Trippin'

Photo Credit: Pika Miklitsch

Psych.  Packing my bag (and there is a 33.3% chance it will get where I’m going) for a writer’s conference.  Spent the last two weeks tackling the To-Do List, the first item was “finish novel”.  Good one.  The last item was “pack light”.  Instead of calling them “to-do lists” we should call them “wish lists”.  Been trying to polish up (i.e. rewrite) an old story while trying to fend off an incoming story idea that simply would not be ignored, I kept promising it that I would write it after the conference, but it could not be appeased.  Soon does not suffice when there’s an impatient waterfall of glitter roaring from The Glitter Globe.  Have you ever gotten a Christmas card covered in glitter?  It gets all over the counter when you open it, it sticks to your hands and clothes and sparkles to the floor.  The next day, when you are trying to put in your contact lenses you end up writhing on the floor with the shtuff in your eye. Trying to ignore a story demanding to be written is similar insomuch as it won’t go away and it gums up all other endeavors in the process when you try. 

Say the current story takes place in outer space, and the new story is about sharks and various mammals capable of telepathic communication (work with me here, hypothetical example).  You can be certain that there will be at least a couple of dolphins winging their way through a wormhole. Suffice to say that it is best not to ignore the demands of The Glitter Globe. 

Or go right ahead and just type ten or twenty thousand words of drivel and maybe you can get your sparkly singing whale short-story published while you’re at the conference.  The truth of the matter is you don’t go to the conferences to get anything published anyway.  You go to take workshops with titles like:  There’s Nothing Wrong with You! or Beyond Fangs and Heaving Bosoms.  You also go to meet up with other writers which is really cool, because then you’re with The Collective and you fit right in – maybe with the bats in the attic genre or perhaps with the dungeon full of skeletons crowd, but there is certainly a place for you among your homies.  Bump if ya can feel me.