I was invited and went to an author’s party. This was a kind of a combination wine-tasting/book-reading/book-signing/talk-a-lot kind of thing put on for the author’s benefit. I drank too much wine; I dutifully purchased a book, had the author sign it, and pretty much spent the evening suppressing yawns. …So did everybody else, listening to the conversations in the washroom. We all put on a good face, though…for the author’s benefit.

My, my. We authors are a boring lot. Just check out any writer’s forum if you doubt me on this.  Anyway, my reaction to this author’s party wasn’t much different than my reaction to most of them. There are few of these socials that I find stimulating unless the author has a knack for engaging his or her audience.

Let’s face it. Nobody I know, especially me, is much interested in how much work it was for the author to write the book, get it into publishable form, la-da-da-da-da. Likewise, the quips and the cutes don’t go very far.

My favorite author events are those where the author might read a passage of the book, then stop, look up, and say something like: “You know, the morning I wrote this particular section was right after I spent a night shoveling water.”  [[Author looks around.]] “That’s right–water. My basement flooded…waterline broke…plumber wouldn’t be there for two hours.

“Did you know? Shoveling water has its tricks. You have to sort of sneak the shovel into it, slow and gentle… .”

Or maybe: “This scene in the book where Tess gets woken by a mouse falling into her tea cup really happened.  At my aunt’s house.  Except we weren’t asleep. I was sitting in her parlor while she read to me and my cousin from her favorite book–the Bible–when this mouse surprised us by sliding off a pile of her letters right into her tea cup. The rest is in the book, and, yes, said mouse got away!”

Those are the sorts of things that will make an enjoyable author’s event for me. Unfortunately, most of the time there’s just a lot of questions from other writers in the audience about “how it feels to be published, how difficult was it to get an agent,” and so on. Then there are the “personal interest” questions from some quarters. Questions like: “Is the main protagonist someone you know?” (No.) “How about the bad guy?”(No.)  ”Do you have kids of your own?” (No questions that could compromise the lives of loved ones, please.)  or “How can you write about something so appalling/sad/intimate?” (Because it’s part of the story.)

Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t care a whit’s damn about most of the stuff that gets asked or answered at the majority of these get-togethers. Let me in on the inside scoops behind the scenes–the horrors and humors that sparked incidents in the book. Or tell me about the time you were supposed to meet an agent and overslept the alarm by two hours…about tripping all over yourself getting ready, breaking a shoelace and having to use one of your kid’s, only to barge into the agent’s office and have her look startled, then nod and say, “You didn’t get my message?”

“What message?”

“I had to postpone our meeting till next week.”

*chagrin*

Show me life in action, please.  Just like you do in your book.  Don’t bore me with your angst or your travails…unless they’re intriguing, action-filled, and lip or eyebrow twitchers.

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