorrow doing all the writing I ought to have been doing after work this week.

Wish me good words.....

The Final Snippet: You know it was a great party when someone is missing a fang.

Deb Answers: Vanessa in OK: I would use the scarf before the twine.