Two Days in the Life…

Saturday. I’m up at 5:00am and in the shower. By  5:45am, I’m on the road to the Bloomington Writers’ Festival. I’m nervous: I’m not only selling books at the festival; I’m also reading from Laman’s River for Bloomington cable access television and I’m a featured presenter at the conference. I’m about to embark on some serious multi-tasking and I don’t know if I’m up to it. I’m not behind the wheel of my 2008 Pacifica, my vehicle of choice. I’m driving Rene’s 2005 Toyota Matrix to take advantage of better gas mileage. It’s a down and back trip: I won’t be staying the night in the Cities. I can’t afford it.This writerly kick I am on has long ago eaten up the budget for motels. And there’s a George Clooney movie Rene’ wants me to watch with her  tonight. What the hell is it about George Clooney anyway? I mean, is he really that sexy to women of a certain age? I just don’t get it.

Anyway, after eating a rubber egg, cheese, and sausage muffin purloined from the shelves of a gas station in Cloquet and downing two cups of strong coffee and a bottle of orange juice, I finally, just south of Forest Lake, drive out of the perpetual fog that has been squatting on northern Minnesota for the past week. Ever since winter decided to vamoose, the Northland has been socked in with rain and fog. It’s a pleasure to finally be able to see the highway in front of me as I drive out of the foggy envelope. Don’t mistake what I’m saying here: There is no sun to speak of. Only more gray. But gray with perspective instead of claustrophobic closeness. When I pull in to the parking lot of the Bloomington Theater and Arts Center, where the conference is being held, I’m a few minutes ahead of schedule. The doors are manned by a smallish man, a volunteer, who has us wait until nine before allowing the milling crowd of weary eyed would be John Grishoms and J.K. Rowlings inside.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After the doors open, I pull my foldable two-wheeled dolly stacked with plastic bins and boxes into the building, register with another volunteer at the main table, and find my spot. I’m an old pro at setting up my books: Table cloth first, then the plastic placards holding images of each book and details about them, followed by neatly stacked copies of the books I have in print, finished off by two plastic business card holders full of my business cards. In less than twenty minutes, I’m ready to start selling. Of course, the public isn’t allowed in for another half hour, so I take full advantage of the down time and wander off to the room where I’ll be presenting my program. I spend a few minutes talking to a guy setting up the digital projector that I’ll be using in conjunction with my son Jack’s netbook. After talking to the guy, I’m confident that this experiment, which has me extremely nervous, will work out OK: I’m going to try to show aspiring historical novelists how I use the Internet to conduct research for my work. I’m doing it in real time, right there during my one hour lecture. Understand, I am not a tech nerd. I can adequately function in front of a keyboard for simple tasks like using the Internet, doing word processing, and the like. But I am not a computer guru. This is only my second attempt at using a computer during a lecture. The last time I tried it, it was a disaster. I am hoping history doesn’t, as some say, repeat itself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There’s a slow but steady crowd at the conference. Many of the folks milling about are more interested in what you have to say as a presenter than what you’ve written as an author. I always sell enough books here to pay for gas but that’s usually about it. Today is no exception. Copies of my new mystery, Laman’s River, prove popular as do copies of Suomalaiset, my historical novel about Finns in NE Minnesota. I collect my complimentary box lunch and eat it at my table after doing my ten minute reading from the new book for cable access. The reading seemed to go well, with only a few minor stumbles as I tried to “set the mood” of the story so folks will want to buy the book. I even had a couple of fans in attendance.

Old friends from Moorhead, the Floms, surprise me, stopping by in the early afternoon with their daughter, Sarah, and her toddler son, Will. We catch up on our kids, I get to hold Will for a few snapshots, and then they’re gone. Another friend, John Helland stops by to chat as well. That’s one of the main benefits of these outings: Getting away from behind the keyboard and monitor and talking to folks who like and support your work. I keep checking my iPhone for the time. Eventually, I leave the table and pad off to the Rehearsal Hall where I am to give my lecture. The room is full, nearly thirty folks have paid money to hear me blather. Even though I teach college courses at UWS each semester, those courses are linked to my vocation as a judge. Today, I am speaking about my avocation, my hobby.

