storytelling

It occurs to me that the first bone of contention in getting my fictional fiction convention going is who gets to attend. Only those who have published? The aspiring authors will be put out, of course.

So here's my fix: every published author who is attending may, if he or she choses, nominate an aspiring but not-yet published author to attend. Gotta have a nomination to attend. Guidelines that the published author will need to take into consideration: you should be familiar with the work of the aspiring author you nominate, and find potential in that work. And, no remuneration can change hands for the nomination. Because you know, this is going to be good, this convention. The stuff of legends. And everybody will go home feeling ready to write and positive and up, and nobody will be depressed or envious.

Hey. It's my fictional fiction authors convention, I get to make the rules.

And as long as I'm babbling to myself about this, a few more bits and pieces: no airport hotels for this convention, okay? And no official signings. People who get drunk and go skinny dipping in the hotel pool: fine. People who get drunk and confess secret crushes: dandy. People who do either of the above without getting drunk: even better.

So there you go. Sign up, right here.

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Question One: Why is it novelists don't have conventions? Podiatrists do, and telemarketers, and real estate agents. We don't.

I don't want to hear about RWA, okay? I don't belong and anyway, that particular convention wouldn't meet my requirements. What I want is a convention that:

1. includes authors across genres (including the literary genre) -- but only authors. No agents, editors, publishers, critics -- unless they have published some kind of fiction.
2. is three days long
3. meets in interesting places, like New Orleans and New York and Vancouver and Hawaii. Eventually it would go international: Vienna, Edinburgh, Tokyo, Stockholm.
4. has interesting panels on stuff like marketing and advertising and business matters as well as negotiating with agents and editors -- but also matters of craft and research
5. doesn't have keynotes. Keynotes are always counterproductive. has no one-person gigs. everything is in panels of two to six presenters.
6. doesn't have a class system. Stephen King came come if he wants, but he's not going to automatically get to sit in the front row. Same is true of John Updike.
7. doesn't give out awards of any type. No contests, no fashion shows. Nobody comes onto the stage in a convertible. Nobody gets a crown.
8. encourages constructive criticism.
9. provides meeting space for those genres that want them. The Erotica people can meet and the Historical people and anybody can go to any genre meeting that interests them.
10. The main attraction is just having a chance to interact with other authors and talk about the challenges.

So why doesn't this kind of thing exist? Nobody wants the trouble of organizing it? We're too tribal and exclusionary by nature? We'd kill each other? We'd figure out how to organize into a force that publishers would have to take seriously?

Maybe we don't do it because we're worried about facing each other, but I think it would be a good thing. Once a year. Three days. I know there would be major questions to work out, but I think it would be worth it.

Question Two: Those of you who speak French -- and I mean, really speak it, the kind of French that people use with each other when they're arguing or falling in love or half drunk. Colloquial French. I don't need book French, okay?

If you have a command of that kind of French, tell me, how would you say something like this:

What's the matter with him?

He got stuck in the belly.

Question Three: I forget. Nevermind, I'll post it when I remember.

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