ACFW Memories Part 2
ACFW has been over for almost a week, and it seems but a dream. Something I kind of remember experiencing, and every bit of it was good, but it went by so fast it was hard to absorb and savor each moment. So I’ll try and hit the high lights!
ACFW Minnesotawas a complete 180 from my first time in Nashville. This time around the people and relationships were more important than the classes and sessions! In fact, I only attended one full day of sessions, and missed all of Saturday due to meetings, but I’m getting ahead of myself.
On Wednesday, September 17th, the flight to Minnesota went well. I was fortunate enough to find a direct flight, though the trek to baggage claim in Minnesota took me up and down escalators and when I got to the shuttle area to catch the hotel shuttle, I couldn’t find my print out of the hotel name. I vague remembered the name of the hotel, but wanted to make sure so I went back inside and got caught off guard by an airport doorman when he told me where the hotel shuttle list was and commented to me that I was “going to the hotel for a movie.” I gave him a puzzling look, and then he repeated himself (my paraphrase) “you must be going to star in a movie because you’re so pretty.” Despite the fact he was old (I later described him as 50, though looking back on it, he was more like 70, guess I forgot I was almost 40 and 50’s not that far away. Geeze, I still feel like I’m 20!) But heck, any kind of compliment from even a really old guy makes me walk a little taller, so I savored the compliment, even from a 70 year old airport doorman worker!
I met up with Tiff and Stewart Stockton (who are expecting) and met Jennifer, another ACFWer. We chatted and caught up on the year during our drive to the hotel. I was blessed to get an early check in at about 11am and then went up to unpack and rest. Later I met up with my roomie, Therese Stenzel, my WI buddy, Christa Allan and a new friend Jenny B. Jones (we share the same agent.) We wanted to head over to the mall for lunch, but we missed the last afternoon shuttle to the Mall of America. Luckily we asked around before we settled for a $13 burger in the hotel. TGI Fridays was right out the back door. So we went and ate and later my roomie and me rested until later when more of the ACFW conferees would be arriving. It was a very relaxing day and later that night we went to the Mall of America with a group of 12 and ate at the Rain Forest Café. I split a $18.99 Pastalaya dish with my new friend Rhonda Gibson (who later seemed to be stalking me, every where I turned she was there.) Good thing we split a meal ‘cause that gave me room for the Chocolate brownie volcano with vanilla ice cream! YUM!
I can’t really remember what I did after the MOA, which had a rollercoaster ride I was really wanting to ride INSIDE, but I’m sure I said hello to more of the friends that were coming in that evening. The conference wasn’t supposed to start until Thursday, and I don’t think I went to bed too late that night since I was getting up to workout in the morning!
Thursday I woke to a strange succession of noise. I didn’t actually figure out until the next day that it was the symphony of the morning flushes. Even if I wanted to sleep in, I couldn’t. So I ate some trail mix, grabbed Claudia Mair Burney’s latest, Wounded, and headed for the gym. There were only two other brave/crazy souls in there, but I managed 30 minutes on the elliptical and another 30 on the treadmill. I’m telling ya, wounded kept me going and I had to force myself to work on my pitch instead of find out what happened to Gina and Anthony! But I’ll be blogging about that book another time.
After working out and showering, I went to registration, got all my goodies and chatted with some old and new friends. I honestly can’t remember if I had lunch or not, but later met up with Georgiana, Erica and Kaye for the first session at ACFW. I found a comfy seat in the audience, when noticed that the faculty were getting lined up next to the stage. Honetly, the little red badge on my name tag that said “faculty” didn’t clue me in that I needed to be up there so I asked Cara Putman if I needed, her profound reply was “Are you faculty?” Well, since I was teaching a late night session with her, I guess I was.
So I squeezed my way up to the front feeling totally out of place next to the likes of Terri Blackstock, Karen Ball, and Terry Burns. But I smiled and pretended like I belonged and when I sauntered across the stage with my little Miss America wave, and heard my name and something about Writer…Interrupted, I actually felt important. Good thing I didn’t decide to really dress down for the occasion.
Dinner was yummy by the indoor poolside and we got to meet up with fellow WIN members. We had about ten from our local chapter attend the conference. Several of them first timers.
Then back to meet the editors where I’m glad I listened because the editor I was meeting with first the next afternoon said the thing she looks for in the writing is VOICE. A big red flag went off in my head. Um, my printer was giving me fits before I left and I didn’t manage to get my chapters printed off, and I KNOW I have voice, but all I had with me was my proposal, one sheet and chapters from another WIP. Good thing I brought my laptop and the business center was open all night for lug heads like me! So after Georgiana and I attended Michelle Sutton’s chocolate party, she headed to bed and I headed to the business center. It was pretty straight forward. I plugged in my laptop (minus AC adapter so I was racing against the battery) sent it to the printer. The guy at the front desk told me to write down a code, so I did and I assumed it would print at the front desk, since he said he needed the code. So I went to the front desk, but the code didn’t work. By that time another guy had tried the same method of printing I did, and I was able to help him navigate it faster than I did. But neither of our stuff would print.
So after another trip down the hall to the front desk (mind you, it’a about midnight at this time and I so wanted to hang with friends instead of printing my pages) and a call to tech support, I finally got a clue I had to type a code into the little key pad next to the computer. Did that, still no pages. It was then I went back to the counter and waited while an interesting looking guy in a leather jacket (who reminded me of my brother in law) was checking in. I was wearing my Mock HarleyACFW shirt and was a little nervous when he stared at me longer than I thought necessary and even more nervous when he followed me down to the copy center and waited outside the door…
But I’ll save that story for later!
