"You Are a Writer"

Photo Credit: Robert Carrey - Quills Conference Photographer

On August 24th and 25th I attended my very first writers conference. *Enter giddy squealing here!*  Back in July when Burke and I were in Denver, he came back from one of his conference classes full of motivation to pursue his dreams.  As we discussed my own goals to get more serious about my writing, he suggested that I look into attending a conference of my own.  We browsed the internet and found a conference in Salt Lake the following month, but upon looking at the cost, I downplayed my excitement at the idea and side stepped a decision with a noncommittal, "Maybe next year."

Fast forward to Monday, August 13th.  We had enjoyed a Back to School dinner with the Broadbents and Petersens and waved them off for the night.  After getting our littles ready for bed, Burke gave each of the children a Father's Blessing, a school tradition we have carried over from our own families growing up.  When he finished with their blessings, Burke motioned to me and said, "Your turn Mama."  I recorded the blessing on my phone and how grateful I am as Burke utilized his priesthood power and voiced from our Heavenly Father such beautiful council and blessings that I will cherish my whole life through.  Although we hadn't talked about the writers conference in almost a month, in the blessing, he said among other things that I would attend the conference, learn, network and have doors opened for opportunities that would bless our family and many others.  He also qualified that some blessings would be dependent upon my faithfulness and diligence.

I was shocked by the words he spoke, but even more so when he looked up The Quills Conference in Salt Lake happening in less than 10 days and immediately signed me up while I protested, "No Burkie, it's too much.  It's not in the budget!"  To which he waved a hand and insisted, "This is an investment Emily.  You can pay us back with your royalties in 5 years!"  I laughed at the idea while internally soaring.   His confidence in me made me feel that maybe it wasn't such a far-fetched idea after all.

This video is case in point - he kept taking pictures and videos of me every step of the way, which anyone who knows how much Burke resists photo documentation will realize is very out of the norm for him.  

Not only did Burkie sign me up for the conference, but he also added an extra $30 bucks for the opportunity for me to sit down with an agent from Shadow Mountain Publishing to have a ten-minute pitch session for my nonfiction book on sorrow.  I felt woefully misinformed in the week leading up to the conference as I googled, "How to give a book pitch" and spent hours trying to hone my speech to convey all of the passion and conviction I have for my project in a professional and yet personal manner.  On our 3 hour drive from Cedar to Salt Lake Thursday night I practiced my pitch with Burke over and over again while passing sippy cups and coloring books over my shoulder to the demanding little people in the back seats.  

I was quivering with nerves when Burke dropped me off with a prayer and "go-get-'ems" at the Marriott on Friday morning, but as soon as I walked in the hotel I was shaking for an entirely different reason.  It was freezing inside!  Being August in Utah, I hadn't even considered bringing a jacket and I found my teeth chattering from 7:30 AM when I arrived until 8 PM when Burke picked me up, resulting in a miserable cold for the second day of the conference as I sat bundled in my sisters borrowed winter parka.  

Off to a good start at the conference by getting second place with a quiz on Kahoots during the The League of Utah Writers President's speech.

The conference was a wealth of information with classes ranging from character/plot development and the beginnings of publishing to the logistics of taxes as an author and q&a panels of editors and agents.  I was writing notes as fast as I could, enjoying every popsicle-fingered minute of it, all the while trying to steady the bubbling in my gut as I mulled over my pitch session with Shadow Mountain happening that afternoon.  After a lunch hour out doors soaking in the sun like a lizard on a dessert rock, I bounced to the check-in desk, confident that this was the moment I had been waiting for, only to be informed that the agent would not be coming due to unforeseen circumstances.  Although I completely understood that life happens, it was an effort to fight off the disappointment settling like flat carbonation in my belly.

Photo taken by the conference photographer at dinner on Day 1.  I'm listening intently to Rhonda Penders, the President and Editor-in-Chief of The Wild Rose Press in New York.

The next afternoon I attempted my pitch with the only other agent who might take a nonfiction piece.  She seemed engaged by the project, but I knew as soon as I mentioned a spiritual element to the book and her face went hard that there would be no manuscript request.  I went from that disappointment, coughing and dabbing at my runny nose into lunch in the ballroom with a keynote address from the author on all the conference posters.  I was unimpressed as his speech became increasingly crude until he leered, "What's lunch without a little spice?  I'm going to read you a great sex scene I wrote!"  I looked around the room uncomfortably, realizing I was probably the only person who felt horrified by this prospect.  As he began to pull the piece of paper out of his pocket, I realized I would never intentionally read a steamy sex scene, so why would I subject myself to listen to one read by a dirty old man just because he was a published author?  I felt like the entire ballroom turned to watch me go as I scuttled out of the room before being assaulted by his grimy words.  To my surprise and with a sense of camaraderie, I saw two other women had chosen to vacate the room as well.  One shook her head and huffed, "I didn't pay this much to come and listen to filth.  So unprofessional!"   

