By
Kim
Imagine a room filled with ninety writers, all but a handful
of whom consider themselves introverts. A few have met in person before, but
the rest are connected only through social media or, perhaps, through the
comments on the
Writer Unboxed blog. Some are successfully published, some have
faced nothing but rejection, and some are so blocked and discouraged that it’s
impossible to finish their manuscript, let alone submit it.
Now imagine these writers haunting Salem’s Hawthorne Hotel
for five days; sharing meals, walking in tightly knit clumps down the narrow,
historic streets between the hotel and the House of the Seven Gables, attending
lectures on voice, micro-tension, and how good manuscripts go wrong. Classes on how to snag an agent or whether to
self-publish are conspicuously absent from the schedule. There are no pitch
sessions or parties where writers jockey for position to pigeonhole agents at
the hotel bar. No one makes smug declarations about the “right” path to
publication.
A rock-star New York literary agent lives among these writers
for several days, but they’d rather attempt to beat him at poker than beg him
to read their pages.
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| Photo by Kim Bullock |
The Writer Unboxed Un-Conference lived up to its name. It
was an experiment, a risk, and it could have been an utter disaster. That it
was the opposite is largely because
Therese Walsh, who was insane enough to
organize this event more or less on her own, has an uncanny ability to attract
the type of people who check their egos at the door and open their arms
(figuratively and literally) to everyone.
Magic occurred in Salem, Massachusetts last week, but it was
not of the witchy variety.
I originally intended this post to be a simple recap of the
conference, but there are several such posts out in the blogosphere by now and,
as the wise Lisa Cron pointed out in her Wired for Story classes, there is no
story in generalities.
I choose to tell you what this conference meant to me
personally, and damned if I won’t have to go to an awfully deep place to do it.
I would never have said half these things a week ago.
The UnCon shined a light into all my dark corners so I could
sweep out the cobwebs and reveal that the biggest thing holding me back is me. More
specifically that I fear success as much as failure. I hadn't realized the
crippling truth of that until I saw it written in my own handwriting during one
of Donald Maass’ workshops. I hope publicly owning that fear will help me to overcome
it. Perhaps a few of my new (or old) friends will remind me of this the next
time I spend a week agonizing over the placement of a comma.
Let me talk a moment about fear, because it has ruled my
life far longer than I like to admit. Here’s a little glimpse of what nonsense went
on in my mind when I arrived in Salem:
How will my children survive without me for a whole week
during Nutcracker insanity season?
I've only met two other conference attendees in real life,
and both of them have other friends here. I’d rather starve than eat dinner alone.
Mingling at a cocktail party is my worst nightmare. I don’t
know how to make small talk. I’ll be remembered as that person who smiles awkwardly,
nods in random directions, and says nothing all night.
How will I handle being back in New England, so close to the
place where I spent the majority of my childhood alienated and alone, feeling that
I’d never have a friend who “got me?”
What if I need to escape, but can’t because I have three
roommates?
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| Photo by Therese Walsh and Kim Bullock - (it's complicated) |
What if people tell me that I’m “different” in person than I
am on-line? Worse, what if this is said with a tone that implies they prefer my
Facebook persona?
What if I bungle my introduction of Porter Anderson or
(GULP) Donald Maass?
What if, what if, what if…this broken record of anxiety has
sent me scurrying away from most social situations for years.
I suspect that anyone who met me at the UnConference would say
this is not the Kim they remember, and they are absolutely right. I sent her
packing.
They never met that raging ball of insecurity, that fragile
soul who has never fully recovered from the sometimes vicious slights in her
past, that quiet woman who puts up a shield to protect herself from subconsciously
experiencing every mood of every person around her. It’s exhausting enough
dealing with my own hormonal mood swings. The last thing I need is to get
agitated simply because the bartender sets a glass down too hard or to blink
back tears because the woman sitting at the corner table dabs at her eyes. I can’t help perceiving that every negative
emotion around me is somehow my fault. I did something wrong, felt something
wrong or, maybe, simply wore the wrong expression.
