Saturday, August 30, 2014

The Volunteer

Volunteer Food

I decided to attend the Willamette Writers Conference on the cheap by volunteering. When you volunteer, you work for half a day and have the other half free to attend workshops, pitch to agents, hob and nob. There's even a rumor that the agents like to mill about in the cocktail lounge and they can be accosted there. That seems like a terrific plan if your object is to annoy your quarry.

For two days I was assigned to be a "Floater in the Pit," which sounds like something I've seen almost every morning of my life. Also, I'm naturally buoyant: I figured it would be a snap. The Pit is the room in which the agents are quarantined, and at fifteen-minute intervals a new crop of carnivores is let into the room to pitch their novels and screenplays to them. Among other things, the floater mans the gates and helps with the herding, and chases down agents who manage to escape. The floater also has the opportunity to memorize the faces of individual agents to pester later. It's a plum job.

The Volunteer is also expected to help with any problems that come up and assist conference attendees. She is able to answer all manner of questions simply by donning a magic black vest with STAFF printed on the back, which transforms her perplexity into knowledge. My own vest didn't appear to come pre-loaded with knowledge, but I was soon able to helpfully point at other people: talk to him.

So it was all going well until the day I was directed to sit at one of the computers and help people purchase or change pitching opportunities. Everyone agreed the system software was virtually foolproof, but I am sixty years old, and I know what "virtually" means, and was prepared to demonstrate it. I replaced an even older woman who was wearing a look of abject terror and departed the scene with an alacrity you don't normally see in someone of that vintage. I sat down, logged in with my name, and called for my first victim. The software was indeed smooth. I felt young again.

Specifically, I felt the age I was when I got my first computer. Remember how you'd type something up and try to move things around and all of a sudden your page vanishes utterly? And how you keep punching buttons until all your documents and websites are whipping around in an invisible cyclone and you have no idea how to holler them back? And you burst into tears, abundantly and often? That age.

My first victim wanted to cancel one pitching appointment and buy two more. I'd make some progress
and then the screen would disappear. I couldn't find the end of the string to pull to haul it back again. I wasn't sure if I'd accomplished anything so I'd click on things twice, or harder. By the end of the process, I couldn't tell if I'd charged him five thousand dollars, failed to secure his appointment at all, or ordered him an XL tunic in seafoam green. There was a long line waiting. I began to have heart palpitations.

It took about an hour to get the hang of it, and then only if it was an easy transaction. But sometimes people would show up and ask to cancel three appointments, switch two more, and scoop up some new ones, and then ask for a refund because they'd missed one yesterday but it wasn't their fault because their cat had pooped in their shoes that morning, and wasn't there a way to get more agents representing Middle Grade S&M? And I'd say, oh, honey. You are SO in the wrong line.

Fortunately I was soon back in my floater position. Helping people out. Giving directions, soothing the nervous. "I don't think I can go through with my pitch today," one woman whispered, quivering. I gave her shoulder a squeeze.

"You can do it! Hey, what's the worst that could happen?"

"I could throw up," she said.

Something about this scenario seemed well within the bailiwick of the Floater.

"Talk to him," I said, pointing.

37 comments:

  1. A vivid story. I think I'll stick to blogging.

    Was that lady in black behind you chanting in Latin by any chance? It looks like she's putting a curse on your computer, perhaps with the aid of those Satanic voodoo donuts.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. SOMEbody put a curse on my computer. Pity da fool who got in my line.

      Delete
  2. I agree with your first poster. That lady looks like she is putting a curse on you! You are brave, using new software, helping strangers in a strange environment, and pitching your writing!!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It's kind of fun, after sending queries and proposals all over from the privacy of one's own home, to see the people rejecting you in the actual flesh.

      Delete
  3. Volunteering at the Writer's Conference is an instructive and perspective inducing thing. It does leave me perplexed though. Like, "Where does this guy who has never sold a novel come off telling me how to develop the characters in my novel?" And, "Why should I pay you to brag about how you lucked into selling your first novel to Random House because your cousin cleans house for the editor?" The silent auction is always a delight, though, and you can really score some awesome deals. Writes can't afford to bid very high.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I knew I should have learned how to clean house better.

      Delete
  4. Oh, I know what you mean about clicking twice, three, four times or more to make the dang computer work. Or pressing HARDER on the keys. Some days a person just needs a sledgehammer handy.

    Your pictures are always a delight. By which I mean the pictures of you. I can feel your perplexment from here.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am given to hyperbole sometimes, but I really do click harder when things don't work the first time.

      Delete
  5. Clicking harder or hitting backspace twice almost always works for me. All in the touch.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hitting backspace twice! A new tool for the kit!

      Delete
  6. I click harder when things don't work, and click repeatedly to tell things to hurry up (lift buttons a prime example). It rarely works. Or not the way I expected anyway.
    Very glad I clicked to come here today (as always).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. But you see...sometimes it DOES work. And that's all I need to keep clicking harder every time.

      Delete
  7. If, as at this moment, I'm wearing a robe with warmily fluffy sleeves...my left sleeve touches something, warmily and fluffily and everything disadppe

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A warmily fluffily cat will do the same thkddddd.

      Delete
  8. Replies
    1. It's good for taking care of floaters in the pit, too.

      Delete
  9. Isn't paying someone to reject you in person actually a form of S&M too?

    ReplyDelete
  10. Seems a bit like a lost cause to put floaters on the computers, why wouldn't they have experts instead?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think once you've done it, you're considered an expert, but they still need extras. I only hope I demonstrated for next year that I am still not an expert.

      Delete
  11. You had me at Floater in the Pit. It's good to be had sometimes.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Oh dear, this sounds like my idea of hell. All those poor people paying to grovel at the feet of other poor people trying to make a dollar. Thank heavens you were there to make it bearable for everyone (or should that be Pootieable). You deserve a five-book contract based on this post alone.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I love hanging around writers. It's rich people who make me jittery.

      Delete
  13. I agree with Tez. You are one of the funniest, most clever bloggers out there - the female version of Dave Barry. Do you do stand-up comedy? :-)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! Could I do stand-up from a reclined position? That might work for me.

      Delete
  14. My 96 year old father-in-law says that when the internets crash, the person with all the pencils will be king. The *enter* key on my keyboard is a direct link to a black hole somewhere off the port side of Sirius. I think you are brave beyond telling for even trying to do the computer version of Floating.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That would make Dave king. He has ALL the pencils. I thought I was brave too. I remember thinking "oh, how bad could it be?" And then everything went sideways, right away.

      Delete
  15. So that's what goes on at writers' conferences. I've always wondered. You're brave woman. The only part of it I could handle would be the computer.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I would have stepped aside and watched you work in a hot nanosecond.

      Delete
  16. The "pit" is also a term used by medical personnel to describe the ER.
    Voodoo donuts......I love that place, over in NW Portland isn't it?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Close! One in SW, and one in NE. I've never had a Voodoo Donut. Not even if they put a bird on it.

      Delete