I was at the Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers Gold Conference this past weekend, and I was perusing the blogs of all the cool people I met, when I ran across a links to the Do’s and Do Not’s of for the RMFW Gold conference from J.A. Kazimer who is the coolest writer ever in the history of the universe outside of William Shakespeare, Robert E. Howard, and Ken Kesey. Okay, she’s in the top 100 with anyone else who is a writer reading this. To be a writer is to be cool, and in the end, not to be included on a list of the coolest writers ever.
Kazimer had a list on her blog a a list of pre-conference do’s and do not’s. Here is my post conference list.
DO NOT schedule flights on Sunday morning if you plan to stay up until 3 a.m. on that same Sunday morning in the hospitality suite. For more information on this, please go to T.L. McCallan’s website.
DO NOT attack literary fiction writers because they are a kind, interesting people who love words, stories, and worlds as much as the hackiest of genre fiction writers.
DO NOT fight with people over which book is better, Twilight or Shiver.
DO NOT pitch books to drunk people because they will either really love it, or really hate it, or they might throw-up on your shoes.
DO avoid people whose synapses fire like an AK-47 encased in lime-banana jello. DO NOT sit next to these people. Luckily, there are very few of them. And if you do sit next to them, write down every word they say and then publish it as a sequel to Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake. You will make millions, but at some point, you’ll be attacked by some large man for writing literary fiction.
DO become B.F.F’s with Chris Devlin. This is the only link that will be on this list. Use it. http://www.chrisdevlinwrites.com/
DO NOT order vegetarian meals from hotels.
DO spend time in the hospitality suite, as much as possible, because those people need help in the worst possible way.
DO NOT ask David Boop if he is related to Betty. He has a sword cane.
DO talk to J.A. Kazimer. Then you’ll agree she belongs on my list from above.
DO talk to Ben LeRoy for as long as you can because he is one of the most interesting human beings on the planet.
DO NOT think banned thoughts. They are banned for a reason. Bree Ervin banned them. She can tell you why at her website of the same name, think banned thoughts. No, I won’t! I won’t! She’s now charging me every time I whine. She’s gonna make a whole ton of cash.
DO go to sessions because the sessions are great at writer’s conferences. Too bad at RMFW, I only attended like ten minutes of actual session time. Bad Aaron. I did see Sue Mitchell and Morgan Leigh and just spending ten minutes with them was like attending days worth of education.
DO make pinky promise swears of secrecy at 3 p.m. on Sunday after all of the drama has subsided like a wave on a beach and only the garbage remains to be swept up.
DO NOT confuse the executive editor at Carina Press, Angela James, with Amanda Jones from the movie, Some Kind of Wonderful. Well, you can, because Angela James has a great sense of humor, but you probably shouldn’t because it makes you look like a dork.
DO NOT talk to Amy Moore Benson because she is now my best friend forever, and she won’t have time to talk with you. AMB is super-terrifically-awesome, and I’ll say that at any time, in any forum. I’m going to drop every kind of book I’m writing and only concentrate on writing a book she might be interested in.
DO watch the movie Some Kind of Wonderful.
DO query Kristin Nelson. She is to literary agents as Stephanie Meyer is to sparkly vampires and Maggie Stiefvater is to sorrowful werewolves.
DO NOT look under Marc Graham’s kilt. DO ask him about Visigoths. Or you could ask his amazing wife Laura Main.
DO buy books from Jeanne C. Stein, Mario Acevedo, and Warren Hammond. Best thing I ever did.
DO have Angie Hodapp pitch to you. Her books sound great. As does Emily Singer’s YA U.F. book with police elves.
DO NOT be afraid of the editors and agents who attend writer’s conferences. They are kind for the most part. Especially Molly Jaffa and Weronika Janczuk. They were on fire with how much they love books and writers.
DO write books about djinn if your name is Mina Khan because books about djinn are cool and people from India\Bangladesh are wicked cool.
DO NOT leave a writers conference if your name is Giles Hash without talking to Linda Rohrbaugh. Linda Rohrbaugh is a total guru and Giles Hash is a young man with a future. Linda Rorhbaugh’s book, The Prophetess, has won numerous awards and Giles Hash’s book most likely will too.
DO sit at a table with Veronica Roland so when the speaker says, “Stories can heal mental illness and existential angst” you can here are accidently blurt out, “I don’t think it’s workin’.”
DO go see Kimberly Savage’s play Penelope which will be playing in Westminster, Colorado in 2012. It’s about why Penelope stuck around for 20 years waiting for Odysseus. Sounds hilarious.
DO NOT leave a room where Carly Willis, Jenna White, and Mirayah Wolfe are. Those girls are crazy amounts of fun even when you say the absolute wrong thing. Or maybe ESPECIALLY when you say the absolute wrong thing.
DO go to First Sale Panels. They are totally fun, inspiring, whacky, and charming. And Betsy Dornbusch and Marne Ann Kirk might be there, sitting at the table, guzzling water, and churning up smack. Or being nice to the large man sitting on the right who will write a list of do’s and do not’s after the fact about the 2011 RMFW Writer’s Conference that is WAAAAAYYYY too long, and doesn’t even begin to include all the cool people he met. But be nice to him. His secret desire is to write literary fiction with a sci-fi\fantasy twist.