The thing I love most about writing conferences and writing classes is the feeling that I can actually do this this. I can actually write something and get it published. This weekend I've been at the Surrey International Writers' Conference. It's all about how to be a writer, how to sell your work, and how to make your work better.
It amazes and excites me and sometimes leaves me with a feeling of absolute responsibility. I have to tell you about Olga's daughter and the story about the two brothers in the forest. I have a responsibility to record the events of Browns Farm Equipment and Supply.
It makes me want to quit my job and sit in a room drinking cups of hot tea and writing best selling novels. The SIWC does that to you.
And I know not everyone makes the dream and I know most people never actually get anywhere near the dream. But it's the same reason we buy lottery tickets, because we like to dream.
All 800 people in the room have the same goals, get published, get respected for the work they do. Will they all accomplish it? No.
Will many of them come back year after year, barely another short story written? Yes.
Will some of them make fantastic book deals and meet agents who want to reprsent them and take them to fame and fortune? Yes.
Do I expect either of these things? Not really. In a way I'm searching for the same thing everyone on American Idol looks for. I'm looking for someone to tell me I'm good. To tell me that my work doesn't stink.
I'm looking for someone to give me the magic potion that makes my life go on as it is and a book to magically appear in six months with hardly any more thought than I give to doing my laundry.
Truth is, and I know it, the truth is, writing is bum in seat work. No bum in seat, no hands on the keyboard, no novel. It's where I struggle with blogging -- do I spend my time writing something I can publish online in five minutes and maybe six people will read OR do I write something that matters to a huge group of people that will take me years and may never see daylight?
Tick tock tick tock... It is a choice of course and there are some bloggers who have become rich and famous by blogging. But something in my wants to go to the shelf and pull down my book. I want to sit on the bus and watch you read my book and not know, not even guess that the author is sitting right across from you.
