Here's my version of a de-brief.

I've been back from the Southern California Writer's Conference for a week now, and I'm just beginning to get it all processed in my brain. Part of this is because I came down with a cold on Saturday evening and am still in the residual-congestion phase, which makes it hard to concentrate. Part of it is because I spent too many late nights in the bar with everyone, cold and all, and my bio-rhythms get all wacky when I disrupt my schedule. And part of it is because I had so many interesting discussions with so many smart people, my mind goes down a million rabbit holes when I think of any of the topics we covered.

The cold was unfortunate on a couple of levels. For one thing, cold meds hamper your taste buds as well as your drinking, and the Crowne Plaza has a fun sushi bar. The only thing I could really taste was the spicy tuna. Yum. For another, Dale joined me on Saturday for a romantic evening, in honor of Valentine's Day. I'm afraid I was passed out on Sudafed instead.

The worst part of having a cold was that I was on a debut writer's panel on Sunday. Five of us were supposed to be talking about what our experience was like, being newbies, and what we wished we had known before we jumped into the publishing waters. The wonderful Cricket Abbott asked us questions first, then opened the floor to questions from the audience.

I've been on a panel before, and knew I had a tendency to be a mike hog, so I was careful to give short, yet clever, answers.

Here's the thing: the lady next to me couldn't stop talking. I'm not trying to disparage her; some people can't say in one word what they can say in ten. That's why their editors are so vital. But when you're on cold meds and the person next to you is talking so much that they begin to sound like they're kind of droning, you start looking around the room to see who's here and thinking about what you're going to have for dinner and before you know it, the microphone is in your hands and you've forgotten what the question was.

And you can't ask, "What was the question?" because everyone will know you think the previous author was talking too much and then it becomes embarrassing. So instead, I either gave an answer that covered all the bases, hoping I'd get lucky, or I just mumbled that I was on cold meds and gave some vague response. At any rate, I'd like to apologize for sounding like an idiot at various points during the session (in between bursts of brilliance, I'm sure).

I'd tell you lots of "late nights at the bar" stories, except I've been sworn to secrecy for most, and what happens in San Diego stays in San Diego. I'll give you one snippet: track down Gordon Kirkland or Rick Ochocki, and ask them to tell you the story of what happens when a serial prankster (Gordon) and the nicest guy in southern California (Rick) play a prank in the men's room. I heard the story twice, on consecutive nights, and laughed, in convulsive, weeping guffaws, each time.

Now then, for the deep discussions part: one of the guest speakers was David Mathison, former vice president of Reuters News Service, who sold 5,000 copies of his book, Be the Media, in a single day, as the result of one Tweet. Before all my author friends run off to the liquor cabinet, let me say that there was a lot of luck to his exceptional feat. He's a man who travels in the mid-to-upper stratospheres of society and has Facebook and Twitter friends who can say, "Hey, David, come up to the golf tourney this weekend and let's talk about a mass distribution of your book to my legions of students." And he has canned DMs (Direct Messages) he sends out to anyone who follows him - something I dislike - but apparently works when you're up with the Big Boys.

At any rate, his message was pretty simple: "The containers are dying, but the contents will always remain." In other words, LPs went to tapes, both cassette and 8-track, then to CDs, and now we're buying MP3s and iTunes. We didn't stop wanting music. We just changed the container it comes in. He thinks the same thing will happen to books. People still want to be told a good story, but the tactile experience of holding paper in their hands isn't as necessary as the words. He thinks we will all arrive at e-books, eventually.

Michael Steven Gregory (Executive Director of SCWC) and I sat in the bar (amidst a cast of thousands) and talked about the speaker's words. Michael was bemoaning the fact that, as a society, we are spending all of our disposable income on things we don't actually own. We don't own the recordings on our TiVo. We don't own our iTunes. This was recently evidenced when Amazon pulled all the Orwell books from everyone's Kindles because of some copyright question. He wanted to know what I thought.

You know me. I've always got an opinion.

"Our first experience with books starts with cloth books we can chew on, then we go to the thick board books, pop-ups, books with fluffy bunnies we can touch and flowers we can scratch and sniff. This prepares us for the experience of hard covers and thin pages. How are we going to replace those early learning tools electronically, so that the Kindles and nooks and eReaders are as second-nature to us?"

Michael, as usual, waxed philosophic. "Hell if I know."

So, my minions, what do you think? Will the container(s) for our words ever become as invisible as the containers for our music? At what point will society ever look upon books the way we look on old 78s?

Now you know why I go to this conference.

Happy-Happy, Joy-Joy!

I'm off to San Diego tomorrow, for a four-day revelry of writing, seeing old friends, and just-enough wine, if I'm lucky and haven't caught my son's cold. It's the yearly Southern California Writer's Conference, held each President's Day weekend at the lovely Crowne Plaza in Hotel Circle, which used to have some kind of Hawaiian name (the Hanaleilauleaupookipooki-somethingorother?) and still retains that tres tropicale air, down to the sushi bar. BTW, I love sushi, so with the writing, friends and wine, this is like the trifecta for me.

For the writing, I have a plethora, nay, a cornucopia of workshops to choose from. If I take Jean Jenkins' workshop one more time telling me to cut out my adverbs, she'll think I have no memory retention at all. Should I learn about copyrights and publishing law instead? Marla Miller's got some interesting 'shops about non-fiction for newbies, a writer's responsibility to the business, and fixing what's wrong with you... wait, make that fixing what's wrong with your query.

Or I could just hang out in the Read and Critiques and try out some of my second book. These groups gave me a lot of good feedback on my first book, at least the first five pages of it. But I learned to extrapolate and apply their comments to the rest of the book. Until I find a good writing group, these workshops are my substitute. My favorites are the ones run by Judy Reeves.

I usually go to the Rogue Sessions, which are just Read and Critiques on steroids. They start around nine-thirty and go until the last dog is dead, if you'll pardon the expression. I don't know if I'll get to them this year - I've kind of started hanging out with the Big Dogs after hours. Michael, Wes, and company have some pretty late nights acting silly in the bar, then retiring to patios and rooms and where ever to discuss writing and politics and whatever else comes along.

This year, Gordon Kirkland will be there, too. I met Gordon at my first San Diego conference. As a matter of fact, I went to that conference just to meet him. He's a funny writer, and I wanted his opinion of my humor essays, so I submitted some of them for his feedback. He liked them very much and we began a friendship because we make each other laugh until, well, in my case, I hiccup, and in his case, the tears run down his legs. So I'll be hanging out with him, too.

And other friends I've met. Indy and Tameri and Rick and Ed and Cricket and and and... oh, and my friend Nancy will be attending for the first time ever. No wonder I'm so excited. I'll come back recharged and ready to complete the last half of my second book, which is always the GREATEST feeling.

Sorry, I gotta go pack now. If you're planning to be there, I'll see you tomorrow. If you hadn't planned to go and are now regretting it, they've got room for walk-ins. If you can't make it, see you on Tuesday!