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Okay, more about Conestoga. First I got to see J. D. Bell for the first time in about eight years. He was a member of the writing workshop at NameThatCon that I attended, and from which my writing group formed. He was a wonderful writer. I told him the truth, that I’d been checking the shelves for years to see his books on the shelves. He didn’t go into details but he thinks maybe soon he’ll get there. It was a good surprise to see him after all this time. He said, he’d been watching my progress in the bookstores. I really do hope to see his books out in stores in a the next few years.
I realize looking at the last blog that it made it sound like I hadn’t seen Debbie at all, but what I meant was that outside of writing group meetings and phone calls we hadn’t gotten together much so we could simply talk.
We also met the artist John Picacio. His art was intriguing, beautiful, and thought provoking. We were particularly taken with his painting, ‘Second Hunt.’ He was also fun to talk to. A nice combo. There was a lot of wonderful art at the con. There were several pieces I wanted, but the new rule is that unless we know exactly where it’s going to go, no buying more art until we’ve framed and hung what we already have. The same with collectible knickknacks. Sigh.
Charles intimated in his comments about Conestoga on the forum that I’d gotten a surprise about my first book, but he’d let me tell it. The surprise was in the art show. We’d determined that we would at least get to go through the art show and the dealers room once a piece. Sometimes at cons we don’t even get that. But we had an hour or so to spare, so away we went. We turned the corner in the art show and there was the cover of my first book, NIGHTSEER. It was the original oil painting by Keith Birdsong (a great name isn’t it?). Years ago, as in more than a decade I’d wanted that piece, but then I couldn’t afford it, not even close. I think Keith got more for doing the cover than I got as advance for the entire book. I’d long ago made peace with never having that painting. Now, there it was in the art show. It was so unexpected that I just stood and stared.
It was enough money that I turned to Jon and said, “Should I?” He said, “I don’t know what do you think,” but he was nodding his head when he said it. I didn’t get the sarcasm at the time. So I turned to Charles and asked the same question. Charles kind of looked at me and made his Scooby noise, he’s very good at it. While I was still trying to talk myself into it, or out of it, Jon walked away. He went to pay for the painting. Charles stayed with me both to protect me from any would-be problems and to let me babble. I don’t know what it was about suddenly seeing the painting but it was definitely a babbling moment for me.
Jon came back and said, “You’re buying the painting.”
I said, “Are you sure?”
He gave me ‘the look’. The one he uses when I’m being particularly obtuse.
Charles said, “How could you not buy it,” or something like that.
They were both right.
I have no idea why it stunned me so. Maybe because it was such a blast from the past. Maybe it was because it was something I wanted very much once and had to give up completely. Maybe it was because it represented something important to me that it will take me days to work out. But whatever the reasoning, it’s sitting in my house now. Jon packed it within an inch of it’s life. All the people in the art show that saw him pack it were impressed. Jon shares his mother’s packing gene. I so don’t have that skill set.
I know where I’ll put the painting once it’s framed. It will go on the stairs leading up to my office so I’ll pass it every day, or maybe in the entry hall so it can be on the wall beside art from the first story I ever had in print. But I think the stairs to my office. To remind me, every day that once I couldn’t have afforded it and now I can. That if something is meant to be, you get a second chance at it. Have patience. Never my best thing.
I also got to meet Keith Birdsong at long last. He didn’t look like I had pictured him. He was hipper than I expected. (Do they say hipper anymore?) Cooler then. We talked about that long ago time and what we’d both been doing since. He’d been a beginning artist when I’d been a beginning writer. He signed the painting for me. Now it’s sitting there waiting to be framed, waiting to be up on my wall, at long last.