Steve’s Great Writers Meeting Last Night

Tucson by Felix Pasilis
Steve’s Great Writers Meeting Last Night
(A breath of spring)
March, 17, 2006

Last night was the writers meeting at Barnes and Noble on how to get published. There hasn’t been one since October. There was supposed to be one last month, and I showed up, but it turned out to be false alarm, no one showed up but me.

This time Steve, the leader, was already there when I arrived and so were two other women. By the time the meeting started there were two more women and one man, and when I looked up there was Sophia.

And by the time we finished introducing ourselves, saying our name and what we write, there was actually a whole crowd of people, mostly men, who had brought up chairs and were sitting behind Steve.

By then Steve had launched into his spiel, so we never got to hear their names and what they write, which is too bad. I was sitting next to Steve at the table and when he took a breath in his spiel I told him there were so many sitting behind him. It was my hint he might want to ask them to introduce themselves too. But instead he said “I am surrounded” and went back to his spiel.

They all left before the meeting broke up so I never got to meet them or hear anything about them, which is too bad since I like hearing what people write.

The woman next to me writes short stories, but none of them are related to each other. When Steve suggested she turn them into a novel, “a novel is just a whole bunch of stories” Steve said, she said “I don’t know how to do it, because they are not related to each other in any way.” I think her name is Ellie. I liked her.

Across from Ellie was Betsy. Betsy said she had been writing a memoir but then a friend of hers committed suicide because he was scared to death. She said it began as a family fight over money and what scared him to death turned out to be a hoax but he didn’t know that. By that time he was no longer in the world. Betsy said she had been a drug counselor and also addicted to drugs herself and her memoir had been about her experiences as a drug counselor, but now she was writing this book instead.

Her big concern is that because it is about someone else’s life not hers, about getting the details right. She said instead of calling it “a true story” she is now going to call it “based on a true story” or “inspired by” then she doesn’t have to worry about being perfectly accurate. Also she said she is so one-sided about it, she is on his side, that she offered a famous author to help her write it, so it would take in both sides. I don’t know if she has heard back from the famous author.

An attractive woman had quizzed Steve before she introduced herself. “Let’s hear about you” she said, “what have you published? Have you been published by a real place or just vanity press?”

Steve said the book he has had published is about his own flying experiences and it was published by a subdivision of Random House.

“O” she said, “I got the impression from the flier you were just published by a vanity press.” She said she has not started to write yet, but she wants to.

The woman next to her said she is a poet and also an artist and a few other things. She has those dismal looks of a poet in a comic book. Thin, bedraggled, long hair which did not look attractive, and an unhappy mien. She was not a walking advertisement for her poetry. She looked like someone who could be cast in a play as an unhappy poet writing unhappy poetry. She is definitely someone who needs to spruce herself up a bit, put her hair up, put on a little lipstick, smile, and wear a pretty dress. And a little jewelry to bring herself some sparkle.

Sophia is a beautician and of course she looked beautiful as always. When Steve talked about the new book he is writing about a menage-a-trois, he said the devastating femme fatale looks just like Sophia. Sophia perked up.

Steve really wanted to write his second book about a particular airplane he is in love with, but all his friends told him “O no not another airplane book, we want to read about people.”

So instead Steve is writing about this menage-a-trois where “the man is totally insensitive to women, sees them as just another notch on his belt,” according to Steve, and the devastating femme fatale looks just like Sophia.

Personally I think Steve should write the book about the airplane he is love with instead of about these people he doesn’t like. But Steve is finding it such an intriguing challenge to write this book, so why not.

He said he began it as a romance novel, there is huge market for romance novels. He said the audience for romance novels is girls between the age of 15 and 17, because after 17 they start to have their own experiences and prefer that to reading about the experiences of others. He was told to put in 3 explicit sex scenes, he wrote two and has to write another. He finds them very hard to write.

Between you and me, I think it would be a more interesting book if Steve wrote his experiences trying to write this book. It all just sounds so far-out to me. Here is Steve working for Hughes Aircraft, trying to write a romance novel which exactly meets the criteria of romance novels for 15 year-olds.

There was also a man at our table. He said he kept a journal when he lived in a Far Eastern country, I forget which country it was now, it is one of those names which are obscure to me, and he would like to turn the journal into a book. He looked like a nice man and I bet his experiences were interesting.

A lot of the advice Steve gave on how to get published is not very usable for me. For instance Steve said he got sick and tired of writing query letters to publishers, and he realized if you take over a wheelbarrow of money you can get someone to do all that for you. They will write the query letters, they will find you an agent, they will edit your book, etc etc. Apparently there are a lot of people in Tucson who will do everything for you to get published if you just bring over a wheelbarrow of money.

Altho who knows, maybe I will win the lottery, and I can do what Steve is doing. Take over the book I wrote back in NYC and wheelbarrow of money, and dump it all in someone else’s lap, for a small fortune they will do it all for me.

Steve did say something which really made me perk up tho. He said the Southwest Authors Society has a workshop for two days once a year, where agents arrive from all over the country and critique your work. I don’t know how much it costs, all of Steve’s suggestions involve money.

He said he watched thru the door while his friend DR was having her work critiqued by the agent. He said “DR had her head in her hands the whole time so I thought it was bad news” but instead the agent took both of DR’s books, he bought them on the spot.

This meant a lot to me, because at my second meeting at Barnes and Noble Steve was absent, and he had sent DR to fill in for him. She told us how she got her first book published but how she cannot get her two new books published for love or money. Each time she sends them out they come right back.

She said “one just came back this morning” but she has to buck up and send it right back out again, but it is wearing her down.

I totally identified with her experience of how it is wearing her down. I had been in that boat and I had given up. I had decided it was all futile. But here a year later, Steve reports that by going to the Southwest Authors workshop a literary agent bought both her books. I would gladly save my pennies for the $250 for the workshop if I thought it would work out that way for me too.

In fact I would be willing to complete a second manuscript by the time the next workshop rolls around in September. Why can’t lightning strike twice, for DR and for Anne.

Steve also said small presses have come into their own during the past recent years. This is news to me. All my experience with trying to get published comes from my years living in NYC. 14 years have now gone by and I am beginning to understand huge changes have taken place in publishing world.

What I learned from my experience back then no longer applies, there have been developments. Steve made it very clear big publishing houses don’t want books, except for how-to books, or mysteries, or romance, but small presses do want books.

A man who was just traveling thru Tucson, he had arrived to help his mom, she is having operation, he travels around in his RV and has just come back from fishing in Mexico, said “Anne, there are small presses in Tucson, why don’t you just go down there and talk to the people.”

He also said “the key thing is just to have something out there published in any way, after that you can talk to people because you have something published.”

He said “even if you publish it yourself, it makes no difference, at least it is out there.”

He also told me that my manuscript from New York City which I had put on the big floppy discs which everyone used back then, I don’t have to retype for smaller disc, there is a place in Tucson which transfers the disc for you. This was an answer to a prayer. As for the whole past year I was wondering how I was going to force myself to face retyping all those New York City stories again. I don’t know who that man is, I don’t remember his name, but he was an angel who showed up at our writers meeting in Barnes and Noble last night, who had a lot of solutions for me.

When the meeting was over the woman next to me, the one who is also a short story writer, said “would it embarrass you Steve if we applauded.”

We all did. It was a great meeting.

And she said “O Steve you are blushing.”