Last weekend I went to the Writer’s Toolkit conference in Birmingham which was an eye-opener. First I had to get there, and in my eagerness and early morning sleepiness jumped onto the wrong train enjoying an excursion all around the Wrekin, even seeing the northern delights of Smethwick, before hitting my final destination; factor in a nail biting wait for a broken freight train, and you can imagine I was late, arriving drenched in sweat and having thoroughly kickstarted a January fitness campaign well before its due date. Sightseeing and a keepfit regime? Yes, and all before breakfast.
Once I had arrived however I was able to recuperate nicely in the comfort of my chair as I listened to the many published authors, directors from the BBC, publishers and literary agents, basking in their undoubted success and dreaming……..hmmm, just dreaming; indeed by the end I had even started to imagine who amongst us mere mortals sitting in the audience could be THE NEXT BIG THING in the literary world.
During the course of the day I therefore rubbed shoulders with as many mere mortals as possible, lubricating myself in their possible future glory in the faint and optimistic hope that some of their shimmy shammy genius might one day possibly, just possibly, rub off on me.
You can but live in hope.
drawing from life 