See Part 1 (Overview).
See Part 2 (The Booth People).
In this final post of "Who Was There" at the NCWN 2010 Fall Conference, I will showcase the "other people" - that is, those among the other "me"s that were there. Each of these people are at different stages of their writing career. Just like me, they all have something to say.
I'll start with one person who seemed to stick out from the others - most likely because he is a sci-fi/fantasy writer like me. (I don't know why I tend to like people like me!)
This person was Charley Pearson. As I reported in my Day After Report, we were excited to meet each other. Charley said, "Another genre writer!" when I told him I did sci-fi. Charley was the one at open mic who went before me. He did the entertaining dragon ballad (a poem for people who hate poetry).
He may also be one of the more successful authors I met at the conference. He's published four short stories (two of which count toward SFWA membership - I'm not sure about the other two). I also notice that he hasn't gone the self-publishing route - something I'll bring up in an upcoming blog.
Next is DJ Everette, the CEO of a company called "The Power Of One, LLC". I ended up eating lunch at her table, and socialized with her further during Happy Hour. I believe she's the one who brought her husband. (I may be mixing up stories here - with me writing so late after it happened! Whoever brought their husband - he had a fun story to tell, too.)
DJ has a fascinating story to tell about the history of Wilmington, NC. She brought with her all kinds of pictures and newspaper clippings, showing that she's done a lot of research and has written much of the story already. She says that she's revised it several times. It's clear that she wants it to be perfect when she takes it to a publisher.
Unlike me, who has millions of ideas waiting to be written, DJ seems driven by this one story. It's one of her missions in life - to get the story out. I wish her luck.
At lunch, I also met Kurt Naas, who is working on an action/thriller book. He described a little of the book, but not too much. We authors don't like to give too much away until the book's published. It sounds like he's getting close to sending this book off to publishing companies. I wish him luck!
Let me point something out before continuing. There were only three of us at that table during lunch. DJ is a CEO. Kurt is a VP. And who am I? I'm just an aspiring. No, that is not a grammatical error - it's just an appropriately omitted nominal predicate that happens to have an participial adjective.
Both of these people were outgoing, yet business-like. I wonder if all CEOs and VPs aspire to write books. I can think of several. Dale Carnegie comes to mind. First they become successful at work, and then they write about it.
It just shows what different backgrounds we all come from. Writers, writers, everywhere! Let's see - who's next?
During one of the breaks I came across these two people: Kathleen J Dolan and R L White. I ended up talking with them for nearly fifteen minutes. They are both self-publishers. It was so interesting to hear all about the process.
Kathleen published her book, "I Need A Face Lift! (Spiritually Speaking)" through lulu.com. You can see her picture on the cover of the book. She also runs her own workshops to promote the principles inside the book. Here's a news clip featuring her book:
R L White took another route. He puts together copies of his book himself. He prints off the pages, and puts them together with comb binding. This is appropriate, as the title of the book is, "Bric-a-brac: A hodgepodge of rough-cut poems, lyrics, and prose." Sure enough, on the inside it has a lot of poems and other things. I wish I could have looked at it for longer.
He gave me a laminated bookmark, which also serves as a business card. His main drawback, which I've discovered, is that you can't find anything about him or his book on the internet. Kathleen, on the other hand, has her book available on Amazon, and is making an effort to have an internet presence.
It takes a lot of work to put together a book. But once you have something, you still have to sell it. I think Kathleen has the better chance to sell her book, while R L needs to find other ways to get noticed. (Well, so do I!)
Next is H. D. Kirkpatrick, Ph.D. This is another writer who's pretty successful in his day job. He's a forensic psychologist, and has written a novel based on his work. He showed me a copy of Alienation of Affection. It looks like a good murder mystery. It's another self-published book, which causes concern for me. If H. D. and all the other people above are experienced in their respective fields, and they must resort to self-publishing, then what chance do I have but to self-publish? (More of this in an upcoming post.)
H. D. was a fun person to talk with. We talked during dinner. He told me several aspects of his work, and I was intrigued. He also asked me what I write, and he listened intently. I joked and asked if he was pulling any of that psych stuff on me.
I hope this gives you a good summary of the different types of people I met at the Fall Conference. In Part 1, I mentioned that if an established writer was there, he or she was a presenter at the conference. In Part 2, I went over the people who ran the booths. In this third part, I finished describing the rest of us. We all have different backgrounds. We have different goals. Some of us want to write millions of books. Others just want to get that one story told. Some of us are struggling to get that first book finished, while others are trying to get any one of many published or recognized.
We all have one thing in common, though. We all have something to say, and we won't stop until we've run out of things to say.
Happy writing!
Mel
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