Writers' Week Ramble
Oct. 16th, 2009 01:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
darishaHas anyone ever been to a writers' festival? As a writer, I find them endlessly fascinating. The sights, the sounds... the signed copies of my favourite books <3 I had hoped to go to the Melbourne writers' festival when I was visiting Pawsie in August, but I completely forgot it was on and missed out *sigh* I had to content myself with the Adelaide one instead. And while no where near as big (and with fewer of my favourite authors), the scene itself was definitely... interesting, lol.
You couldn’t have asked for a more perfect week – the sun was shining, the sky was a clear, cloudless blue, and I didn’t have to attend classes at uni. Life just couldn’t get any better. So what was I doing at the Adelaide Writers’ Week? One word: research. It was my duty to observe and record everything I saw and heard for future reference – one may never know when one may need to know the “ins and outs of historical fiction” for example.
This was proving to be a difficult task, however, as many of the panels I went to see just didn’t stimulate my interest. Once in a while you may be lucky enough to stumble upon a writer who has the presence and personality to reach out and inspire you, but more often than not you’re stuck at the back of the crowd listening to some faceless author you’ve never heard of discuss their deep rooted paranoia and how it lead them to write a novel.
Having trouble concentrating on one session in particular, I found myself observing the audience instead. I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered how much fun it could be to watch the audience’s reaction to the panel, rather than the panel itself (although the fact that I found the crowd more entertaining than the speakers disturbed me just a little).
It was easy to see from the beginning who were there because they wanted to be, and who because they had to be; the rapt, undivided attention of avid festival goers mixed intermittently with the bored, spacey expressions of those wishing they were elsewhere. And then, seemingly randomly situated throughout the crowd, there were some, not unlike myself, bobbing up and down as they alternated between glancing around and scribbling frantically in their note books.
While the rest of the audience sat in varying degrees of stupefaction as they focused on the panel, these oddly familiar creatures, these... “students” - for they could only have been students like myself – continued with their fervent work of observing and recording their experience.
Like a race apart, they stood out amidst the crowd. Here and there I saw pens fly across paper at unnatural speeds as they tried to get as much written down as possible without missing anything important. It reminded me very strongly of movies such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers, where the alien creatures try to learn as much as they can about the human race before commencing their invasion. Not a pleasant thought considering my macabre imagination, but rather apt when placed in the context of young students being our future.
Every now and again these “students” would come together in small groups to swap notes and discuss things such as plans and ideas, but these moments would be brief. Fearing discovery or some other unnamed concern, they would gradually dissolve once more into the crowd, trying to blend in unseen.
All the while, the rest of the audience remained oblivious to anything going on around them. Hypnotized by the writers’ voices, even those who wished to be elsewhere were hanging off every word coming to them over the load speakers - a bomb could have gone off and I doubt they would have noticed. Inside those huge white tents, time seemed to come to a stand still and nothing existed but the panel. Like statues in a still life scene, the audience remained unmoving while the rest of the world moved on without them. The busy rumblings of buses and cars travelling down King William Street had no effect on these people, and even the occasional passer by seemed out of place as they made their way through the motionless mob; I felt as if I had stepped into another world where nothing was as it seemed. It was only the continued presence of the other students that kept me from giving up on my task and joining the rest of the crowd – I had to gather as much information as possible if I was to escape falling into whatever they were plotting.
Fortunately, nothing lasts forever, and eventually even the long-winded session that had driven me to distraction came to an end. As the writers said their last words and answered a few questions, the audience shook themselves free of their stupor and set about re-establishing their sense of reality. The voices over the loud speakers gradually faded and the crowd began to drag themselves from the chairs that had been their home for the past hour and reacquaint themselves with mind and body. The real world called and they finally had to make the effort to catch up with it.
Packing up my things, I lost sight of the other students as they themselves packed up and merged once more with the race of man; without the tell-tale signs of notepad and pen, it was hard to tell them apart from the rest of the crowd – they could have been anyone. I vowed that I would look out for them from that point onwards and record their behaviour patterns for future reference – one never knows when one may need to know the “ins and outs of the student mind”. You can never be too careful when it comes to dealing with students.
Overall, what had started off as a rather boring day, turned into a most intriguing experience - there is no limit to what you can learn through simple observation. Finding that I had all the reference material I would need in order to write a truly fascinating article, I decided to head home and reward myself with a nice hot meal and a good movie. Just as I was about to get on the bus, however, a sudden thought struck me and I had to stop and ask myself – if it was possible for me to make all these observations about other people, who in turn could have been observing me... and what did they see?
-
Dimi's Random Thought For The Day: "Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any wool?" "No, political correctness has banned it from our schools."
