A Writer in Yosemite, Part Two: The Pirate Table and Room 239 - By N.L. Belardes

"We're all writers who started off not believing in ourselves... our reward is seeing you bloom," said Cindy Wathen, one of the major organizers of the Yosemite Writers Conference.

We sat in a room called Salon 1 and while she spoke I reflected on a morning of interesting conversations. I gave Malcolm a copy of Lords, which embarrassed, he made me sign for him. After all, I had to give the publisher of Heyday Books a copy of the very book that had been rejected. Malcolm had set up a Heyday Books booth. He tossed me the book, Oracles, by Pati Navalta Poblete in exchange for my scandalous romp through Bakersfield's decrepit past. Oracles is not officially released and is a memoir about a young Americanized Filipino girl suddenly faced with four grandparents who arrive from the Philippines. Can you imagine the love and the pain? Oh yeah... chingpea will surely have a comment...

Who knows, maybe I can give Malcolm nightmares like I have a few of the folks who've written to me about the creepy Yokut ghost in my work... and then there's the chick lit writer C. L. who phoned me one day to say, "Your book ruined my sex life."

Now that's success!

"Do you have a photographic memory?" Malcolm said.

"It takes fuzzy pictures sometimes."

"I hear more about you than I do my own children."

Malcolm and I then talked about an arts collective and models that might work for Bakersfield and about cross promoting Heyday Books with Noveltown. "Noveltown doesn't have a catalog of books. If we had an arts collective/bookstore, whose books do you think I would be pushing hard in the valley...?" Heyday of course.

And so on went that conversation.

In the Salon 1 room I wasn't getting my hair done, though I did feel like I got my attitude rearranged, nipped and tucked by the tough literary panel of Kristen Godsey, Andrea Brown, Doris Booth, Anne Hawkins, and Stacey Barney. Sure, they were all funny. But they were intimidating as well. Some of my favorite lines were: "Don't pitch me in the bathroom," "I don't care if you pitch me in the bathroom," "Work on a two-line Hollywood pitch," and "Don't stalk."

Stalk? These high-powered ladies must have had some interesting experiences with serial killa writers circling them like vultures. I instantly felt like some kind of vulture in a cartoon landscape, but I didn't mind. I like cartoons, and the metaphor seemed fitting. I think every writer in the room suddenly looked shifty-eyed at each another, unwilling to admit their own plotting. The rest tucked their tails between their legs.

Later I heard Irene Webb talk about agents: "The most important thing is to have an idea and to convey it... Some of the most famous books ever were found in a slush pile... and if it captures us, we'll keep reading. If it doesn't, it's over."

Over? ouch... Like over over?

Bonnie Hearn Hill later chimed in about the agent from hell she once had (Sadly enough, THE SWAMI once had an agent from Pluto... and don't forget folks, that's just a micro-planet now). "The agent from hell never edited for me... and we had to do an intervention to get Hazel to get rid of her agent." What's the deal with bad agents? If you have a good one, that's a healthy marriage. If not, someone will be sleeping in the doghouse...

Irene Webb, who I have a meeting with today (gulp) said to a group about writing for Hollywood, "I had dinner with Mel Gibson and he didn't get drunk... and Placido Domingo was there..."

Webb talked about how screenwriters have barely a chance to make it unless they're in Hollywood, or tapped into a network of filmmakers at a film school. I think that's what's great about the Bakersfield Renaissance. Film, art, theatre, writers fuse with the media to promote and create...

But will that get any of us anywhere? Sure, just ask Hectic Films. These guys take creating short films seriously. And Bakersfield is in Hollywood's Backyard after all... we're all amateurs until we suddenly get better, and near our goals...

"Hollywood wants what is going to be fresh and original. You have to literally see the billboard, have scenes ready for trailers, and roles for male motion picture stars..." Webb said.

Was Irene planting seeds of thought? Is that reality: male dominated Hollywood movies, or is that just what she can sell the best? I swear I just saw the Devil Wears Prada... But then Irene knows her stuff. She has brought more than 150 books to film, and sold the rights to 1500-2000 others. Her credentials include: Witches of Eastwick, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Friday Night Lights, Men in Black (at the time she wanted to make her two-year-old happy).

In the end, Irene said about screenwriters, "It's really up to you writers to come up with what's new and fresh that's in the zeitgeist..."

If you move to Hollywood that is.

Thank goodness I just write cheesy novels that get rejected and end back up in the publisher's hands who rejected them. Just kidding, Malcolm. I think he knows I like to give people shit. He later said at the pirate table about a mutual strange and loveable friend we had, "Don Ackland was brilliant. He would wear a suit everywhere he went. He knew a bit of everything. He was the most in touch and the most out of touch character you could ever meet..."

Oh, the pirate table? That came later in the evening in a bout of typical artistic rebelliousness. Carole Sargent from Georgetown University hoisted a pirate flag and guerrilla marketed a meeting of rebellious minds in a secretive pirate society invite which read, "Pub Q&A tonight, 6pm, Jackalopes, by the fireplace."

What's this? pirates?

Publisher Malcom Margolin was there looking like a swashbuckling pirate with his swashy beard, hairs bristling from his chin and face like bolts of rebellious lightning electrifying those around him. Zap! Matildakay donned a hat as did a lawyer with a devious set of eyes and blistering manner of verbal attack that infected the group. They both love Johnny Depp and seemed to spout a few "Argggs" out of the corners of their mouth about Ichabod Crane; not a pirate, but piratey I should add. A tech writer, marketing girl, and web developer were also onboard. They clinked their glasses and all took part in the seaworthy pirate table. As for me. I know I'm a pirate. Don't have to ask me twice to be a fly on the wall. I manned the guns.

And that's when the debates started. Fingers pointed, wine poured, grimaces were made, cheers went all around, and just like any group of pirates, we couldn't even agree on our own shadows, let alone a plan of attack. We spoke highly of treasure and treasure maps. We talked loudly, drew swords (at each other) and merrily hugged that perhaps our voyage would get us equal plunder, except for that mad captain Margolin who admitted, "I live in my own world because of the world I created around me." Damn pirate. I hate those kind. He's as lost as a castaway with a fully stocked bar, coconuts galore and island babes on each arm.

Maybe that's the worst kind of pirate...

The rest of us were hell bent on not being shipwrecked. Carol lent us a few maps even. After a while the group began talking of hair-raising literary schemes. Some of us moved to another table while the lawyer and Malcolm aimed pistols at one another, screaming, "You're no pirate, ah ya scalawag curmudgeon! It'll be off with yer barnacle intellect if I have me way!" And so on. They were drunk.

At the secondary pirate table we talked Noveltown, Lords, and Arthur Chilling... all fine topics for pirates.

And then the mystery of room 239...

What's this? An invasion? mystery? Intrigue? More plotting? The entire Tenaya Lodge suddenly seemed like a great vessel we'd just stormed. And our march up to the very poopdeack seemed to tip the very vessel.

Or was that just the wine?

Matildakay reports:

A great literary weekend
What's your type?
The Mary Wong Lee Memorial Scholarship
Malcolm Margolin is Posh
Hanging out with the Pirates of Yosemite and setting the record straight
Kill Your Darlings

N.L. on Paperback Writer reports:

A Writer in Yosemite: Part One
A Writer in Yosemite: Part Two
A Writer in Yosemite: Part Three
A Writer in Yosemite: Part Four
A Writer in Yosemite: Part Five
A Writer in Yosemite: Part Six
A Writer in Yosemite: Part Seven
A Writer in Yosemite: Part Eight

This entry was posted by N.L. Belardes, on Saturday, August 26, 2006. You can leave your response.