Writing

On February 15th, I attended the Desert Writers Expo in Rancho Mirage, California. This was my third year going. The Palm Springs Writers Guild holds it annually and there were a lot of people there. Many of them were fellow writers, who were just looking for more information on how to publish. I’ve been there. Before Silver Rose was published in October 2017, I stopped by the Expo with the sole purpose of gaining information.

As for this year, I can’t say I wasn’t disappointed. Nobody bought any books from me, but my table mate, a man named P.F Walsh, had much more success. He wrote a book called “The Velvet Abbey,” which he described as a modern version of Downton Abbey. I haven’t read the book, but he was so nice that I’m sure I would enjoy it.

Even though I didn’t sell any copies of my book, the Expo was far from unproductive. I gave out tons of bookmarks and my cute, little dragon toy attracted a lot of attention. There were quite a few people who told me that they were planning on looking me up on Amazon. I can’t see the Desert Writers Expo a loss. It was a good chance to network and make a difference in some authors’ and readers’ lives. I don’t think I will go to the Expo again next year.

On January 12th, I had an opportunity to speak to a small audience of eight people. They were mostly authors, with an actress mixed in. It was a chance to practice my oratory skills. I think I did well and my mom, who was at the reading, reassured me on that point.

It was definitely a nerve-wrecking experience. I found out about this reading in early December, but I had maybe a week to write and rehearse my speech. The only instructions I got were, “Don’t just read. Talk about what you write and what inspires you.” So, that’s what I did. I spoke for twenty minutes. I did read passages from Silver Rose, but they were spaced out throughout the talk.

The main theme of my talk was that I may write fantasy, but my work is far from juvenile. I started the very first draft of Silver Rose when I was sixteen. I hated it if and when adults spoke down to me, like I wasn’t smart enough to understand. Silver Rose is meant to entertain people, no matter their age. I deal with topics like friendship, responsibility, discrimination, and loss throughout the book. I know my presentation went well. My audience gave me a steady round of applause when I finished. And I sold some copies of my book.

Recently, I’ve been working a seasonal job at a clothing store. Nothing big, just folding clothes at tables and making them look nice, but there were two weird incidents this holiday season. They were so… different than anything I expected that I needed to recount them.

The first incident found me organizing men’s underwear and undershirts. Don’t ask. I was rearranging the packages, when an older couple showed up and asked what kind of underwear the man should get. Speechless, I quickly got a hold of myself and preceded to name a few of the brands the store kept. Satisfied, the two started to search the section, while I went back to what I was doing. About ten minutes later, they approached me again and asked if there were any test underwear for him to try on, to see if he liked it. If I was speechless before, I was struck dumb by this request. Test underwear? Stammering, I tried to explain that I had never heard of such a thing. If they noticed my confusion, they chose not to react and soon wandered off, much to my relief. Later, I saw them head for the changing rooms. I think they were going to open a package and he was going to try one of those on. They don’t pay me enough to deal with that.

The second incident happened less than a week ago. I got to work and started folding in the store’s athletic section. It was almost Christmas and the store was running out of clothes. Everything the store had was on the floor. The manager on duty even told me that they were receiving a shipment of spring clothes that day. I hadn’t even been there an hour, when a woman asked if we had a sweatshirt in the size she wanted. I answered that if she couldn’t find it on the floor, it wasn’t in stock. She then pointed to a mannequin on a high shelf. There was a sweatshirt on it. “Could you check that size?” she asked. “I want to know if it’s a medium.” I didn’t even know where the ladders were kept, so I approached a cashier and explained the situation. The poor cashier was coughing and looked like he had a cold, but he accompanied me back to the woman, heard the problem, and showed me where the ladder was. He climbed up and managed to get the mannequin down, with me holding the ladder steady. Checking the size, it was indeed a medium. He managed to pull it off the shelf, while I tried my best to keep him from falling, and he showed me how to disassemble and then reassemble the mannequin. The woman got her sweatshirt and the mannequin, now with a new sweatshirt, was replaced on the shelf.

I worked the eight days leading up to Christmas, the last day being on Christmas Eve. I got some weird requests and inquiries during that time, but nothing was stranger than the underwear and mannequin adventures. You got to love the public. I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and an even happier Happy New Year!

My time in Yellowstone has come to an end. My contract ran out earlier this month and the Hotel is closed for the season. It was a fun time. I got to dodge elk and bison, go on a five mile hike, see Steamboat Geyser go off, and meet new people from around the world. I also got to experience snow.

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            When my brother and I left the Lake Hotel, it was snowing. Everyone had been warning us that Yellowstone was experiencing blizzard conditions that day. Just looking outside confirmed that. When the bus finally picked us up, snow was covering every inch of ground. I felt frozen in my seat on the bus. It took about two hours to get from Lake Yellowstone to the West Entrance. Every time we reached another junction, there were rangers warning drivers of the weather conditions. This happened near Fishing Bridge, Canyon, and Norris. Luckily, we were able to get through.

            Even the town of West Yellowstone, which is right outside the Park, was absolutely covered in snow. When we stopped for lunch, my boots sank right into a snowdrift.

Now, I am back home in the heat of the desert. But, it was a thrilling adventure working in Yellowstone.

There was a roar in the air as we stepped out of the car. “What was that?” I said.

My mom turned to look at me and said, “Steamboat Geyser is going off.”

The four of us, my parents, brother, and myself, hurried down the boardwalk with the rest of the crowd. We were all headed in the same direction.

A geyser is a cone in the ground that emits steam. Water feeds into the geyser and boils under it. Once the pressure builds up enough, the steam shoots out of the ground, sometimes hundreds of feet into the air. Old Faithful gets its name, because the pressure causes the geyser to go off after hour and a half or so.

Steamboat Geyser, meanwhile, has a reputation for being one of the world’s tallest geysers, but it doesn’t erupt that much, at least until now. Recently, the geyser has been going off every few weeks or so. I actually got to see Steamboat in action a few weeks ago. On August 20th, my family and I happened to arrive as Steamboat was going off.

It was truly a magnificent sight. Steamboat wasn’t erupting at its full height, but it was still going up at least a hundred and fifty feet in the air. At its initial eruption, it went up an estimated three hundred feet. Everyone was just staring at this force of nature. The interesting part, though, was that the ground was vibrating from the force of the eruption.