Convention Highlights 2006

If the Writing.Com Convention were a sporting event you could tune into your local news channel and watch the highlights on a newsreel. We are writers and not necessarily athletes unless you consider our marathon sessions of making friends, doing creative characters sketches and auctions, performing on a brightly lit stage and signing yearbooks as a competition. I’m sure you are reading this recollection of my convention to bring you closer to the thirty plus members who attended and the fun that you missed out on… Are you knocking your head against a soft wall (wouldn’t want you to hurt yourself after all) wishing that you would’ve left your fears behind and took the plunge in attending?

Ok, you win… I’ll try in my adverb, adjective and noun laden sentences to bring you as close to Bethlehem, PA as I can.

In one way or another we arrived at the convention center with an armful of luggage, not all of our attire was something that an average vacationer would pack for a weekend. Under one arm I had Writing.Com’s unofficial mascot Bovine Bessie and two duffle bags. The other arm I held the hangers to a white suit coat, a black collarless shirt and a pair of black slacks and a large hatbox. In one of the duffle bags were my creative auction items.

After checking into my room and claiming my bed for the weekend I walked down to the Writing.Com Lounge and signed in with the The StoryMistress , The StoryMaster and catwoman . When you are the Milkman and everyone is waiting for you to make a grand entrance it is hard to sneak into any room occupied by Writing.Com members without someone making the sound of a cow. As I was filling out the cards for my auction items I kept hearing my name being called like they were trying to figure out who was who without looking at the name badges. It was obvious this was a game played by the newbies because no one was able to get it right until I walked into the second part of the lounge and I was swarmed by armfuls of my fans. Sure is nice to be loved.

Out of the five conventions I attended I think this was the most active, as far as opening day conversation, but Wenston still wouldn’t talk to me. (I guess you had to be there for this joke to work).

Shortly after we all checked in to the convention we were all herded into the Lehigh room for the first night of activities. First was dinner and light conversation. As always the food was excellent and the DJ was there to set the mood as we chewed the food and the fat with each other. Next was the mixer games where each table used a variety of math, spelling and speed to be the first ones to qualify for the challenges that we were faced with; like out of a group of at least three people had to have an age that added up to 100.

Those are always fun because you’ll never know what you can learn about your fellow writer while trying to come up with the winning combinations. The night didn’t end here because the stage was set up for the Live Campfires and, as always, I was one of the first ones to volunteer. You might just say that I love being the center of attention even though if you accuse me of it I’ll deny it. This year they were done in the format of “Whose Line Is It Anyways” where the audience had to pick a plot for us. The first one was supposed to be a Science-Fiction Thriller. The second story was also supposed to be a Sci-Fi with a horror twist and I found out later that a few people had a bet on how quickly someone would bring my beloved cow into the story. In case you are wondering, Melissa is fashionably late! won that side bet. And Mark C Bradley wasted no time in bringing her into the story and I quickly redirected his mistaken identity.

Once the campfires were put out the time was turned over to the DJ and some of us took pleasure in cutting up a rug… I would’ve but my scissors were a little dull. Eleven O’clock brought the scheduled events to an end for the day but most of us went into the lounge for more conversation and games. The poker players of Writing.Com, 11 in all headed to the large round table, divided up the chips and dealt the cards into the earlier morning hours. I’m proud to say that the winner of the first, and possibly last, Writing.Com Convention Poker Tournament was none other than me.

Friday morning started off with breakfast in the Lincoln room. This year there were a lot of people who didn’t want to miss a rib-tickling moment of the convention because every seat was filled with a living, laughing, talking and chewing writer. Most of us, in this room, exemplified that writers are a creatures a little out of the realm of normal. Unfortunately I can’t justify this comment except for writing, you’d know what I meant if you were in this room with the 30 plus people.

Breakfast dishes were cleared as we meandered towards the Lehigh room once again for Creative Sessions. In the years previous these writing periods were spent writing a campfire with the other members at your table. This year we were all given a character sketch that included a storyline, brief histories of the different characters and a setting. We were then told in which character perspective we had to write from. This was much easier than trying to follow along with the person ahead of you.

After a day of writing sessions and lunch we were all ready for Open Mic Night where we all had a chance to show off our unusual talents. Some of us performing geniuses dazzled the audience with great wit, singsong voices and recited poetry. For the fifth year in a row I was honored with getting the show off to a great comical start. A bowling shoe, a singing lone wolf, a “famous” television defense attorney and a lowly Irish pier, wall and fireplace builder who had affection for sheep followed me. (Again this is funnier if you were there.)

For a time after the performances we went around the room having other members signing our yearbooks. These are a great memory to the people that you had the pleasure of sharing a weekend with.

The Creative Auction preview followed breakfast on Saturday morning. This is the only time where you have a chance to see how creative we are when we aren’t trying to fill up scroll with meaningless banter. On the tables that nearly wrapped around the Lehigh room were photos from the The StoryMistress collection, handmade afghans and scarves, framed poetry, handmade wooden trivets and plastic canvas welcome signs. Of course it wouldn’t be a complete auction unless you had a handsome model showing off the wears… yep that manly man was me.

The auction ended and we were left to ourselves for about four hours. Each of us dispersed and did our own little thing. Some went to the pool, others went to their laptop computers to harass non-conventioneers in scroll and people like me went to the Lehigh Valley Mall to shop. While at the mall I visited the birthplace of Bovine Bessie one last time. What a sad occasion that was.

Dressing up for the Masquerade Ball was a lot of fun. I was “Gangster Moo” from the tip of my hat all the way down to the shoes. Of course some people mistook my look for a pimp and Bessie was a “business girl”. Some of the other costumes included Zoro, Jason and feathery masks.

As I might of alluded to earlier, I’m not the greatest dancer, in fact I try to stay to the slow songs and I drag my feet in small circles making my partner dizzy. There was one point of the night where I personally stopped the dancing long enough to present the leaders of our website with a set of ceramic cats for their devotion and love for over 45,000 writers. This was my best impromptu presentation to date.

The highlight of the night happened when the DJ played a song by AC/DC and four of us… MOO for President , Mark C Bradley , Robert Waltz and Davy Kraken did our very best impersonation of the Aussie rockers. Somehow we all played the air guitar.

Like every story, every week, every scheduled event has an ending we all met in the Cedar Crest room for our last breakfast. We were still living for the moment; this was present in our laughter but you could tell that there was a somber cloud affecting us all. The convention veterans and the newbies alike knew we were close to extinguishing the human interactions and having to return to our electronic windows to the world.

The shortest scheduled day of the convention will remain in my heart the longest as will hearing 34 different voices saying good-bye as our arms become untangled.