During the Friday morning rush hour, the Metro was packed.
Sardine cans. On my first attempt to climb into a car, the work-bound
barbarians repelled boarders. The next train was just as stuffed, but I was
darned if I was going to miss my plane out of D.C. by being polite, so I shoved
my way in. I had a connecting flight out of Atlanta to catch. Who in their
right mind wants to wait hours in either airport after missing a flight?

Turns out that my flight out of D.C. was delayed twenty
minutes to accommodate a rush of passengers who had filled up the flight at the
last minute. Then we were delayed another twenty minutes on the runway, waiting
for a thunderstorm up ahead to dissipate. Despite the precaution, the flight
did encounter turbulent weather, some of it coinciding with the time that I
decided to use the restroom. Bouncing around in an airplane restroom is always
a fun experience. We encountered even more turbulence upon landing. Hartsfield
Airport being the busy place that it is, our plane parked on the ground ten
minutes more before taxiing to the terminal. During this pre-taxi phase, I
whiffed the distinct odor of puke. Two flight attendants rushed down the aisle
with biohazard bags and gloves and presented themselves to the teenaged girl in
the seat directly behind me. Although I've never been airsick, I felt bad for
the young lady. It was her very first flight, and she didn't have a change of
clothes in her carry-on. My subsequent thoughts weren't so charitable. I
fingered the hair on the back of my head and hoped she'd aimed low. Then I
inspected my own seat, wondering how many former passengers might have graced
it in similar fashion.

Despite being almost an hour late, I managed to find
my contact for the Harriette Austin Writers Conference (HAWC) — even had time
to grab a late lunch with editor Michelle Poploff and literary agents Brandi Bowles and Maya Rock. The four of us were booked on a
Georgia Skies flight from Atlanta to Athens, Georgia, where the HAWC is
held. Left to right, here are Michelle, Brandi, and Maya in front of the Cessna
Caravan. (I know. It looks like they're getting ready to board a flight to the
Outback.) Georgia Skies wasn't interested in checking my liquids bag or
x-raying my purse or shoes. All they cared about was the weight of my suitcase,
my purse, and me.

For all the noise and bumpiness, the flights aboard
the Caravan were the most enjoyable of my trip. Brandi, who was sitting near
the front, took a picture out the front window, and her digital camera captured
the propeller in a sort of Andy Warhol-esque, time-lapsed progression shot. It
was fun glimpsing downtown Atlanta and Stone Mountain from the air. Even more
fun to not be parked in that gridlock on I-85/I-75. Rain caught up with us, and here's the rainbow I observed from the air. I could tell
exactly where the thing ended: hey, the pot of gold! We landed in Athens,
downdrafts from an approaching thunderstorm buffeting the runway, and hustled
inside the terminal like Dorothy scurrying to return to Auntie Em's farm ahead
of the twister. Minutes later, I watched the thunderstorm clobber the airport,
flop the wings of the parked Caravan around, bend bushes and small trees over.
Soon as the storm passed, three other small planes landed, their pilots
obviously waiting for the welcome to Athens to become less boisterous. After
all the recent talk in the news of thunderstorms and plane crashes, pilots
aren't eager to Top-Gun their way through thunderstorms.

We arrived at the Georgia Center in time for an
excellent buffet dinner and a reception afterwards. Here I am with Evelyn
Coleman. I first met her when I lived in Atlanta years ago and attended
meetings of the local chapter of Sisters in Crime. I hadn't seen her in
about ten years. And it was great to chat with her again! I also spoke
with Harriette Austin herself and told her my story: how I'd come to the
conference several times in the late '90s, before I was published, and applied
so much of what I'd learned to my writing. This was my first trip back to HAWC
after getting published, and I was delighted to finally be giving back to the
conference.

In the program, a typo had changed part of my first
workshop's title from "The Hero's Journey" to "the Hero's
Journal." I suspected that most potential attendees doubted what benefit
their writing could derive from a "Hero's Journal," so I worked the
reception crowd like a politician on the campaign trail. It's a good thing I
decided to do that. Only one person I spoke with had figured out the typo.
Everyone else needed help making sense of the title, and a number of attendees
weren't sure what the Hero's Journey was.

Saturday morning, I ate breakfast at a table with Evelyn
Coleman and Haywood Smith, whom I'd first met at Moonlight and Magnolias
2008. Haywood's going through one of the biggest nightmares an author can
imagine. A woman is suing her, claiming defamation of character, saying that Haywood
used her for a character in one of her books — a character depicted in an
unflattering light. This topic comes up on discussion lists all the time.
Because writers consciously and subconsciously pattern fictional characters off
people they've known, they always want to know how they can safeguard
themselves from a lawsuit. For one, you don't use the real name of the person.
And you can change the gender, physical attributes, hobbies, etc. Haywood's
trial starts in November. Meanwhile, the plaintiff has yet to produce evidence
to substantiate her claims. We all wish Haywood the best of luck.

