So today I went to the Writing for Young Readers Workshop at BYU. I was told exactly what I expected to hear and I still came away discouraged. This is because the hopelessly optimistic part of me was hoping that the miracle would happen and an editor would fall all over herself to accept my children’s book. I knew it would never happen that way, but a piece of me is ridiculously disappointed that it didn’t.
Also I am used to meeting honored guests as the spouse of an honored guests. When the honored guests get hustled away to have break from the masses I’m used to getting to sit down with them and really talk. This time I was one of the masses that the guests were hustled away from. That experience isn’t nearly so nice. What I really want to do is have dinner with these people and just talk to them about the business of creating books. Not that I expect that to change whether they print my book, but it is nice to have them meet my eyes and see me as an interesting individual and not just as a face in the crowd.
I’ll go back and be part of the crowd again tomorrow. If nothing else I’ll collect more information. I’m not truly making contacts here, just the beginnings of contacts, but that is still better than nothing. At least I didn’t fold and try to hide during the event. I’ll not mention the fact that I’m currently hiding in my office because I’m totally worn out from doing all that talking to people. The focused meeting and greeting definitely has an emotional aftermath for me. But hopefully I’m beginning to learn the shape of it and will recognize it when I see it again.
I did get to meet up with Emily Sorensen again. I met her several years ago when she and Howard were on a webcomics panel together. She’s a very nice person and I’ll probably hang out with her again tomorrow. Having a familiar face to talk to is nice.