From January 24-26, I was a grunt.
Let me elaborate. I attended the Borderlands Boot Camp in Baltimore, Maryland. I was selected. I’m not gonna lie, initially, I was the black dot in the snow. But, it didn’t bother me. I’m used to being an anomaly. I do need to put the brakes on though…or at least slow the speed limit.
After a particularly dismal day at work of checking me email 8000x in an hour, I got the email. Welcome to the Borderlands Boot Camp. In summation, we will book your room-you pay-and read a lot of stuff. Don’t come with your heart on your sleeve because that’s not what we are here to deal with, you sniveling grunt. Now, here’s the first packet of shit you need to read.
Okay, I got this.
My life decided it needed a full upheaval in 2020. I finally got the transfer I NEEDED, I joined a writing group I WANTED, two anthologies I was in were published and of course, my family went into semi turmoil (but that’s what families do-and my sneaky sister and brother in law hid a pie I made).
Everything felt like, “What next?”
Life said, “Okay, bitch.”
Sitter (aka my mom) for the conference couldn’t come, my sister (plan b) got SUPER DUPER SICK, I started to get sick, my book for class showed up a week late (FYI-I’m still behind) and pretty much anything else you can add.
But, Plan C came through, I got tickets and went to the conference.
Upon arrival-Frank Zappa winked at me in the lobby. I went to my room and realized I needed a full body mirror in my life. I also need to embrace all the tenements of minimalism. Oh, hey Frank was in my room and Adam Duritz was over my toilet. Not cool, yo.
First meeting was that night. I grabbed my bag and dragged my ass upstairs. Okay, I tried not to fan girl out but there sat F. Paul Wilson (author of “The Keep” and my intro to horror after Matheson and Beaumont). Holy shit! At the end of the table was “Prime Evil”-Douglas Winter-who I swear stared a hole through my shirt (you gotta look at this shirt. What the fuck is she wearing?)
We had a lecture, which was informing. We listened to why we should not take shit personal and then we listened as our work was eviscerated. I almost went into a fetal position but, I held strong.
We received our Sunday assignments-write a story based on a sentence. The sentence starts the story. My sentence was: So you think you know the truth.
I started to panic. How? Who? What? I can’t think in any language and I’ve got 8000 pages of reading to turn in. Okay, be cool. Paul grinned at me. I got a friend (new friend-Nicole) to take a picture. I felt all stalker like but Paul was mad cool. He was also like a grandpa that you want to hug…only he would crawl into your brain and snatch that horror out of it and use it against you. Anyway, I’m a dork. Here’s the pic:
And that was the first day. Also, there was drinking-but not by me-and let me say that the panel is all over 55 and we, the grunts, were falling out like little bitches at 11:00 pm. They (the panel) could have gone all night. I knew I was tired. I was running on adrenaline, Burger King and coffee. Bedtime: 12:46 am
….part 2…Saturday…
tracy a. cross 