Another Conference

I went to a writer's conference last weekend. Alice Hoffman spoke on Friday night, and it was as if she was channeling me. She talked about trying to write as a young mother, which was funny, since most of the audience consisted of college students and retirees. I dare say, I was one of the only newish mothers in attendance. But, she talked about how difficult it is to write when you feel the needs of your family pressing down from all sides, and about the strain of attempting to make sense of a story when you can barely remember to put on deodorant in the morning, and the harsh reality that there just. isn't. time. ever. Her advice? Make time. Get up at 5am (that would work better if Hayden didn't get up at 5am too). Write at night. Write in the bathroom. Just write.

She also said that she accomplished more in a two hour period when she had young children than she ever did since, and that I believe. The last time I had a two hour stretch I cleaned the house (And I mean deep cleaned, down to the inside of the microwave and the toilets), I rearranged my closet, did three loads of laundry (and actually got to fold them!) checked my email, paid all the bills and cooked dinner. Of course, that was about a month ago now. And none of those things have happened since.

Alice Hoffman was just what I needed though in terms of inspiration. It can be done. It really, really can. I know this, but sometimes I really need that extra shot of reassurance, because it's all just so daunting sometimes.

On Saturday, we had a day-long panel discussion that turned out to be very informative. I learned that blogs count as a platform builder (so tell everyone to read my blogs and then find famous friends to say nice things) and that while it would still benefit me to be shot or stabbed, I may be able to pull this off without either of those things happening.

Sidenote: Why are my students so lazy?! We had around 45 teen pregnancies this year at my high school, and a whole bunch of them talked about how "like, cool" it would be to "you know, like, have the babies, like, together and stuff", but they didn't put it in writing. A pact. That would have done it for me. There's a platform. I could have gone on Good Morning America and talked about the tragedy of teen pregnancy and I could have blamed Juno, and I could have waxed poetic about the horror of it all....no, wait...that wouldn't have worked. My kids are mostly Hispanic. The Gloucester story made news, not because 17 kids got pregnant at the same time, (newsflash: that happens all the time), or because they were trying to get pregnant (that's practically a given these days) or because they wanted to "like, raise their kids together and stuff". They made news because they were a bunch of white girls trying to get pregnant together. Okay, the random homeless guy one of them slept with just added to the impact, but it wasn't about teen pregnancy, it was about the possibility of teen pregnancy in "our" communities. And that pisses me off.

But, I digress....

Oh yes, a platform. Well, since my kids won't put it in writing, I'm back to square one. Write good stuff, impress an agent and get published. I met with an agent after the panel who looked at my query letter and critiqued it. She had some very positive things to say. 99% positive, in fact. She helped me to get around some of the "this is a tight shelf" issues, and she said that I have a solid, compelling voice in my writing. Yeah me :) Interestingly enough, she's from the same agency as one of my really nice rejections. She said the guy who rejected me with a long letter never, ever writes to anyone personally, so I should take that as an excellent sign. Okay...I will. I still want someone to like it just a little, tiny bit more though. Like, say, enough to take it on.