What gives me the right to talk to these folks? I’ve never won the Pulitzer. Hell, I’ve never even won a Northeast Minnesota Book Award, much less a Minnesota Book Award. Just who the hell do I think I am?

I feel a bit like a fraud as I stumble around the Internet while a roomful of strangers gawk at me. But I make it through the hour without a heart attack. I guess that’s something. I take a few questions and then return to my table to pack up my books and hit the road. A couple of the attendees from the class stop by to chat and buy books. They try to tell me that the hour was worthwhile. I listen, but my own take on my performance is less laudatory. Still, I smile and say “thank you” like Mom taught me.

 

On the road, I eat a bad meal at the McDonald’s in Forest Lake. By the Goose Creek wayside rest, I need to hit the john. I pull off, do my business, and then, because the sun is finally out and the warm air finally feels like spring, I decide to check out the creek itself. I’m not disappointed. I stand in a tangle of gnarled oaks along the creek bank and look out at tired hay stubble waiting to awaken after a false winter. Invigorated, I get back into the Matrix and head north on I-35.

By the time I make Pike Lake, just outside Duluth, the sun is setting. The colors of the sky beg for me to stop and consider them. I park at the state owned boat launch on the lake. I watch the orange globe of the sun disappear behind the trees of Pike Lake’s western shoreline.I put the Matrix in gear, knowing that “The Descendents” and Mr. Clooney are waiting for me at home.

Sunday. Rene’ and I take separate cars to church. After an exhausting “there and back” trip to the Cities the day before, I am slated to have brunch at the Zinema2 theater complex in downtown Duluth. The director of a film I reviewed for the New World Finn newspaper (the film is Under the Red Star), Kelly Saxberg, her husband, Ron Harpelle, and a few other folks from Duluth’s Sister Cities program are gathering to talk about the film in advance of its Duluth debut. Brenda Denton, a local attorney, knowing my interest in all things Finnish, emailed me and invited me to brunch. So here I am, walking across Superior Street after spending an hour with God and family at Grace Lutheran Church, putting on my authorial hat once again.

The fact that I thoroughly enjoyed the film (giving it 4 out of 5 stars) likely helped garner the invite: I doubt Brenda would have asked me to come by so that Kelly and Ron (the co-producers of the movie) could throw hash browns at me across the table! ( I’ll post my review of the film in a day or so now that it’s been printed in NWF.) I sit down at the breakfast table next to Kelly and give her a copy of Suomalaiset with the hope that, one day, she’ll want to make a feature film out of Olli Kinkkonen’s story. I know, I know. It’s a pipe dream, a long shot, a one-in-a-million grasping at straws. But who knows? Stranger things happen in this world, right? We have a lively conversation about Kelly’s films, about the Finnish immigrant experience, and then, we head down to the theater. It’s apparent that the room assigned to the film is too small for the crowd: The event is moved to the larger of the complexes two movie theaters. And still, the larger space isn’t sufficient to hold all the folks who wander in. Ten minutes into the film and there are still people opening the doors, trying to find a seat. But it’s standing room only, a good sign for the movie’s long term impact and success.  After the credits, as attendees ask the director questions about the film and her work, I dash out to the Pacifica to retrieve a copy of Laman’s River.  One of the folks I had brunch with, Naomi Sundog Yaeger-Bischoff, the editor of the Budgeteer, is interested in my writing. I can’t pass up the chance to make another connection.

Better not pass up an opportunity for a review.

That’s thing about being a semi-famous novelist: You are always looking for an edge, some way of promoting your work so that folks will read what you have written. I retrieve the book, hand it to Naomi, and bid my new friends adieu. I still have a bathroom to paint and a garage to sweep before sitting down to dinner with Rene’ and Jack. And then, tomorrow, Monday morning, I’ll be up and ready to go to work. At my real job.

Peace.

Mark