Writers Anonymous II

Wow! What a great conference. Pacific Northwest Writers Conference http://www.pnwa.org/

Information overload, terrific people and NONE of us want to be ANONYMOUS.

Some of the fun, besides fantastic speakers and great panels, was writers watching writers. We are often odd creatures. I thought this conference would be a tremendous opportunity to start a project called “A Field Guide to Writers: How to Spot and Identify the Elusive Writers among Us”.

I found out my observation skills are not skilled enough. Without squinting at the fine print of a name tag, I couldn’t tell what genre a writer wrote. I couldn’t even discern which ones were the agents and editors. At least not until the panel where they introduced themselves.

Guess the field guide will have to wait.

I attended a panel by Kiffer Brown. Her scary statistics included such facts as there will be two million books published this year in the English language alone. Fortunately her talk allayed the rising fear in the audience as she told us all the ways out of the anonymous ocean. Visit her information packed “Chanticleer Book Reviews” site. Thank you, Kiffer.

What I learned above all else is that writing and writers have come full circle.

We started as storytellers connecting people and place. First around campfires and now we have moved to the “Interverse”.

Forgive my hubris, but we are once again storytellers. We are the twist of the unexpected that makes you laugh, the sigh of inner discovery that connects your soul to you or another, the information, the help, the dreams, the reality. We are and always will be there for you.

Each one of us to each one of you. Gladly.

Forget anonymity. It’s overrated. Reach out to us. Tell us what you need and one of us, one of the millions of us, will make sure you get it.

~lisa

Writers Anonymous

Writers are known as solitary and elusive, but they exist among us. You’ve probably seen one or two of them without even realizing it.

Writers, otherwise known as those who write, live in more diverse habitats than the ubiquitous crow.

While a secluded ivory tower without any distractions or restrictions on their time haunts their dreams, most writers live out in the social sphere. Many are happily disguised as normal “non-writer” people.

These writers among us, who work and play next to us, also go to parties, play sports, watch television, and sometimes even own animals other than cats (or owls).

Overall most keep up a good façade that hides their inner nature. Most writers don’t want you to know how much they study you. They mine their daily social interactions looking for nervous ticks, rhythms of speech and the archetypes into which you fit. The world, outside of the ivory tower they crave, is their playground.

Another secret (& I know I must be breaking some secret code in telling you this) is that writers congregate. They join critique groups, writing clubs, support groups and type furiously at speed writing tables.

Even more than that, writers by the hundreds will go to writing conventions. They seek each other out, springboard off of each other’s energy and somehow bring a little more magic into the world.

This week is the Pacific Northwest Writer’s Conference. http://www.pnwa.org/

And I am going in…

~lisa