August 8 2009

I posted this article for the first time more than a year ago. Readers seemed to like it then, so I'm posting it again.

*****

Despite the fact that Toronto is a large cosmopolitan city, writers conferences are rare here. Consequently, when I saw an ad in the newspaper for The Desperate Writers Conference, I decided to attend.

During the day of the conference, there were at least a dozen seminars and workshops at the hotel about how to become a successful writer. I dropped in on three or four of them, and I found that all of the advice given could be boiled down to two points. Write what people want to read, and then find the right agent. To me, this advice seemed to be on a par with the stock market tip that one should buy low and sell high.

At the end of the day, there was a wine and cheese party, so I thought I'd at least get to compare notes with some of my fellow starving authors. Usually, I'm very shy at parties, but I willed myself to be more sociable this time because these were my comrades in arms, so to speak.

First, I found myself talking with a thin, nervous looking woman.

"Writing is so hard," she said. "I've been working for five years now on my book How To Be Super Happy."

"Why is it taking so long?" I asked.

"I've just been too damned depressed to finish it."

"I can see how that would be a problem," I said.

"What do you write, George?"

"Mysteries and science fiction."

"Oh, so you're not a real writer."

"Apparently not," I said.

Next, I met a bearded man who wore a tweed jacket that had leather patches on its elbows.

"I've written the definitive biography of Elmer Bootsnoot," he said. "All the publishers to whom I've sent copies act as though they've never heard of the man."

"Philistines are everywhere," I said.

"What do you write?" he asked.

"Mysteries and science fiction."

"My word!" the bearded man said. "I thought you were a serious writer."

"Not serious enough, I guess."

I decided that, when the next person asked me what it was that I wrote, I'd make up the silliest thing that I could imagine. As I was about to get my coat, a young man wearing horn rimmed glasses walked up to me.

"I got some great ideas today on how to market my book," he said. "It's titled Two Hundred Poems About Jello. For some reason, it hasn't been selling. What do you write?"

"Well," I said, "I've just finished a novel. It's called Kiss The Bullet and it's the story of a one eyed gay parrot who is driven to madness by his addiction to crackers."

"It's refreshing to finally meet another serious writer here," the young man said. "You wouldn't believe the trash that these other people are trying to peddle."

"Actually, I might," I said.

*****

George

P.S. Please visit my website at www.checkmatefiction.com for some free short stories.