The moment I stepped inside the hotel, even flanked by my
“tribe” of fellow WU Mod Squaders, people with whom I've connected daily
for the past three years, uncertainty prickled my scalp.
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| Therese and me at The Witches Brew - photo by Valerie Chandler |
Our group headed downstairs to the library for registration.
Therese, whom I’d known online for even longer than the rest of the Mod Squad, stood
behind the table handing out name tags. I swear the woman is lit from within and
has a grin that goes on for miles. Photographs do her no justice.
Now, some people give hugs and some people give hugs. Anyone
who has been on the receiving end of one of “Mama T’s” will attest she gives
the latter. She’s called that for a good reason.
In the moments after she moved on to greet the line of
people behind me, and I found myself gathered into the embrace of so many old
friends I’d just met, I realized that the shield I’d hidden myself behind for years
had vanished. Perhaps it was the warmth of Therese’s greeting or the niggling sense
that I had just found a kindred spirit. Perhaps it was the enchanted ambiance
of Salem itself. More likely it was the rush of being slammed from all sides by
the joy and love emanating from all those stranger-friends, many of whom
declared that they had wanted to meet me for ages.
That’s a mighty powerful drug and I became an instant
addict.
The only time I spent alone during the conference was
when I walked to the waterfront and symbolically threw that shield into the
Atlantic. I didn't want or need it anymore, and I decided a new coping strategy
was in order, one that would allow me to live as my authentic self. What better
place to start than at the UnConference, where reassurance was only a hug away,
and you couldn't walk ten feet without receiving one of those?
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| Valerie and Heather - photo by Kim Bullock |
Standing there, the sea air filling my lungs, the scenery
and buildings so reminiscent of the home I’d tried for decades to disown, I
admitted to myself that I was homesick for the landscape of my childhood. That
perhaps my perceptions of scorn had been tainted by my empathic nature. That
despising a region so deeply rooted in my blood had caused me to despise a
piece of myself.
Ironically, that very same night I met an old friend from
Maine (currently living in Boston) for coffee.
Two memories from the conference will remain among my most
cherished. The first was when Therese’s husband, Sean, made us all laugh until
we cried while we raised a glass to “WriterBob” Stewart, a much-admired elderly
gentleman who wanted to attend the conference more than anything and tragically
passed away there – on Sean’s birthday of all days. This birthday celebration
turned memorial cemented an already tight-knit group into a family, and I’m
sure that WriterBob would be delighted by this.
The second memory was a magical afternoon when Valerie
Chandler, Heather Reid, Therese and I played hooky from class and wandered
through two of Salem’s cemeteries. Therese, as promised, introduced me to her
favorite tree and when we compared photos later we discovered we had some
eerily similar shots of the same limbs at different angles. Valerie took
photographs of me sitting in another tree and read her favorite epitaphs aloud.
Heather looked happy and at peace despite the recent loss of her mother.
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| It was 1:00 AM - don't judge |
The trip to Salem would have been worth it even if all I got
were those couple of stolen hours with three women I dearly love.
Yes, that’s right, I said love. If I learned anything from WriterBob’s
passing, it is that no one knows how long we have or what we may miss by
holding back. Why not tell people those things that we feel but neglect to say?
If the impulse strikes, why not walk down the street with your arm wrapped around
a friend? Take it from someone who kept her arm wrenched down to her side
for forty-one years, you’ll both feel better for it.
The UnCon was not just a writer’s conference. Even now, days
after we have all returned to our respective lives, the group Facebook page is
flooded with pictures, videos, conversation, and lamentations that no one from
home can grasp the magnitude of what we have all just experienced. It’s clear
that I’m only one of many people who have all broken free of their own cages
and connected with others in a way they never have before. All the heart emoticons would be laughable if
they weren't so purely felt.
No one wants to say good-bye, and so we don’t.
* Note: On the cemetery photo credited to both Therese and I, here's the scoop: Therese took the photo (of me) on my camera. I doctored it. Adding to the confusion, I then sent it to my mother, Deborah Downes, to clone out an annoying red sign in the background.
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