Terri Dunham, Cheryl Mathis, Pat Hefler, Virginia ButlerYou may be consumed with curiosity about what roadie writer geeks do on holiday. Maybe not. I’ll tell you anyway.
First, they start early – even before they pack. Ahead of time, each of the geeks send ten pages, a picture book, or a book chapter to the others for critiquing in a planned discussion on the four-hour trip to Birmingham for a writer's conference.
Three geeks from Baton Rouge, Mandeville, and New Orleans joined this geek in Hattiesburg to head out. After finishing the amenities, we spent the four hours suggesting words to drop or add, sentences to drop or add, or paragraphs to drop or add. What fun!
The meeting was filled with advice and inspiration from agents, editors, other writers, and the cofounder of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Between times, there was a lot of smoozing with other writers and wannabe writers.
Much like Ann Jonas’s book Round Trip, we retraced our trip coming back – still arranging words, sentences, and paragraphs. A good time was had by all.
Before you pass judgment on our idea of a exuberant holiday, please compare it to some of my friends who think it’s fun to cut fabric into small pieces and sew them together in a different arrangement or others who hit a small white ball into a hole eighteen times at a stretch.