-
You couldn’t have asked for a more perfect week – the sun was shining, the sky was a clear, cloudless blue, and I didn’t have to attend classes at uni. Life just couldn’t get any better. So what was I doing at the Adelaide Writers’ Week? One word: research. It was my duty to observe and record everything I saw and heard for future reference – one may never know when one may need to know the “ins and outs of historical fiction” for example.
This was proving to be a difficult task, however, as many of the panels I went to see just didn’t stimulate my interest. Once in a while you may be lucky enough to stumble upon a writer who has the presence and personality to reach out and inspire you, but more often than not you’re stuck at the back of the crowd listening to some faceless author you’ve never heard of discuss their deep rooted paranoia and how it lead them to write a novel.
Having trouble concentrating on one session in particular, I found myself observing the audience instead. I was pleasantly surprised when I discovered how much fun it could be to watch the audience’s reaction to the panel, rather than the panel itself (although the fact that I found the crowd more entertaining than the speakers disturbed me just a little).
It was easy to see from the beginning who were there because they wanted to be, and who because they had to be; the rapt, undivided attention of avid festival goers mixed intermittently with the bored, spacey expressions of those wishing they were elsewhere. And then, seemingly randomly situated throughout the crowd, there were some, not unlike myself, bobbing up and down as they alternated between glancing around and scribbling frantically in their note books.
While the rest of the audience sat in varying degrees of stupefaction as they focused on the panel, these oddly familiar creatures, these... “students” - for they could only have been students like myself – continued with their fervent work of observing and recording their experience.
Like a race apart, they stood out amidst the crowd. Here and there I saw pens fly across paper at unnatural speeds as they tried to get as much written down as possible without missing anything important. It reminded me very strongly of movies such as Invasion of the Body Snatchers, where the alien creatures try to learn as much as they can about the human race before commencing their invasion. Not a pleasant thought considering my macabre imagination, but rather apt when placed in the context of young students being our future.
Every now and again these “students” would come together in small groups to swap notes and discuss things such as plans and ideas, but these moments would be brief. Fearing discovery or some other unnamed concern, they would gradually dissolve once more into the crowd, trying to blend in unseen.
All the while, the rest of the audience remained oblivious to anything going on around them. Hypnotized by the writers’ voices, even those who wished to be elsewhere were hanging off every word coming to them over the load speakers - a bomb could have gone off and I doubt they would have noticed. Inside those huge white tents, time seemed to come to a stand still and nothing existed but the panel. Like statues in a still life scene, the audience remained unmoving while the rest of the world moved on without them. The busy rumblings of buses and cars travelling down King William Street had no effect on these people, and even the occasional passer by seemed out of place as they made their way through the motionless mob; I felt as if I had stepped into another world where nothing was as it seemed. It was only the continued presence of the other students that kept me from giving up on my task and joining the rest of the crowd – I had to gather as much information as possible if I was to escape falling into whatever they were plotting.
Fortunately, nothing lasts forever, and eventually even the long-winded session that had driven me to distraction came to an end. As the writers said their last words and answered a few questions, the audience shook themselves free of their stupor and set about re-establishing their sense of reality. The voices over the loud speakers gradually faded and the crowd began to drag themselves from the chairs that had been their home for the past hour and reacquaint themselves with mind and body. The real world called and they finally had to make the effort to catch up with it.
Packing up my things, I lost sight of the other students as they themselves packed up and merged once more with the race of man; without the tell-tale signs of notepad and pen, it was hard to tell them apart from the rest of the crowd – they could have been anyone. I vowed that I would look out for them from that point onwards and record their behaviour patterns for future reference – one never knows when one may need to know the “ins and outs of the student mind”. You can never be too careful when it comes to dealing with students.
Overall, what had started off as a rather boring day, turned into a most intriguing experience - there is no limit to what you can learn through simple observation. Finding that I had all the reference material I would need in order to write a truly fascinating article, I decided to head home and reward myself with a nice hot meal and a good movie. Just as I was about to get on the bus, however, a sudden thought struck me and I had to stop and ask myself – if it was possible for me to make all these observations about other people, who in turn could have been observing me... and what did they see?
-
Dimi's Random Thought For The Day: "Baa, baa, black sheep, have you any wool?" "No, political correctness has banned it from our schools."
-
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-19 07:27 am (UTC)I think Komala frequents Zine festivals....Which is probably different to the writers ones...;;; ahahah.
But I think its just a wonderful and intoxicating atmosphere to be surrounded by those who share the same passion for a craft as you do. After reading this it makes me want to become more social and to get my bum to more craft and arty festivals myself haha.
(no subject)
Date: 2009-10-22 02:09 pm (UTC)