Thursday, July 20, 2006

Visiting Good Friends

Seattle was incredible. I'm in love. Lakes, mountains, the ocean--it has it all. Thanks to my good friend and spiritual guru Marcus Reynerson and the vibrant, artistic, and always nurturing Bryn Cowgill I feel rejuvenated and in love with life. Did I mention how cool Seattle is? Good. I just want to reiterate.

I was in Washington this week visiting friends and participating in a writer's conference. Both experiences were fantastic. The conference had a multitude of good speakers with useful information on the craft and the industry of writing fiction. I probably had more panic attacks than one person should have in a three day period--from feeling completely out of my element--but I learned a lot that will help me in writing my next story. Funniest story I heard: One literary agent said he took home submissions from authors and read the sample chapters to his seven year old daughter and when she said, "Boring" he threw it aside and moved on. Disheartening, but friggin' hilarious! What else can you do when you recieve 1400 submissions a week?

The flight home was an interesting experience too. Two tornados apparently hit St. Louis just prior to my landing. We landed in a lightning storm and the runway had only emergency lights on because of a power outage. When we touched down the flight attendant came on and said, "You should all congratulate your pilot on the way out, that was a pretty sweet landing." More like punch our pilot in the neck for trying to land in that mess, but hey--we were still alive. In the airport all the electricity and air was off. Thousands of people were running around in the dark in hundred degree heat. Madness. I went to the restroom using my cell phone as a flashlight. I would have been pretty upset except I got a free week's worth of parking out of it because they couldn't charge anyone with the computers down. We're so dependent. It's scary.

Hope you enjoy the pictures as much as I enjoyed the trip! My very best wishes to all.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

jeff those are some awesome pictures! did you leave your wife a home, that wasn't very nice? lots of wildlife. never would have thought it. where do they live. that view they have is spectacular.
good keepin up with ya
bert

Jeff Hardesty said...

Hey Bert! How are you? Man, it's good to hear from you. Marcus and Bryn live in Duvall, WA, about an hour outside Seattle. It's a small piece of heaven if you're a nature lover.

Allison unfortunately didn't go with me. Our situation is odd right now with work and school schedules and trying to make this writing thing happen in between, so it just made more sense for me to go alone this time around. She's taking her own trip later this summer. We're kind of independent like that.

Tell me how things are going. How's your little man? We're going to have to grab a beer next time I come home. Love ya man. Take care.

Anonymous said...

we are doing great. austin is an animal. he is apparently a replica of myself. the looks are obvious and according to my parents his 120 mph all day long is very characteristic of myself as well. i don't have a hard time believing that too much. we loved that mexican story (mindy and i). we are very fortunate to get to spend lots of time with our kids. we both love our jobs and love our freedom. i have definitely never shyed away from a freindly beer chat. sounds great. peace