How Rude!

Yesterday I put myself in "hopeful author" mode and went to a meeting of the local chapter of Romance Writers of America.  I am a "fan" of them on Facebook but not an official chapter member.  Basically, you have to join the National chapter ($100 a year) in order to join the local ($25 a year).  There has been no room in the budget for that.

So I chose this particular meeting because there was an agent speaking who used to be a senior editor at Harlequin for 17 years and for the last 2 1/2 years, she's been out of there and doing the agent thing for some big literary agency.  I was intrigued, I knew her name and reputation and really wanted to hear what she had to say.

It would have been nice if I could have.


The room was full.  It wasn't a big room - two meeting rooms in one of the largest libraries in Raleigh - but there was easily 50 people in there and all seats were full.  Two seats down from me sits a woman who is a fairly well-known author (who shall remain nameless) in the romance genre.  I know her name but have never read any of her books.  Well, she proceeded to speak most of the time.  Sure, she asked some questions or commented on what was being discussed but when she had nothing to say that was beneficial to the Q&A that was going on, she was speaking to the woman behind her (loudly) or shaking the ice in her cup!


Are you kidding me??  


I wanted to tell her to shut it (or at least glare at her with angry eyes to convey my message) but instead nearly fell out of my chair as I leaned in to the aisle so that I could hear the discussion a little bit better.  It wasn't a pretty sight.  


So I learned a LOT from the discussion that was going on and learned that my chances are good at getting a book deal from this contest (Yippee!) and I learned that some writers are just rude and self-absorbed.  And no, it wasn't just the loud author, there was another one roaming around who had made cupcakes and little sweet bite-size stuff for the meeting and she walked around and only offered them to the members, not the visitors.  How do I know?  Because I was sitting near a couple of other visitors like myself and she walked by us all SEVERAL times and only seemed to approach those that she knew.  Made you feel welcome, right?


I had gone to one other meeting with this group like two years ago and found them to be a little "clique-ish" and rude.  This time that title was reserved to a chosen few.  There were plenty there who were very friendly and pleasant and all in all I was glad that I went. 


Now if I could just get some sort of confirmation/rejection letter in the mail I could move on with my life...