An Out of Body Experience – League of Utah Writers Spring Workshop

Last Saturday I had the awesome opportunity to teach two classes at the League of Utah Writer’s Spring Workshop.

I taught two classes, such trivial and throwaway literary subjects as Symbolism and Foreshadowing. Yeah. No pressure.

I spent months working on my presentations. No joke. I was nervous and the only way to tackle nervousness is by action. Oh, boy did I act. I built a slide presentaiton, learned and relearned and then edited and re-edited and cut and pasted and edited again years of post graduate critical thinking and cobwebs into something like a presentation that writers could get something from to help their writing.

And of course the batteries to my remote died seconds before I went on.

Emily Younker, this year’s president of the League of Utah Writers, stepped up and pushed the little arrow keys on my computer so I didn’t have to wing it with a soft shoe and questionable memories of what I was doing. Thanks Emily.

Once the technology was wrangled, and the people sat down and looked up at me, I went into the zone. I spoke for hours and I’ll be damned if I can remember any of it now, except in theory, which I’d practiced and thought about for months. I was possessed and displaced. I functioned and made jokes and explained what I needed to, spread the DNA of my writing theory, but it was done by proxy as I was somewhere else. In a zone.

All in all I think I did alright. They were classes and not workshops. I did all the talking and my audience listened, occasionally nodded and seemed to like what I was saying. I think. I don’t remember it exactly, but I am pretty sure that no one threw vegetables. A couple of people did walk out though. Strange I remember that. I’m having them traced now. Watch the papers for mysterious deaths in the coming weeks.

My feedback was positive and I’ve been offered more time at the Fall conference. Three classes then. So it’s all good. Another trip to the zone in September. See you there. Or not. Even if you’re there.

I may or may not repeat these subjects then so I have at least one new one to start worrying about now. Yes. I’ll start worrying about it now. Or soon anyway. First, I’ll worry about this weekend.

I’ll be at Salt Lake Comic Con FanX the next few days. I’m not presenting, but I do get a seat on a couple of panels. I’m stoked. I’m up against William Shatner for one of them, so I’m not getting my hopes up, but we’ll see. I’ll slide into a zone and let you know what happens.

If you're around, check out my events page and let's hook up.