“If you can’t dazzle them with brilliance, then baffle them with bovine biscuits.”
Anonymous
Although that’s not exactly how it was told to me, I’m planning on utilizing the above bit of wisdom on my upcoming road trip. I’ll let you know how well it works when I get back in October.
I signed up to attend a writer’s conference a few months ago. On the application, they asked if I would be willing to sit on a panel in one of the sessions. Forever one to jump in over my head, I answered yes. Well, I found out about a week ago that I was going to be on a panel talking about crossing genres with Raymond Benson of James Bond fame. Given my cryptid, paranormal, supernatural, western, and Christian writing, I may be safe there.
I was also told that I would be moderating a panel with the title, Death by Any Other Name: Natural, Homicide, Suicide, Or ? My mission since I agreed to accept it, is to get a pathologist, a rheumatologist, and a healthcare executive, who are all fiction writers to discuss post-mortem implications for writers.
I’ve worked with doctors before. I have even said nice things about some of them. It’s not their clinical expertise that is intimidating. That is the result of my feeling that moderators are often considered the least qualified of the people involved. The organizers probably figure that, with my background, I know enough to pronounce all the words correctly and to stand aside while the experts talk.
No problem.
However, occasionally I’m a bit of a realist, and let’s face it, I’m a small-time writer, I don’t belong to any writer’s associations, I haven’t coined any unique new names for genres, nor won any prizes. Unlike the panelists in the group, my books have critical reviews. At the moment, I feel both small and insignificant by comparison.
That’s why I’ll put on a suit and tie, walk in like I’m in charge and try to bamboozle the you-know-what out of everybody in the place. I hope to call on the great wolfbat hunter Sandbar Jack to help me. He’s, the hero of one of my stories and the personality I need to take over. Kit Mann is too upfront; Ed Landry would put up a fight. Sandbar Jack will stand on the sidelines and laugh to himself while poking fun at how seriously everyone takes the proceedings. In the end, he generally leaves everyone scratching their heads wondering how he fooled them.
Maranatha