Robert Vaughan, published under many pen names, gave
the morning's keynote address. Writers' conferences, he said, aren't just for
the unpublished. Authors, agents, editors, and publishers come to conferences
to tap into the Muse. Conferences are one place to collect experiences, and
those who write collect experiences the way people stock shelves on a pantry.
Among his funniest anecdotes was a story about winning a contest to live on a
backwoods farm for three months so he could have the solitude to write. But the
charm of the adventure quickly fizzled when he realized that he had to milk
goats while he was there. Then he and his wife caught Rocky Mountain Spotted
Fever. He later found out that he'd won the contest because he was the only
entrant. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

I sat in on literary agent Paul Fedorko's session,
"What Agents Want and How to Get One." This topic also comes up a
good bit on discussion lists. The frustrating truth is that writers are usually
trying to hit a moving target when they query agents. What agents want and how
they like it delivered is, to some degree, personalized, plus it changes over
time, depending on the agent's tastes and the market. Brandi Bowles and Maya
Rock both told me that they were looking for something slightly different from
what their web sites and HAWC program blurbs stated. And Paul, newly arrived to
N. S. Bienstock Talent Agency from several years at Trident Media, was slightly
modifying his "want list." That said, he likes queries with humor or
information that makes him sit up and pay attention. In a query, he wants the
book quickly summarized, and he quoted Michelle Poploff: "Nail the
concept, then be specific." He says the first chapter must be a
grabber. And he sends a three-sentence teaser about the book to editors. Paul
has the ultimate Noo Yawk accent. It's great. I could understand everything he
said. Later, when he and I talked, I asked him where he thought I was from,
based on my accent. He guessed the North, probably New York. I get such a kick
out of my accent passing muster with real Northerners. South Florida truly is
the North.

My two workshops, "Creating Suspense with the Hero's
Journey" and "Creating Archetypes Instead of Stereotypes in Mystery
Writing" were very well attended, especially considering that they were
scheduled for the final two slots for the day, and all attendees were tired
from having sat in workshops all day. The Hero's Journey workshop is packed
with information like a Metro rail car with people during rush hour. An hour
allows little time for questions at the end. But there's more wiggle room in
the Archetypes workshop, and time for questions that allow interactivity with
attendees. Because so much of the material in the two workshops is related, I
pitched the two as Part 1 and Part 2 and asked people in the first workshop to
stay for the second so they could get the full brain boost. And most of them
did stay. The interactivity was superb! Seeing attendees' eyes light up as they
realized how they could fix their plots and characters energized me. Many expressed
their thanks afterwards. Grasshopper learned just as much as they during the
interaction and is grateful. "Tapping Into the Muse" really does happen at
conferences!

I gave Harriette Austin another hug during dinner.
Each table that night was identified with the name of one or two presenters. The conference committee had invited attendees to sit with presenters of those sessions
that they'd enjoyed and continue conversations. I sat next to Lynette Eason, who'd presented workshops on writing romance. I found out that she'd
submitted her latest book to the 2009 Daphne awards but hadn't been nominated, reinforcing for me the ruggedness of the competition. She
congratulated me on finaling and admitted that if her book had been nominated,
sure she'd have tried to squeeze the ceremony into the weekend, too. Evelyn
Coleman presented a lovely, funny dinner keynote. She spoke of perseverance,
becoming obsessed with refining your craft and identifying your audience. She
also emphasized that each one of us who writes is unique. We're the only ones
who can write our particular story, so we must do what we can to get it out
there. And goodness, it's difficult to persevere when no one around you
understands your intense drive to write.

Sunday morning, I shared a ground shuttle and Cessna flight
back to Atlanta with all the agents and editors. This gave me the opportunity
to introduce myself to agent Chip MacGregor and chat more with editor
John Helfers and agent Paul Fedorko. By the time I'd walked to the gate
for my final flight, I was dragging like I'd been on a campaign trail too
long. Definitely not in a mood to put up with the two preschoolers in the row
behind me on the airplane: one whining, one kicking the back of my seat. And
since their mother seemed clueless about how to handle them (she kept bribing
them with candy), I finally unbuckled my seatbelt, stood up, and politely
asked the four-year-old to stop kicking the back of my seat because it was
hurting my back. Guess what? He quit kicking my seat.

Be it ever so humble. Man, did my own bed ever feel good
that night.

Grasshopper is grateful! To the Daphne awards judges and Margie
Lawson. To Kelly Capers, Tracy Faulkner, and every volunteer on the planning committee for the HAWC, folks who made this fantastic, long running regional conference come together for yet another year. And for the kindness
and enthusiasm of fellow passengers and conference attendees.

Next up: a luxurious stretch of summer during which I plan
to finish the first draft of book 5, Regulated for Murder. Then,
mid-September, another long weekend where I return to the High Country Writers
to present about archetypes, and the Carolina Mountains Literary Festival to
present about the Hero's Journey.