I settled into an arm chair in the lobby with 40-minutes to kill until the next session.  As I looked at the agenda of the next class line-up, I saw that one option was a live-critique for nonfiction writers.  I had heard that to be involved in a live-critique one needed to bring 4 copies of 16 lines of work to be read aloud and commented on by a panel consisting of an author in the genre, an editor and an agent.  I had come prepared with nothing to present, but as I looked at the class description, I felt compelled to make the most of this conference experience as possible, even if it meant putting myself on the line to be critiqued.

I jumped from the chair, raced upstairs to the Marriott guest computers and pulled up my blog, thinking I could simply copy and paste a portion of my posts about our journey with twins.  However, for some odd reason the computer wouldn't let me copy and paste.  Instead, I pulled up a word doc and began typing in a portion of my post.  As I did so, every few words I felt inspiration to make a change here, to reposition a sentence there and add an entire description there.  The piece quickly transformed into a flowing snapshot of our loss.  I pushed print and rushed down to the elevators, heart pounding.  Along the way I saw a woman I had befriended at the conference and confided how nervous I was to go present.  She asked if I had ever been to critique panel before and when I replied in the negative, she said gently and perhaps a little condescendingly, "Just prepare yourself.  It's their job to tear them to pieces to help you become a better writer."  Gulping, I ascended the elevator and stepped into a cozy board room.  

Photo from the conference photographer of the Nonfiction Critique Panel at the Quills Conference

Due to the large number of attendees at the conference interested in the fiction genres, only two of us had come with pages to be reviewed by the non fiction panel with a few other conference attendees observing.  It was very intimate with nonfiction author Shauna Packer-Dansie, Editor/Agent Angie Hodapp from Denver and I never did catch the name of our third critique helper in the middle.   Rena Lesue went first and presented a memoir piece about her experience with dating after divorce.  The panel was very complimentary and it put me at ease to see how they responded with such positive feedback.  

All too soon it was my turn and I watched their faces anxiously as the woman with the long dark hair in the photo above began to read my piece aloud with a melodic alto voice.  The panel followed along with their own copies, frowns of empathy appearing within moments, a slight chin quiver from Shauna and a cheek bite from Angie.  I watched their every move with baited breath, trying not to listen too closely to my own written words, words I had never heard read out loud, words that pierced my soul anew with our loss and brought tears unbidden to swim in my eyes.  Her voice sang on, breathing life into a description of death.  And then, the tears began to fall - theirs and mine.  Angie looked up from the text and made eye contact with me, nodding in a profound way, acknowledging my heart and my hurt all at once.   

When the piece concluded, I apologized as I stood and reached for a tissue while simultaneously the dark-haired woman stood and rounded the table, enfolding me in a compassionate embrace and patting my back as I wept.  "I lost a baby too," she confided and the crying of every woman in the room continued.  With a final pat, the woman and I took our seats and the discussion began.  Angie asked when our loss had occurred.

"Two years ago next week, on the 29th of August." I replied quietly.

For twenty minutes we discussed our loss, my writing and the subject of sorrow.  I shared with them the necklace I wore in Aiden's honor, my desire to help others come to terms with their trials and the need for greater empathy and less judgment as we interact with others, never knowing the agonies hidden in their hearts.  

It was such a wonderful, uplifting session, but the most impactful part for me was when Angie pointed around the room and said, "When you can get an entire room of hardened critics to cry, that's the equivalent of knocking it out of the park."  

I grinned like a fool as she pointed right at me and said, "You are a writer."  

And just like that, she transformed me into one.  

I don't know what else to call it, but a pure paradigm shift.  Always before I had felt my writing was good, but not great.  That I had things to say, but I didn't say them well enough.  I compared myself to my talented siblings, my successful working-mama friends, to the incredible authors I read who can create magic out of black ink on white pages.  That critique panel gave me the gift of validation outside of friends and family - the kind of "I can do this" mindset that will stick with me for the rest of my life!

Me, overjoyed at the response my live critique panel gave my writing sample

Angie went on to advise me to start working on a nonfiction proposal.  I admitted that I didn't know what that entailed.  She began to lay out how they work when Shauna interrupted to say that she was teaching an in-depth class on exactly that subject the next hour!  With good will flowing all around, I left that dream-enhancing conference room and went straight to Shauna's excellent presentation all about the art of nonfiction and exactly how a proposal for a nonfiction piece should be compiled.  Those last two sessions alone made the entire conference worth every penny.

When Burke pulled up to the hotel, I nearly skipped in delight to the car with a mile-wide grin pasted on my face.  Feeding off of my enthusiasm, he begged to know what had happened.  I started to tell him about the miracle of my live-critique group and as I retold the story, something clicked into place.  

"Burkie, I would have never even gone to that critique if I hadn't walked out of the keynote speaker's tasteless speech.  I truly feel that I was guided by the spirit to notice it on the schedule, to have a flare of courage to even attempt to throw something together and to be able to work the piece in such a way that it had the effect it did on the panel.  Burke, I seriously don't think any of that would have happened if I hadn't followed the prompting to leave the speech.  I think God is blessing me 'according to my diligence and faithfulness' just as he promised."  

I was on cloud nine as I recounted the conversation that had followed after my piece was read and I began to sob as I said, "She told me I was a writer Burkie!"

He grinned with delight.  "Of course she did sweetheart, because you are!"  

And for the first time in my life, I believed that it was true.