The year my book hit the stands — that all-too brief and giddy time when I had every reason to call myself a writer and every excuse to attend SciFi/Fantasy events — I attended both the Nebula Awards and the World Fantasy Convention.
That spring, the Nebs were held in NYC, the autumnal WFC in Baltimore. Both were big fun, though the real pleasure was in being on my own and on the road again, even if only for a weekend. The event-related delights of meeting people, making connections, banqueting, wheeling & dealing, hobnobbing and schmoozing…
Well, I met a few nice folks and didn’t make any enemies, but schmoozing is hardly my forte. Operating under the illusion that my passion and talent for storytelling should and surely would trump my lack of social and business acumen, I made no real effort to meet the “right” people or talk them up. The memories I treasure from New York are of the Peruvian musicians on the street (I still have their CD), of stumbling on an Earth Day celebration in a mid-city park where I listened to a hale and handsome Christopher Reeve speak on behalf of the planet, and of a night on the town with my sister-in-law Mona — a Jamaican dinner followed by a hole-in-the-wall theatre’s imaginative production of The Gilda Stories, a vampire tale that so intrigued me, I bought the book when I returned home. In Baltimore, I played hookey as well, sneaking off to the re-designed harbor and spending a day in the town’s justly-praised Aquarium, then ducking out the next day to score a crab feast for one. I had a great time on both trips, but the time I spent at the events that prompted the journeys was the least of it.
My wiser and well-intentioned author-friends did their best to curb my antiquated habits and make a modern writer of me. Dave encouraged me to get on-line and visit the SFWA chat rooms. I found them boring, annoying, a waste of time. Why chat about writing, when I could be writing? Janet invited me into an anthology. I didn’t want to force a short story from my muse. Besides, I was already writing another novel. James, bless his soul, persisted longest, reminding me periodically that I was more than welcome to tag along on his convention adventures.
About three years ago, after my third novel/second Éirinn tale had made the publishing-house rounds to no avail, I finally saw the light. What a fool I’d been, pinning my hopes on a material manuscript, when we’re living in a virtual world! Without a web-presence, I didn’t exist. My name, my icon, my opinion didn’t show up anywhere on anyone’s radar, and hadn’t for nearly a decade. I was invisible to editors, publishers, agents, fellow writers — a non-entity. The quality of the work isn’t the issue; unless it’s a first book, the work of a non-entity will garner little interest and will not sell.
So, that summer I surrendered to reality. I stopped writing what I wanted to write and focused my time and energy on writing my website. I started to blog. I called James and told him I’d be hitching a ride with him to whatever Con was next on the docket. And when I heard that the county’s September Book Fair would be highlighting SciFi-Fantasy, I boldly called the event organizer and got myself on the Saturday panel.
My website went up, thanks to my honey. But it wasn’t until my honey had some marked success with his own blog that I realized that successful blogging is another form of the social networking I despise — and that posting poetic essays on my own sparsely visited website wasn’t going to help my career in the slightest. As for the Con, the Book Fair… lovely ideas, but ideas don’t pay bills. Stage managing Equity productions puts cash in the family coffers, as does teaching theatre management at the local JC. I made more money that fall than in any season before or since, but well I should’ve done. I was working two jobs and seven days a week. A trip out of town was out of the question. The day of the Book Fair panel, I was running a 10-out-of-12 hour Technical rehearsal in a whole ‘nother county.
Every summer, time opens up for me and I fall headlong into the gap. Every summer, I start writing again — and then start thinking I can be a writer again. Every summer, I succumb to the siren’s call of my tales, taxing my health, forsaking family and friends, shirking my homeowner responsibilities and declining all other activities, opportunities and enterprises for midnight’s embrace, the percussive rhythms of the keyboard and the dream of making words my life’s work. This past summer, dazzled by the light of creative satisfaction, I screwed my courage to the sticking point, ponied up money I could ill afford, and bought myself a ticket to this year’s World Fantasy Convention in nearby San José.
And here I am, a one-trick pony whose literary claim to fame is fifteen fucking years old, wondering what possessed me.