This one was a writers' convention in York.
I spent 120% of my writing budget for that month and booked a room for 3 generations of people :) myself, my father and little kids and drove the 6 hours up the country to where it was being held.
York was buzzing.
The sun was shining. It was wonderful to drive around the cobbled streets and peek at the quirky shops. Father and little kids set off on an expedition to find some adventure - they trekked along the wall and generally had fun and ice creams.
I took my vast preparation and set off, tummy gurgling and hands sweating, into the conference venue. Vast preparation involved printing off about 50 copies of Chapter ONE of WIP and 250 newly minted calling cards, painstakingly designed with scrupulous word choice, honed to pull the reader in and want more, in a little silver calling card case.
I had networked vaguely on Twitter so I was hopeful of some interaction with other writers. Writers are generally either shelled hermit recluses or flamboyantly gregarious types, I reasoned. I would find my crowd and happily follow in the wake of purple boas and excited chatter all day, I thought. Judging by my Twitter networking.
Not one single person spoke to me or caught my eye.
I'm not a backward type. I don't shrink in violet; so I tried to engage. But it was a vain hope. The writers had guilded their cliques and polished them up well before they came.
I attended the talks and drank some solitary coffee - that's the kind they sell in coffee shops to those individuals who shroud themselves in a cloak of isolation - and then went to 'Meet the Agent', which is why I was there, really.
I thought, this person is going read Chapter ONE and be so dazzled by my marvellous writing that she is going to agent all over me. It's a dream we writers have - someone to agent all over oneself.
She hadn't read it. She had just got off a plane in fact (she was American, is American) and had a very busy schedule.
But she was very nice and got me to explain the story and asked pertinent questions and then she gave me her card - and then the sun shone down through a chink between the bricks of the building - and asked me to contact her when I finish.
Glory!
The rest of it was a squib: I did manage to speak to one person - a lovely, older Asian lady who was published and very accomplished and masterly.
I gave her a copy of my WIP and she promised something vague.
In the end I left almost half my calling cards on a bench in one of the lecture theatres, only realising weeks later that someone must have tidied them into a bin at the end of the conference and not, as I had hoped, found them and distributed them among the top agents of the world.
Oh well :)
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